Rubén Darío

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Rubén Darío

Félix Rubén García Sarmiento (January 18, 1867 – February 6, 1916) was a Nicaraguan poet who wrote under the pseudonym of Rubén Darío. His poetry brought back vigor to the stale, monotonous Spanish-language poetry of the time.

Contents

[edit] Childhood and youth

Darío was born in Metapa, now renamed Ciudad Darío in his honor. His childhood was filled with difficult economic and personal situations: his parents separated after his birth, and he was raised by his godfather Colonel Félix Ramírez.[1] He felt the abandonment from his parents from a very early age. During his lifetime, Rubén Darío only met his mother on two occasions and very briefly. He viewed his father like one of his uncles.

Darío displayed much talent from an early age, gaining a reputation as "El Niño Poeta" ("the poet child"); by the age of 12 he was publishing poems, the first three being "La Fe" ("Faith"), "Una Lágrima" ("A Tear") and "El Desengaño" ("Deceit"). In 1882, at age 15, he made an unsuccessful attempt to secure a government scholarship to study in Europe, and read before a group including conservative Nicaraguan President Joaquín Zavala. His poem "El Libro" did not go over well.[1] President Zavala said to him, "My son, if you so write against the religion of your fathers and their homeland now, what will become of you if you go to Europe and learn worse things?"[2] As a result, his goal of a European education was thwarted.

Instead, Darío traveled to El Salvador, where he met Francisco Gavidia, who introduced him to Castilian and French poetry that would so influence his own writing.[1] While still in his teens, he worked in the National Library of Nicaragua.[3]

He later moved to Chile at the age of 19. There he published an unsuccessful first novel, Emelina and fell under the protection of Pedro Balmaceda, who helped him to publish his book of poems, Azul… in 1888. This 134-page, privately printed book, printed in Valparaiso, a city that at the time was not a notable intellectual center, was nonetheless, in González Echevarría's words, "a turning point in Spanish-language literature." [4] Initial reviews were disparaging, but Spanish critic Juan Valera of the Real Academia Española launched the young poet's career, praising his poems, although sharing other critics' disparagement of his degree of adoption of French models.[4]

In 1883, Dario returned to Nicaragua. He married Rafaela Contreras in 1890; they moved to El Salvador. Contreras died in 1892. Some time after Contreras' death, he married Rosario Murillo; they separated soon after but were never divorced.

[edit] Father of Modernism

Rubén Darío produced many exquisite literary works that greatly contributed to revive the literarily moribund Spanish language, thus he became known as the Father of Modernismo . Other great literary writers call him "Príncipe de las Letras Castellanas" (The Prince of Spanish Literature).

Rubén Darío participated in, or was the leader of, many literary movements in Nicaragua, Chile, Spain and Argentina. The Modernismo movement was a recapitulation of three movements in Europe: Romanticism (romanticismo), Symbolism (simbolismo) and parnasianismo. These ideas express passion, visual art, and harmonies and rhythms with music.

Darío was the genius of this movement. His style was exotic and very vibrant. In his poem Canción de Otoño en Primavera ("The Song of Fall in Spring") there is much evidence of passion and strong emotions. Soon many literary writers would start using his style in a cautious and elegant form to make music with poetry.

His fundamental collection, Azul ("Blue"), was published in 1888 and established his reputation as one of the most important Spanish-language exponents of Modernismo. Many critics consider his death in 1916 to mark the symbolic end of Modernismo.

[edit] Assessment

Darío marks an important shift in the relationship between literary Europe and America. Before him, American literary trends had largely followed European ones; however, Darío was clearly the international vanguard of the Modernist Movement.

Roberto González Echevarría considers him the beginning of the modern era in Spanish language poetry: "In Spanish, there is poetry before and after Rubén Darío. … the first major poet in the language since the seventeenth century … He ushered Spanish-language poetry into the modern era by incorporating the aesthetic ideals and modern anxieties of Parnassiens and Symbolism, as Garcilaso had infused Castilian verse with Italianate forms and spirit in the sixteenth century, transforming it forever. Darío and Garcilaso led the two most profound poetic revolutions in Spanish, yet neither is known abroad, except by Hispanists. They have not traveled well, particularly in English-speaking countries, where they are all but unknown."[5]

[edit] Quotations

"My pick is working deep in the soil of this unknown America, turning out gold and opals and precious stones, an altar, a broken statue. And the Muse divines the meaning of the hieroglyphics. The strange life of a vanished people emerges from the mist of time." — Rubén Darío [cite this quote]
"Si la patria es pequeña, uno grande la sueña."
"If the homeland is small, one dreams it large." — Rubén Darío [cite this quote]

[edit] Sample poetry

Yo persigo una forma


Yo persigo una forma que no encuentra mi estilo,
botón de pensamiento que busca ser la rosa;
se anuncia con un beso que en mis labios se posa
al abrazo imposible de la Venus de Milo.


Adornan verdes palmas el blanco peristilo;
los astros me han predicho la visión de la Diosa;
y en mi alma reposa la luz como reposa
el ave de la luna sobre un lago tranquilo.


Y no hallo sino la palabra que huye,
la iniciación melódica que de la flauta fluye
y la barca del sueño que en el espacio boga;


y bajo la ventana de mi Bella Durmiente,
el sollozo continuo del chorro de la fuente
y el cuello del gran cisne blanco que me interroga.

[edit] References

  • Roberto González Echevarría, The Master of Modernismo, The Nation, posted January 25, 2006 (February 13, 2006 issue, p. 29–33).
  • Nelson R. Orringer, Nelson R. "Introduction to Hispanic Modernisms", Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXIX (2002): 133-148.
  • Julio Ramos. Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Tr. John D. Blanco. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.
  • Oscar Rivera-Rodas. "El discurso modernista y la dialéctica del erotismo y la castidad." Revista Iberoamericana 146-147 (Enero-Junio 1989): 45-62.
  • Oscar Rivera-Rodas. "'La crisis referencial' y la modernidad hispanoamericana." Hispania 83.4 (Dec 2000): 779-90.
  • Iván A.Schulman. "Reflexiones en torno a la definición del modernismo." Martí, Darío y el modernismo. Por Iván A. Schulman y Manuel Pedro Gonzalez; Con un prólogo de Cintio Vitier. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1969.
  • Daniela Villacres, Ruben Dario, on the site of Postcolonial Studies at Emory University. Accessed 27 March 2006.
  • Thomas Ward, “El pensamiento religioso de Rubén Darío: Un estudio de Prosas profanas y Cantos de vida y esperanza.” Revista Iberoamericana 55 (Enero-Junio 1989): 363-375.
  • Thomas Ward, “Los posibles caminos de Nietzsche en el modernismo”. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 50.2 (2002): 489-515.

[edit] External links

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