Editing Luis Cernuda (section)

==Gide, the dandy and homosexuality==

His sexual awakening seems to have coincided with the birth of his desire to write poetry, around the age of 14,<ref name="Cernuda626"/> but it was many years later before he really came to terms with this side of himself. A very important influence on his emotional development were the writings of André Gide. In ''Historial de un libro'', Cernuda wrote that his introduction to the works of Gide was when Pedro Salinas gave him either ''Prétextes'' or ''Nouveaux Prétextes'' to read, followed by ''Morceaux Choisis'', which is a selection by Gide himself of passages from his works. These books opened the way for him to resolve or at least reconcile himself with "a vital, decisive problem within me".<ref name=Cernuda628>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL I Historial de un Libro p 628</ref> These works deal openly with the topic of homosexuality amongst many other things.<ref name=Taravillo94>Taravillo: Cernuda Años españoles p 94</ref> For example, Gide included in the ''Morceaux Choisis'' the section of ''Les Caves du Vatican'' where Lafcadio Wluiki pushes Amédée Fleurissoire out of a moving train just from curiosity as to whether he can actually bring himself to do it - the original ''acte gratuit''. Cernuda comments,"I fell in love with his youth, his grace, his freedom, his audacity."<ref name=Cernuda628/> This is redolent of the homoeroticism of a poem such as "Los marineros son las alas del amor" in ''Los placeres prohibidos.'' He went so far as to write a fan letter, perhaps even a love letter, to Lafcadio, which was printed in ''El Heraldo de Madrid'' in 1931. It includes these words: "the only real thing in the end is the free man, who does not feel part of anything, but lives wholly perfect and unique in the midst of nature, free from imposed and polluting customs."<ref name=Cernuda805>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL I Carta a Lafcadio Wluiki p 805</ref> This is reiterated in his essay of 1946, where he writes: "the transcendent figure for Gide is not that of a man who by means of abstention and denial searches for the divine, but that of a man who seeks out the fullness of humanity by means of effort and individual exaltation."<ref name=Cernuda549>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL I André Gide p 549</ref> In other words, he was affected by the idea of total [[hedonism]] without any sense of guilt.<ref name="Poesia completa52">Harris intro to Poesía completa p 52</ref>

Another idea that he takes from Gide is expressed in Book 1 of ''Les Nourritures Terrestres'':<blockquote>There is profit in desires, and profit in the satisfaction of desires - for so they are increased. And indeed, Nathaniel, each one of my desires has enriched me more than the always deceitful possession of the object of my desire.<ref name=Nourritures18>Gide: Fruits of the Earth p 18</ref> </blockquote>

So hedonism and the exaltation of desire are not enough in themselves; what matters is the dignity and integrity of the desire. That is what gives it virtue, not the object of the desire.<ref name="Harris a Study48">Harris: Luis Cernuda a study of the Poetry p 48</ref> As Cernuda expressed it, "what he holds in his arms is life itself, rather than a desired body."<ref name=Cernuda554>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL I André Gide p 554</ref> In "Unos cuerpos son como flores", another poem from ''Los placeres prohibidos'', the transience of love is accepted as a perfectly normal phenomenon because it is the transcendent nature of that love that overrides everything.<ref name="Harris a Study4">Harris: Luis Cernuda a study of the Poetry p 49</ref> Following Gide's example, Cernuda becomes concerned with maintaining his personal integrity. Free from guilt, he will live true to his own values, which include rejection of conventional sexual mores and acceptance of his homosexuality.<ref name="Harris a Study53">Harris: Luis Cernuda a study of the Poetry p 53</ref> In "La palabra edificante", Octavio Paz wrote "Gide gave him the courage to give things their proper names; the second book of his surrealist period is called ''Los placeres prohibidos'' (Forbidden Pleasures). He does not call them, as one might have expected ''Los placeres pervertidos'' (Perverse Pleasures)".<ref name="The Edifying Word xxv">Paz: La palabra edificante trans Michael Schmidt in Gibbons:Selected Poems of Luis Cernuda p xxv</ref>

