Editing Luis Cernuda (section)

====Primeras poesías (1924–1927)====

This was the title that Cernuda gave in ''La realidad y el deseo'' to the revised version of his first published work ''Perfil del aire'', which had been published by ''Litoral'' in April 1927. The collection was dedicated to Salinas, and Cernuda sent a copy to him in Madrid, where he was spending the university vacation. Cernuda later recalled that this book was greeted by a stream of hostile reviews that tended to concentrate on a perceived lack of novelty and on its indebtedness to Guillén. It also really stung him that Salinas merely sent back a brief acknowledgement of receipt of the book.<ref name=Cernuda629>Cernuda OCP vol 1 Historial de un libro p 629</ref> He dealt with the apparent debt to Guillén in an open letter published in ''Ínsula'' in 1948, in which he points out that in 1927 Guillén had yet to publish a collection. During the 1920s, Guillén had published individual poems in various magazines - including 12 in two separate editions of the ''Revista de Occidente'' in 1924 and 1925 - but, he argues, this is scarcely sufficient evidence to demonstrate significant influence, given that in December 1925 he himself had had 9 poems published in ''Revista de Occidente''. His conclusion is that both of them shared an interest in pure poetry and were influenced by the works of Mallarmé - in the case of Guillén this influence was transmitted via Valéry.<ref name=Cernuda607>Cernuda OCP vol 1 El crítico, el amigo y el poeta p 607-624</ref> Villena, writing in 1984, sees these poems as the result of the spread in the 1920s of the ideal of "pure poetry" as espoused by figures such as Valéry, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Ortega y Gasset in his influential essay ''La deshumanización del arte''. The young poets of the era, including Guillén, Aleixandre, Altolaguirre, Prados, Lorca and Cernuda, were all influenced by this blend of classical purity and refined playfulness and Guillén was the ring-leader.  It was not so much a case of influence as a common, shared aesthetic.<ref name=Villena14>Villena intro to edition of Las Nubes p 14</ref> The reviews were not all hostile. [[José Bergamín]], for example, published a favourable review and Guillén himself sent him a letter praising the work and urging him to ignore the reviews.<ref name=Villena15>Villena intro to edition of Las Nubes p 15</ref> Juan Guerrero Ruiz, the secretary of Juan Ramón Jiménez, also sent him a letter full of praise.<ref name=Epistolario50>Epistolario Letter from Juan Guerrero Ruiz May 3, 1927 p 50</ref> Nevertheless, he was never able to forget the criticism that this work had engendered. He was too thin-skinned for that.

The revision process removed ten poems and also some of the stylistic elements that might have triggered comparisons to Guillén - such as the use of exclamations and the rhetorical device apostrophe - but in reality the poets are very different in tone. Guillén reaches out joyfully and confidently to reality whereas Cernuda is more hesitant - the world might be an exciting place but something holds him back.<ref name=Connell203 /> Like Guillén, Cernuda uses strict metrical forms in this collection, such as the ''décima'' and the sonnet, and there is also an intellectual quality far removed from the folkloric elements that were being used by poets such as Alberti and Lorca, but the emotional restraint is far removed from the world of ''Cántico''. The change of title suggests a recent desire to strip artifice away from his poetry,<ref name="Cernuda630">Cernuda: OCP vol 1 Historial de un libro p 630</ref> presumably this refers to the reference in the title to the street where he had grown up - the Calle del Aire - which had baffled Francisco Ayala, one of the negative reviewers.<ref name=Taravillo126>Taravillo: Cernuda - Años españoles p 126</ref> There are already poems that reject the real world in favour of a love that will lead to oblivion. The poet wants to find a place to hide from the world of reality, fully aware that such a retreat or escape can only be temporary.<ref name=Connell203>Connell p 203</ref> The overriding mood is one of adolescent melancholy. The debt to Juan Ramón Jiménez is also strong.<ref name="Harris notes to Un rio">Harris intro to Un río, un amor etc p 13</ref> :)