Editing Luis Cernuda (section)

===Generation of 1898===

Cernuda's best critical writing tends to be about writers who interested and inspired him.  His writing about the Generation of 1898 is objective but nevertheless lacking in sympathy for the most part.  For one thing, he seems to have found it difficult to forge personal relations with them.  Regarding Juan Ramón Jiménez and Valle-Inclán, he recalled that they were so intent on their own speech that they neglected to listen to other people.  And even in respect of Antonio Machado, so revered by for example Alberti,<ref name=Alberti216>Alberti p 216</ref>  he recalled that he spoke little and listened to even less.<ref name=Cernuda2156>Cernuda OCP vol 2 Juan Ramón Jiménez 1941 p 156</ref> In contrast to most Spanish thinkers, he respected [[Unamuno]] more as a poet than as a philosopher.<ref name=Cernuda128>Cernuda OCP vol 1 Miguel de Unamuno p 128</ref>  For Ortega y Gasset, he had little positive to say:  scattered all through Cernuda's critical writings are remarks such as "[he] always understood very little when it came to poetry"<ref name=Cernuda126>Cernuda OCP vol 1 Miguel de Unamuno p 126</ref> and "with his strange ignorance of poetic matters".<ref name=Cernuda175>Cernuda OCP vol 1 Gómez de la Serna p 175</ref>

Regarding Valle-Inclán, he makes it clear in his 1963 essay how much he admires his integrity as an artist and human being.  He does not rate his poetry very highly, does not comment often on his novels and reserves his admiration for 4 plays, the 3 ''Comedias bárbaras'' and ''Divinas palabras''.<ref name="Cernuda817">Cernuda OCP vol 1 Poesía y literatura p 817</ref><ref name=Cernuda2191>Cernuda OCP vol 2 Teatro español contemporáneo p 191</ref>

In his study ''Estudios sobre poesía española contemporánea'', Cernuda is clearly drawn to those aspects of Antonio Machado where he finds similarities with his own poetic practice.  So, for him, the best of Machado is in the early poems of ''Soledades'', where he finds echoes of Bécquer.<ref name="Cernuda135">Cernuda OCP vol 1 Estudios sobre poesía española contemporánea p 135</ref>  He writes of them <blockquote> these poems are sudden glimpses of the world, bringing together the real and the suprasensible, with a rarely achieved identification.<ref name="Cernuda136">Cernuda OCP vol 1 Estudios sobre poesía española contemporánea p 136</ref></blockquote>
He is also drawn to the commentaries of Abel Martín and the notes of Juan de Mairena which began to appear in 1925.  In these, he finds the "sharpest commentary on the epoch".<ref name="Cernuda131">Cernuda OCP vol 1 Estudios sobre poesía española contemporánea p 131</ref>  On the other hand, he is definitely not attracted by the nationalistic themes that appear in ''Campos de Castilla'', especially the poet's focus on Castile, which Cernuda sees as negating the essence of Machado's best poetry, which stems from his Andalusian nature.<ref name="Cernuda135"/> However, this is difficult to reconcile with a strand of Cernuda's own poetry, as exemplified by the first poem of the "Díptico español" from ''Desolación de la Quimera'', which is a tirade of invective against Spain that would not seem out of place in Machado. Indeed, one of Cernuda's major themes is the contrast between modern Spain after the Civil War and the glorious past, which is also an important current in Machado's poetry. One aspect of Machado that he focuses on is his use of language and how he fails when he tries to emulate the type of popular language described by German Romantics. He shows particular scorn for Machado's attempt to write a popular ballad, "La tierra de Alvargonzález".<ref name="Cernuda136"/> As Octavio Paz says:<blockquote> "Jiménez and Antonio Machado always confused "popular language" with spoken language, and that is why they identify the latter with traditional song. Jiménez thought that "popular art" was simply the traditional imitation of aristocratic art; Machado believed that the true aristocracy resided in the people and that folklore was the most refined art.......Influenced by Jiménez, the poets of Cernuda's generation made of ballad and of song their favourite genre. Cernuda never succumbed to the affectation of the popular.....and tried to write as one speaks; or rather: he set himself as the raw material of poetic transmututation not the language of books but of conversation<ref name="The Edifying Word xxi-xxii">Paz: La palabra edificante trans Michael Schmidt in Gibbons:Selected Poems of Luis Cernuda p xxi-xxii</ref></blockquote>

