Miguel Hernández

Hernández was born in Orihuela, Alicante, to a poor family and received little formal education; he published his first book of poetry at 23, and gained considerable fame before his death. He spent his childhood as a goatherd and farmhand, and was, for the most part, self-taught, although he did receive basic education from state schools and the Jesuits.[3] He was introduced to literature by friend Ramón Sijé. As a youth, Hernández greatly admired the Spanish Baroque lyric poet Luis de Góngora, who was an influence in his early works.[3] Shaped by both Golden Age writers such as Francisco de Quevedo and, like many Spanish poets of his era, by European vanguard movements, notably by surrealism, he joined a generation of socially conscious Spanish authors concerned with workers rights.[4] Though Hernández employed novel images and concepts in his verses, he never abandoned classical, popular rhythms and rhymes. A member of the Communist Party of Spain, Hernández was a member of the Fifth Regiment at the start of the Spanish Civil War[5] and served in the 11th Division during the Battle of Teruel.[6] He campaigned for the Republic during the war, writing poetry and addressing troops deployed to the front.[7]

During the Civil War, on the 9 March 1937, he married Josefina Manresa Marhuenda, whom he had met in 1933 in Orihuela. His wife inspired him to write most of his romantic work. Their first son, Manuel Ramón, was born on 19 December 1937 but died in infancy on 19 October 1938. Months later came their second son, Manuel Miguel (4 January 1939 – 1984). Josefina died on 18 February 1987 at age 71 in Elche, Alicante.[8]

Unlike others, he could not escape Spain after the Republican surrender and was arrested multiple times after the war for his anti-fascist sympathies. He was tried in 1939, along with Eduardo de Guzmán and 27 others, accused of being a communist commissar and of writing poems harmful to the Francoist cause.[9] He was eventually sentenced to death. His death sentence, however, was commuted to a prison term of 30 years, leading to incarceration in multiple jails under extraordinarily harsh conditions. He suffered pneumonia in Palencia prison, bronchitis in Ocaña prison[10] and eventually succumbed to typhus and tuberculosis in 1942 [11] in Alicante gaol.[12] Just before his death, Hernández scrawled his last verse on the wall of the hospital: Goodbye, brothers, comrades, friends: let me take my leave of the sun and the fields.[3] Some of his verses were kept by his jailers.

While in prison, Hernández produced an extraordinary amount of poetry, much of it in the form of simple songs, which the poet collected in his papers and sent to his wife and others. These poems are now known as his Cancionero y romancero de ausencia (Songs and Ballads of Absence). In these works, the poet writes not only of the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War and his own incarceration, but also of the death of an infant son and the struggle of his wife and another son to survive in poverty. The intensity and simplicity of the poems, combined with the extraordinary situation of the poet, give them remarkable power.[13][14]

Perhaps Hernández's best known poem is "Nanas de la cebolla" ("Onion Lullaby"), a reply in verse to a letter from his wife in which she informed him that she was surviving on bread and onions.[15][2] In the poem, the poet envisions his son breastfeeding on his mother's onion blood (sangre de cebolla), and uses the child's laughter as a counterpoint to the mother's desperation.[16] In this as in other poems, the poet turns his wife's body into a mythic symbol of desperation and hope, of regenerative power desperately needed in a broken Spain.

In July 2010 the poet's family filed a lawsuit in the Spanish Supreme Court in which they asked for his guilty verdict (for his supposed crime of left wing sympathies), to be annulled. In 1939 he had been condemned to death as "an extremely dangerous and despicable element to all good Spaniards." Franco later reduced the sentence so that he would not become an international martyr, as García Lorca did. In March 2010 the family had a posthumous "declaration of reparation" from the Spanish government, but, his daughter-in-law Lucía Izquierdo said: "We want something more, that they void the death sentence.. that they hand down a ruling of innocent". Lawyers for the poet's family had new evidence, a 1939 letter from a fascist military official, Juan Bellod, testifying to his innocence. "I have known Miguel Hernández since he was a boy", the letter began. "He is a person with an impeccable past, generous sentiments and deep religious and humanist training, but whose excessive sensitivity and poetic temperament have led him to act in accordance with the passion of the moment rather than calm, firm will. I fully guarantee his behaviour and his patriotic and religious fervour. I do not believe that he is, at heart, an enemy of our Glorious Movement".[4]

The poet's works include:

Miguel Hernández University of Elche, and Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport are named after him, as is the Madrid Metro station Miguel Hernández, which is decorated with his poetry.[21]

• Generation of '27
• Generation of '36
• Spanish poetry
• The farmer of more air

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Miguel Hernández.

•  Spanish Wikiquote has quotations related to: Miguel Hernández
• Miguel Hernández on Cervantes.es (in Spanish)
• 40 poems (in English and Spanish)
• Poems (in Spanish)
• Association of friends of Miguel Hernández (in Spanish)
• Hernandian Center of studies and investigation (in Spanish)
• Biography (site of the Miguel Hernández Foundation) (in Spanish)
• Miguel Hernández non-profit foundation (in Spanish)
• El Eco Hernandiano (in Spanish)
• Miguel Hernández University (in Spanish)
• More information about the author (in Spanish)
• Sounds and videos about Miguel Hernandez and his works. Web site about poetry in general. Internet Radio (in Spanish)