Pedro Salinas

Pedro Salinas . Poet , playwright, novelist and critic and the best Spanish representative of the so-called “pure poetry”, he is considered one of the great exponents of the Generation of ’27 ,

Summary

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• 1 Biographical summary
  • 1 Life and work
    • 1.1 Books, poems and essays
  • 2 Death
• 2 Publications
  • 1 Poetry
  • 2 Theater
  • 3 Others
• 3 See also
• 4 External links
• 5 Sources

Biographical summary

Son of a goods merchant, Pedro Salinas Elmas, and Soledad Serrano Fernández, he was born on November 27 , 1891 , in Madrid. He was a member of the Generation of ’27, in which he stood out as a poet of love. A profound intellectual and humanist, Salinas studied law and philosophy and literature. He was a lecturer in Spanish at the University of Paris between 1914 and 1917 , the year in which he received his doctorate in letters. In 1915 he married Margarita Bonmatí Botella, an Alicante native from Santa Pola and daughter of an industrialist with distilleries in Algiers.

“: About his personality Marichal will say: “I would say that Pedro Salinas was a man who was both open and shy, extraordinarily expansive and, yet, closedly modest.”

Life and work

In the 1920s he began a regular collaboration with the Revista de Occident and was a professor of Spanish language and literature at the universities of Seville and Murcia . He worked as a Spanish reader at Cambridge . Together with Guillermo de Torre he directed the magazine Literary Index ( 1932 – 1936 ). In this last year he emigrated to the United States , where he served as a professor at different universities, and there he lived until his death, except for some periods in which he taught classes at the University of San Juan in Puerto Rico .

Subjective poet, heir to the love tradition of Garcilaso de la Vega and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer , the great theme of his poetry was love, through which he nuanced and recreated reality and objects. Three stages can be distinguished in its production. The first, of pure poetry, influenced by Juan Ramón Jiménez , covers from the beginning until 1931 . The second lasted until 1939 and was that of genuinely loving poetry, the result of his passionate relationship with the American professor Katherine Whitmore. In it he celebrates the love that gives meaning to the world; The beloved is a concrete creature, in an everyday space, with whom the poet maintains a continuous conversation.

The love in his lyrics is not tormented and suffered; It is a prodigious force that gives meaning to life. The third stage goes from 1939 until his death. The poetry of these years reflected his philosophical concerns, and a concern for the function of the poet and art, since his humanist spirit rebelled against the modern world; But his was not a merely intellectualist poetry, but also relied on the sensual, on a cosmic but strongly emotional vision.

Books, poems and essays

Three books make up the production of this period:

• The Contemplated ( 1946 ),
• Everything is clearer and other poems ( 1949 )
• Trust 1942 – 1944 , 1955

Rcompilation of loose poems published posthumously. Salinas also wrote numerous critical essays, among which stand out

• Jorge Manrique or tradition and originality ( 1947 )
• The poetry of Rubén Darío ( 1947 )
• The Defender ( 1948 )

Essays on Hispanic literature ( 1958 ), stories (The Impeccable Nude and Other Narrations, 1951 ) and several plays, most of them still unpublished. In 2002 , Letters to Katherine Whitmore finally appeared, a summary of the copious correspondence he exchanged with his beloved, especially between 1932 and 1939.

Death

He died in Boston on December 4 , 1951 .

Publications

Poetry

• Omen, M., Index, 1923 .
• Sure chance, M., Western Magazine, 1929 .
• Fable and sign, M., Plutarco, 1931 .
• The voice due to you, M., Signo, 1933 .
• Reason for love, M., Tree Editions; Cruz y Raya, 1936 .
• Calculation error, Mexico, Imp. Miguel N. Lira, 1938 .
• Lost Angel and other poems, Baltimore, The John Hopkins Press, 1938 (Bilingual anthology with unpublished poems. Translated by Eleanor L. Thurnbull).
• Poetry together, Bs. As., Losada, 1942 .
• The contemplated (Sea; poem), México , Nueva Floresta; Stylo, 1946 .
• Everything clearer and other poems, Bs. As., Sudamericana, 1949 .
• Complete poems, M., Aguilar, 1955 (Includes the unpublished book Confianza).
• Complete poems, M., Aguilar, 1956 (Edition by Juan Marichal).
• Becoming a shadow and other poems, Milan, All’insegna del pesce d’oro, 1957 .
• Complete poetry, B., Barral, 1971 .

Theater

• The Director ( 1936 )
• The resemblance ( 1942 – 1943 )
• She and her sources (1943)
• Sleeping Beauty (1943)
• Treasure Island ( 1944 )
• The Head of the Medusa ( 1945 )
• Safe (1945)
• Cain or A Scientific Glory (1945)
• Judith and the Tyrant (1945)
• The stratosphere. Wines and beers (1945)
• The Fountain of the Archangel ( 1946 )
• The Saints (1946)
• The Price ( 1947 )
• The Blackmailer (1947)

Others

• Love letters to Margarita ( 1912 – 1915 ), edited by Soledad Salinas de Marichal, (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1986 ).
• Letters to Katherine Whitmore. Secret epistolary of the great poet of love (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2002).
• The defender. Editorial Alliance. Madrid ( 2002 )
• Vespers of Joy ( 1926 )
• The Incredible Bomb ( 1950 )
• The impeccable nude and other narratives ( 1951 ).
• Spanish literature. 20th century ( 1940 )
• Jorge Manrique or tradition and originality ( 1947 )
• The poetry of Rubén Darío ( 1948 )
• Editions of Fray Luis de Granada and San Juan de la Cruz .