Cernuda's reading of Gide was thorough. As well as the works mentioned above, his essay includes discussions of the "Journals", ''Les cahiers d'André Walter, Le Traité du Narcisse, Paludes, Le Prométhée Mal Enchaîné, Les Nourritures Terrestres, Amyntas, L'Immoraliste, La Porte Etroite, Le Retour de l'Enfant Prodigue, Corydon, Les Caves du Vatican, Les Faux Monnayeurs, Si le grain ne meurt,'' and ''Thésée.'' One of the most interesting passages concerns Gide's memoirs, ''Si le grain ne meurt.'' Many of the episodes recounted in this book had formed the basis for his previous works; however, this new account is not so much a repetition as a complement to the previous versions. The reader gets a broader vision of what was happening. Gide's works are clarified and are heightened when they can be interpreted in the light of the extra information in the memoirs.<ref name=Cernuda548>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL I André Gide p 548</ref> It was clearly with a similar aim in mind that Cernuda set out writing ''Historial de un libro'', to recount "the story of the personal events that lie behind the verses of ''La realidad y el deseo.''"<ref name="Cernuda625" /> Narcissism is another trait that Gide and Cernuda shared: "After all, we cannot know anybody better than our self."<ref name=Cernuda550>Cernuda OCP vol 1 PyL I André Gide p 550</ref>

At times, it seems that the two writers share the same sensibility. For example, Gide had visited Seville in 1892, in company with his mother, and was struck by the gardens of the Alcázar. This made its way into ''Les nourritures terrestres'': "What of the Alcazar? Marvellous as a Persian garden! Now I come to speak of it, I believe I prefer it to all the others. When I read Hafiz, I think of it."<ref name=Nourritures47>Gide: Fruits of the Earth p 47</ref> Cernuda describes a similar sense of transcendence in "Jardín antiguo" in ''Ocnos''. Gide was in Seville during ''Semana Santa'' and revelled in the sensuality of the celebrations. In his journals, he describes how there was a feeling of loosening the corsets and throwing off prudish morality, which is quite similar to the atmosphere of Cernuda's poem "Luna llena en Semana Santa" from ''Desolación de la Quimera.''<ref name=Taravillo95-96>Taravillo: Cernuda Años españoles p 95-96</ref>

As seen in his accounts of his first meetings with Jiménez in 1925 and Lorca in 1927, he took a few years to come to terms fully with his sexuality.  This only seems to happen once he finally left Seville in 1928, after his mother's death. However, during that period he seems to have cultivated his sense of difference by becoming a dandy. During his time at the University of Seville, Salinas had already noted his dapper appearance, commenting on his "well-cut suit, a perfectly-knotted tie".<ref name="Villena introduction12">Villena intro to edition of Las Nubes p 12</ref> This tendency seems to have intensified during his brief stay in Madrid before going to Toulouse, where he assumed the pose of a man who frequents bars, drinks cocktails, affects English shirts, discussed in an article by Villena (''La rebeldía del dandy en Luis Cernuda'').<ref name="Villena introduction16">Villena intro to edition of Las Nubes p 16</ref>  Villena diagnoses it as the sign of a refined hermit trying to hide his hyper-sensitivity and repressed desire for love. In Toulouse, he wrote to a friend that he was starting to think that he was too well-dressed.<ref name="Epistolario103 ">Epistolario letter 140 to Higinio Capote November 1928 p 103</ref> Two months later, he wrote to the same friend complaining that he had only managed to make female friends - the young men being too coarse for him - and boasting about some purchases: an American hat exactly like the one worn by [[Gilbert Roland]] in the film [[Camille (1926 feature film)|Camille]], a wristwatch that cost 1000 francs and some other things "simply so that during these courses they might call me a snob and accuse me of being frivolous and lightweight." He also says that he sometimes wears his moustache in the manner of [[Don Alvarado]] or [[Nils Asther]].<ref name="Epistolario111 ">Epistolario letter 150 to Higinio Capote January 1929 p 111</ref> In his short story ''El indolente'' Cernuda reflects on dandyism:<blockquote>a certain friend once claimed to convince the writer of this that he dressed and adorned himself not to attract but rather to rebuff people from his side. He had noticed, or thought he had noticed, that if an elegant women attracts, the elegant man repels. According to this theory, dandyism would be just one of the ways of aspiring to the ascetic solitude of the wasteland.<ref name=Cernuda2272>Cernuda OCP vol 2 El indolente p 272</ref></blockquote>

In some way, however, the combination of his contact with the world, especially the atmosphere of Paris which he visited in the university vacations, the rebellious attitudes and thinking of the surrealists, the influence of Gide, and his pent-up fight against bourgeois tendencies coincided in the belated acceptance of his sexuality, as expressed finally in ''Un río, un amor''.<ref name="Poesia completa53">Harris intro to Poesía completa p 53</ref> His dandified style of dressing seems to have continued for the rest of his life. For example in 1950, he stayed overnight with Jorge Guillén and the latter wrote to Pedro Salinas,"What a blue robe with white spots...what a smell of perfume in the passageway on rising the following morning!"<ref name="Epistolario479 ">Epistolario note p 479</ref>