The 9 most famous Spanish poets

9 famous Spanish poets

Great poets have been born from Spanish letters. Making a selection of the most important ones is somewhat complicated, so in this article some of the most prominent authors in Spanish poetry have been chosen. Although, of course, as it is a selection, important names or contemporary authors may be missing.

Likewise, it has been decided to make a list only with poets, because the authors need a different selection.

selection of poets

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936)

Federico Garcia Lorca

Surely this name is one of the most recognized. Much has been said about his work and also about the author. Maybe because the literary quality and his assassination during the Spanish civil war left us all wondering what else could there be writer García Lorca. Because he is considered a genius, of international renown, that he died at the age of thirty-eight. In addition to his poetry, his dramatic work was highly celebrated.

He was part of the generation of 27, a generational group of poets who shared ideas and a line of style that later diversified quite a bit. It was somehow a way of grouping the best poets of the moment who no longer belonged to the generation of '98 or to Noucentisme. In any case, they shared an avant-garde and regenerative spirit.

Federico García Lorca frequented the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid and shared friendships with Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Her style followed the avant-garde of the moment and metaphors, feminine influence and country life abound.. His work achieved great popularity and decisively influenced the later work of other authors; furthermore, he has been and continues to be one of the most studied writers in Spanish literature. Most relevant poetic work: Cante jondo poem (1921) Gypsy romance (1928) Poet in New York (1930) dark love sonnets (1936).

Green I want you green.

Miguel Hernandez (1910-1942)

Miguel Hernández

Miguel Hernández was born in Orihuela (Alicante) in a family that would soon begin to suffer from its economy. For this reason the poet needed to leave school to help his parents. Nevertheless, His curiosity and interest in reading led him to discover classical poetry and he published his poems in local magazines such as The Town of Orihuela. But he would make the leap to Madrid, where he would rub shoulders with other authors. The literary influences that his relationships with writers would generate would help him develop as an author. In addition to giving himself to poetry, he was very active with various literary and cultural collaborations.

In addition to poetry, he also cultivated theater. Miguel Hernández is another of the greats of literature and also died very young from poorly treated tuberculosis from prison, where he arrived after fighting in the civil war on the republican side. Once he was arrested, the death sentence was imposed on him, although it was commuted to thirty years in prison. But he was sick as he was and he would soon die in the Alicante jail.

His work was linked to the so-called "war poetry", but he also has intimate texts and odes to the peasants. Although he was the author of the generation of 27, his style differs a little from that of the rest of the group. Some of his best-known collections of poems are The lightning that never stops (1936) Village wind (1937) Man stalks (1938) o Songbook and ballads of absences (1938-1941).

Who, who raised the olive trees?

Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

Antonio Machado

In addition to writing poetry, Antonio Machado was also a renowned playwright and storyteller. He belonged to the generation of '98 and is the brother of fellow poet Manuel Machado.. He studied at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza and became involved in the literary world of his time, meeting with artists and writers in Madrid. He was a professor of French language and his worth as a writer in Spanish made him enter the Royal Academy of Language in 1927. During the civil war he remained active on the republican side betting on the defense of cultural progress. He died in 1939 shortly after crossing the French border, at Coillure.

Although the mourning for the death of his young wife burdened him for a long time, Machado would meet a woman who inspired him in his creations, the famous Guiomar, to whom he dedicated many of his poems. His style was influenced by a philosophical and intellectual side that would be molded over time to poetic musings in Spain.. By his time, Nicaraguan Rubén Darío would be a total influence throughout his work. As far as his poetic work stands out Castile fields (1912) and Solitudes, galleries and other poems (1919).

Sing of my land that throws flowers to the Jesus of agony.

Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958)

Juan Ramon Jimenez

Juan Ramón Jiménez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956. During the civil war he decided to leave Spain and lived between the United States, Cuba and Puerto Rico, where he would die. His wife, Zenobia, was an important weight in his work. On the other hand, his influences come from French symbolism, modernism and Rubén Darío. But his work has varied throughout a profound literary journey, moving between sentiment and melancholy, vital and spiritual transcendence, beauty and the meaning of death.

his work in prose Platero and me (1914) is one of the best known and special of the author. His most famous poetic book is surely The sonorous loneliness (1911), although he also stands out for his elegies; and since his work is so extensive, the selections and anthologies that have been made of his poetic work can be especially highlighted.

What are you going to hurt me, death?

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870)

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

He was a nineteenth-century prose writer and poet, an exponent of Spanish Romanticism. He was born in Seville son of a family of Flemish origin, merchants and painters. He was very influenced by art and from a very young age he developed artistic ability in drawing, painting and music.. This last discipline would also be fundamental for his writings. He somehow composed his poetry as he also composed melodies. But Bécquer would turn out to be the famous writer we know with a literature subject to the contradictions that he himself experienced in his life. He fell ill with tuberculosis at a very young age, a disease that would cost him his life..

