GERARDO DIEGO

(1896-1987)

Spanish poet and remarkable author from the “Generación del 27” (Spanish literary movement), he has an extensive work with an authentic poetic impetus. He was born in Santander, and studied high school at the same time as piano, instrument he will dominate as a professional. At the age of 13 he makes his first attempts with poetry. Doctorate in humanities, in 1920 he obtains a cathedra in an institute and publishes his first book of poetry, “El Romancero de la Novia”. He wins the National Award on Literature in 1925 for his book Human Verses. In 1927 publishes the magazines Carmen y Lola. In 1932 makes a compilation of Spanish avant-garde poetry (1915-1932) and starts a work as musical critic in different newspapers. In 1939 he moves to the institute Beatriz Galindo in Madrid, until his retirement in 1966. He becomes member of the Real Academia Española de la Lengua (royal academy of the language) with no votes against his incorporation. He receives again the National Award on Literature in 1956, and the prestigious Cervantes Award in 1980. He dies in Madrid in 1987 and is buried in the Pozuelo de Alarcón cemetery.

His poetry is characterized for its deep variety, and is divided in two tendencies. One is the based on tradition, and the other the one that makes him become one of the most remarkable writers of the avant-garde. He will say that “I am not responsible of my attraction to both city and country, of my loving to new art and admiration to the old, of going crazy for the established rhetoric, and more crazy for the idea of doing it again by myself, new, for my own usage”. Anyway, his work becomes unique, outshining the formal differences between “creative poetry” and “expressive poetry”, which melt together in a poetic adventure of completely free creation. So this impulse for experimentation is not strange to traditional sonnets with an intense desire of renovation and searching. In the “expressive” poetry we can find works as “Human Verses” (1955) and “Nocturnos de Chopin” (1963), with influences from the Symbolism and the tendency on his poetry to translate de feelings that music provokes. He uses the Ballad, influenced by Juan Ramón Jiménez, considered the master for the younger poets. Some important books in this tendency are “Ángeles de Compostela” (1940), “The Lark of Truth” (1941), “Canciones” (1959) and “Odas Morales” (1966), all adequate in a formal aspect. However, the critics consider that the most historic relevance of Gerardo Diego is in his avant-garde work, which started when young and present all through his life. He also develops a theory far from others like surrealism or ultraism, tendency in which we can include one of his earlier books, “Evasión” (1919). “Image” (1922) is a poem book in which the poet tries to complete a complex image that only reflects that is the appearance of itself. “Manual of Foam” (1924), “Fábula de Equis y Zeda” (1932), “Poemas Adrede” (1932) and “Limbo” (1951) reflects a creationist poet that overcomes Vicente Huidobro, with a rich sense of the lexical games, but with disturbing approaches. The boldness of the rimes has no comparison in Spanish literature, the musicality creates disturbing environments and the poetic word comes to be absolute, free and independent. In 1989 appeared in two volumes his complete work, which he prepared himself before his death.