The member of that generation who had most impact on him is Jiménez, although when he went to Britain one of the very few books that he took with him was [[Gerardo Diego]]'s anthology ''Poesía española'' and he found solace for his nostalgia for Spain in reading the selection of poems by Unamuno and Machado contained within.<ref name="Cernuda645"/>  It is also true that in his study of Unamuno, he makes a comment that seems to relate directly to his own practice as a writer, his preoccupation with creating and perpetuating himself in his poetry, transforming the circumstances of his life into myth:<ref name="Poesia completa48">Derek Harris: Introduction to Poesía completa p 48</ref>

<blockquote>Alive and striving beyond what were only current circumstances, moments that pass and do not remain, Unamuno was hoping to create himself, or at least create his personal myth, and to be forever what was passing.<ref name=Cernuda129>Cernuda OCP vol 1 Miguel de Unamuno p 129</ref></blockquote>

He first met Jiménez in late September-early October 1925 in Seville.  The meeting had been arranged by Pedro Salinas and he suggested to Cernuda that he should ask one of his friends, whose father was a warden of the Alcázar, for permission to visit the gardens, out of hours.<ref name=Cernuda733>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL II Los Dos Juan Ramón Jiménez p 733</ref>  Cernuda's account is interesting.  He was overawed by being in the presence of such an important figure.  In addition, there was the presence of Jiménez's wife - [[Zenobia Camprubí]] - which also put him at a disadvantage, both because of his shyness and a lack of interest in women, although he had not yet realised why women did not interest him.<ref name=Cernuda734>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL II Los Dos Juan Ramón Jiménez p 734</ref>  He placed himself in the role of a disciple, just listening to the Master.  He records how gracious Jiménez was to him that evening and on subsequent meetings.  At that time, he was something of a hero to Cernuda and he notes how much effort it cost him to free himself from Jiménez's type of egoistic, subjective poetry with no connection to the world and life, which was so influential in Spanish cultural circles at that time.<ref name=Cernuda734/>

In the essay in which he describes this meeting, "Los Dos Juan Ramón Jiménez", included in ''Poesía y literatura vol 2'', he analyses the Jekyll and Hyde personality of Jiménez.  On the one hand he was a famous poet, worthy of admiration and respect.  On the other hand, he was the man who launched abusive attacks on numerous literary figures.  This latter side gradually became more and more dominant.<ref name=Cernuda731>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL II Los Dos Juan Ramón Jiménez p 731</ref>  In particular he took against the poets of Cernuda's own generation, at first confining his attacks to verbal ones but then turning to print.  He continued to print vilifications right to the end of his life, which had the effect of turning Cernuda's former admiration into indifference or even worse.<ref name=Cernuda733/>

Cernuda wrote many pieces about Jiménez, including a satirical poem included in ''Desolación de la Quimera''.  The early influence was decisively rejected and his essays identify all the stylistic elements that he cast off, such as the impressionistic symbolism,<ref name="Harris A Study5">Harris A Study of the Poetry p5</ref> hermeticism,<ref name=Cernuda149>Cernuda OCP vol 1 Juan Ramón Jiménez p 149</ref> the fragmentation of his poems,<ref name=Cernuda147>Cernuda OCP vol 1 Juan Ramón Jiménez p 147</ref> his inability to sustain a thought,<ref name=Cernuda149/> the lack of desire to go beyond the surface of things.<ref name=Cernuda143>Cernuda OCP vol 1 Juan Ramón Jiménez p 143</ref>  His final thoughts about Jiménez came in an essay titled "Jiménez y Yeats" dated 1962 and included in ''Poesía y literatura vol 2''. E.M. Wilson included a look at this in his survey of Cernuda's literary borrowings because it contains a translation of Yeats's poem "A Coat" and compares it to Jiménez's "Vino, primera, pura".  Of the translation, Wilson writes <blockquote>One can point out minor infidelities....but the translation has life of its own and fulfils its purpose in Cernuda's essay: a rod for the back of Juan Ramón Jiménez.<ref name=Grant242>Cernuda's Debts in Studies Presented to Helen Grant p 242</ref></blockquote>  Cernuda concludes that Jiménez is a more limited poet than Yeats because the latter put his poetry to one side in order to campaign for Irish Home Rule and to work as director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin whereas Jiménez's whole life was totally dedicated to poetry.  He devoted himself to aesthetics and did not involve himself with ethical considerations at all.<ref name=Cernuda824>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL II Jiménez y Yeats p 824-5</ref>