Moreover, his writing is divided between the sublime and the popular, but it is his sensitivity that will encompass his entire work. Nature and platonic love, inspired by various women in his life, would also constitute other important themes and resources in his work. Likewise, che compensates very well his narrative ability with the poetic expression in what are his most important creations, Rimas y Legends.

You are poetry.

Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645)

Quevedo

Francisco de Quevedo belonged to a noble family and studied at the University of Alcalá de Henares. In addition to being a writer, he had different roles in the politics of his time. He physically stood out for being lame and for having serious vision problems. His enmity and intellectual friction with another of the great writers of the Spanish Baroque, Luis de Góngora, was known from early on.. However, he also maintained tense relations with other members of the Castilian Court and was involved in different processes that led him to prison for a time.

Quevedo's poetic work is a lofty challenge to the reader's intelligence. It is full of metaphors, neologisms, puns, sensory images, or mythological references that instead of spilling into the poem, create expressive richness.. Francisco de Quevedo is the example of an author of the Spanish Golden Age, one of the best moments for our literature. This author is known for developing conceptism, a literary style that achieves with all these resources the simplification of the concept thanks to the association of ideas. What seems very convoluted or ornamental actually condenses ideas precisely. Of his work his sonnets, his satirical poems and his poem "Constant love beyond death" are very famous..

They will be dust, more love dust.

Luis de Gongora (1561-1627)

Gongora

Luis de Góngora, a companion of the century with Quevedo, also knew how to break with classical literature thanks to his innovative language. He studied at the University of Salamanca. He was born into a wealthy family and was a canon in the cathedral of Córdoba and later chaplain to King Felipe III.. Despite all this, she was always looking for financial comfort. In addition, he was reproached for his waste and his extroverted character due to the religious positions he held.

If Quevedo was the exponent of conceptismo, Góngora represented culteranismo, the other poetic line of the Spanish Golden Age. It is also characterized by its expressive richness and mastery of literary resources; however, the poetic form (word usage and sentence structure) was more important than the content or message itself. His most significant works are Polyphemus y Solitudes, classics of the universal literature of Hispanic letters. It also highlights the Fable of Pyramus and Thisbe. Without a doubt, Góngora was one of the great Spanish writers of all time and thanks to his ingenuity he still sets the pace along with Francisco de Quevedo in contemporary poetry.

On land, in smoke, in dust, in shadow, in nothing.

Lope de Vega (1562-1635)

Lope de Vega

He was born in Madrid, in a humble noble family. From an early age he began to read and studied with the Jesuits. He also began to compose his first texts while still a child.. Lope de Vega maintained an active sentimental life; he had a total of fifteen documented children, between legitimate and illegitimate offspring. This is perhaps one of the aspects of his life that stands out the most. His skirt troubles took him into exile for a while and he combined writing with the navy. He worked for different nobles doing administrative work, but it was true that he had to work hard to support all of his children. His career as a writer was, in fact, very extensive..

It belongs to the Golden Age and also had its disputes with the greatest of all writers in the Castilian language, Miguel de Cervantes. Rivalries between the feather giants were quite common at the time. Although he is especially known for his plays, Lope de Vega's poetry is one of the most distinguished in Spanish literature. His sonnets are his most important work, but his rhymes also stand out.. After an existential crisis and the death of his last wife and his favorite son Lope de Vega decided to become a priest. Of this moment are the Sacred rhymes. Also important are the Human and divine rhymes by Mr. Burguillos.

This is love, whoever tried it knows it.

Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Saint John of the Cross

He was born in Fontiveros (Ávila) and was a religious friar and poet. He was the one who promoted the reform of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. At the same time he was co-founder of the Order of the Discalced Carmelites together with Saint Teresa of Jesus, a great support for him. He was canonized in 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII. He has greatly influenced the work of other later national and international authors..

He was a huge representative of mystical poetry, located at the end of the Spanish Renaissance. His poetic work must be understood as a succession of elevated religious experiences. Saint John of the Cross transforms the silence of meditation and prayer into words in a measured but extraordinary way. His most important work is Dark night, Spiritual chant y Living flame of love.

Stay, and forget me, my face reclined on the Beloved.


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  1.   gustavo said

    They forgot the main one, CERVANTES –

    1.    Belen Martin said

      Hello Gustavo. Thanks for your note. Of course, Cervantes would have liked to stand out in other styles besides narrative, but he had it quite difficult despite having contributed to poetry and the Spanish scene as well.