Vicente Aleixandre

The family grave of Vicente Aleixandre and his wife Concepcion, his father and his in-laws in the Almudena cemetery in Madrid.

Vicente Aleixandre y Merlos (born April 26, 1898 in Seville , † December 14, 1984 in Madrid ) was a Spanish poet and winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Literature .

Life

Vicente Aleixandre y Merlos was born in Seville in 1898 as the son of a train driver and spent his childhood in Malaga. From 1909 he lived in Madrid, where he also studied law and economics. In 1922, at the Ateneo in Madrid, he met Rafael Alberti , who, like Aleixandre himself, was considered to be one of the most important members of the Generación del 27 . During these years he had a passionate relationship with the actress Carmen de Granada. He traveled through Portugal, England, Switzerland and France; he quietly began to write his first poems. His first poem, Ambito , also dates from this period . He had to give up his original plan to become a businessman for health reasons, so from 1925 he devoted himself entirely to literature.

In 1934 he was awarded the Spanish National Prize for Literature for his work La destruccion o el amor . Due to the anti-fascist character of his works, he was banned from publication between 1936 and 1944, but he circumvented this through clandestine publications. In 1950 he became a member of the Real Academia Española .

Literary classification

Vicente Aleixandre's work can be divided into three epochs. In his early work he was under the influence of surrealism, his works are characterized by individualism, pessimism and a language that is difficult to access. He reached the climax of this development with Sombra del paraíso .

Later on, community awareness took hold in his works, and language became simpler and more accessible. The main works of this period are Historia del corazón and En un vasto dominio .

In his later work the awareness of mortality became increasingly apparent. With a calm and tragic voice he sings about the impending death. The works of this era are Poemas de la consumación , Sonido de la guerra and Diálogos del conocimiento .

Works

• 1928: Ámbito
• 1932: Espadas como labios
• 1935: La destrucción o el amor
• 1944: Sombra del paraíso
• 1954: Historia del corazón
• 1958: Los encuentros , biographical sketches by Spanish poets, in prose
• 1962: En un vasto dominio
• 1968: Poemas de la consumación
• 1972: Sonido de la guerra
• 1974: Diálogos del conocimiento
• 1991: En gran noche , posthumous edition of unpublished poems

German editions

• As naked as the glowing stone. Poems, Spanish / German. Translated and provided with an afterword by Erich Arendt and Katja Hayek Arendt , Rowohlt 1977 ISBN 3-499-25096-9
• History of the heart. Novel. Coron-Verlag, Zurich, Nobel Prize 1977 edition.
• The destruction or the love. Poems, Spanish and German. Translated by Fritz Vogelgsang, 1978 ISBN 3-12-900141-7
• Poems, Spanish-German. Reclam, 1980. Translated from the Spanish by Erich Arendt, Katja Hayek-Arendt and Fritz Rudolf Fries. With an essay by Arendt and two interviews with the author.
• Face behind glass. Poems / dialogues. Translated by Fritz Rudolf Fries, 1987 ISBN 978-3-5962-2255-1

Web links

Commons : Vicente Aleixandre  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Vicente Aleixandre in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin
• Literature by and about Vicente Aleixandre in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Vicente Aleixandre in the catalog of the library of the Instituto Cervantes in Germany
• Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1977 award to Vicente Aleixandre
• Overview of the works of Vicente Aleixandre in the original Spanish, with the possibility of purchase