Editing Vicente Aleixandre

{{short description|Spanish poet (1898–1984)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2017}}
{{Expand Spanish|date=November 2010|topic=bio}}
{{family name hatnote|Aleixandre|Merlo|lang=Spanish}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name             = Vicente Aleixandre<!-- do not add image icons such as nobel peace, see [[:Template:Infobox writer]] -->
| image            = Spaanse dichter en nobelprijswinnaar Vicente Alexandre, Bestanddeelnr 929-3851.jpg
| caption          = Aleixandre in 1977
| birth_name       = Vicente Pío Marcelino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|df=y|1898|4|26}}
| birth_place      = [[Seville]], [[Restoration (Spain)|Spain]]
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|df=y|1984|12|14|1898|4|26}}
| death_place      = [[Madrid]], [[Spain]]
| occupation       = Poet
| nationality      = Spanish
| awards           = {{awd|[[Nobel Prize in Literature]]|1977}}<!-- do not add image icons such as nobel peace, see [[:Template:Infobox writer]] -->
| module           = {{Infobox officeholder
| embed = yes
| office        = Seat ''O'' of the [[Real Academia Española]]
| term_start    = 22 January 1950
| term_end      = 14 December 1984
| predecessor   = {{ill|Félix de Llanos y Torriglia|es}}
| successor     = [[Pere Gimferrer]]
}}
}}

'''Vicente Pío Marcelino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo''' ({{IPA|es|biˈθente alejɣˈsandɾe}}; 26 April 1898 – 14 December 1984) was a Spanish poet who was born in [[Seville]].<ref>[http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/aleixandre-vicente Vicente Aleixandre Criticism]. enotes.com</ref> Aleixandre received the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]] in [[1977 Nobel Prize in Literature|1977]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Biografía español. Vicente Aleixandre, poeta español. Biblioteca español. Instituto Cervantes. |url=https://www.cervantes.es/bibliotecas_documentacion_espanol/biografias/tetuan_vicente_aleixandre_premios.htm |access-date=2023-05-21 |website=www.cervantes.es}}</ref> "for a creative poetic writing which illuminates man's condition in the cosmos and in present-day society, at the same time representing the great renewal of the traditions of Spanish poetry between the wars".<ref>[https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1977/ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1977], Nobelprize.org</ref> He was part of the [[Generation of '27]].

Aleixandre's early poetry, which he wrote mostly in free verse, is highly [[Surrealism|surrealistic]]. It also praises the beauty of nature by using symbols that represent the earth and the sea. Many of Aleixandre's early poems are filled with sadness. They reflect his feeling that people have lost the passion and free spirit that he saw in nature. He was one of the greatest poets of Spanish literature alongside Cernuda and Lorca.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Vilaseca|first1=David|title=Hindsight and the Real: Subjectivity in Gay Hispanic Autobiography|date=2003|publisher=Peter Lang|location=Oxford, bern, Berlin, New York|isbn=9783039100095|page=30}}</ref> The melancholia of his poetry was also the melancholy of failed or ephemeral love affairs.<ref>{{cite book|last1=William Foster|first1=David|title=Spanish Writers on Gay and Lesbian Themes: A Bio-critical Sourcebook|date=1999|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, CT|isbn=0313303320|pages=26–7}}</ref>

Aleixandre's bisexuality was well known to his circle of friends, but he never admitted it publicly. He had a long-term love relationship with the poet [[Carlos Bousoño]].<ref>{{cite news
|title=Las cartas de amor de Vicente Aleixandre a Carlos Bousoño
|newspaper=[[La Razón (Madrid)|La Razón]]
|first=Víctor
|last=Fernández
|date=March 6, 2016
|url=https://www.larazon.es/cultura/musica/las-cartas-de-amor-de-vicente-aleixandre-a-carlos-bousono-DA12125798#.Ttt1qjNspmwhpTh}}</ref>

He died on 14 December 1984 in [[Madrid]], aged 86.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sorela |first=Pedro |date=1984-12-14 |title=Vicente Aleixandre será enterrado hoy en el cemneterio de la Almudena |language=es |work=El País |url=https://elpais.com/diario/1984/12/15/cultura/471913203_850215.html |access-date=2023-05-21 |issn=1134-6582}}</ref>

==His works==
His early collections of poetry include ''Passion of the Earth'' (1935) and ''Destruction or Love'' (1933). In 1944, he wrote ''Shadow of Paradise'', the poetry where he first began to concentrate on themes such as fellowship, friendliness, and spiritual unity. His later books of poetry include ''History of the Heart'' (1954) and ''In a Vast Dominion'' (1962).

Aleixandre studied law at the [[Complutense University of Madrid|University of Madrid]]. Selections of his work were translated into English in ''Twenty Poems of Vicente Aleixandre'' (1977) and ''A Longing for the Light: Selected Poems of Vincent Aleixandre'' (1979; [[Copper Canyon Press]], 2007) translated by [[Lewis Hyde]].

During the [[Spanish Civil War|Civil War]] Aleixandre was among the contributors of ''[[El Mono Azul]]'', a Republican cultural magazine.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Silvina Schammah Gesser|author2=Alexandra Cheveleva Dergacheva
|editor1=Raanan Rein|editor2=Joan Maria Thomás|title=Spain 1936: Year Zero|year=2018|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M5vHugEACAAJ|page=194|publisher=Sussex Academic Press
|location=Brighton|isbn=978-1845198923|chapter=An Engagé in Spain: Commitment and Its Downside in Rafael Alberti’s Philo-Sovietism}}</ref>

===Pure poetry===
His first book, ''Ámbito'', written between 1924 and 1927 and published in [[Málaga]] in 1928, is the work of an incipient poet who has not yet found his own voice. The assonated short verse and [[art for art's sake]] aesthetics of [[Juan Ramón Jiménez]] and [[Jorge Guillén]] prevail, in addition to the [[Ultraism|ultraistic]] echoes of classical Spanish poetry from the [[Golden Age]], especially [[Fray Luis de León]] and [[Góngora]].

===Surreal poetry===
In the following years, between 1928 and 1932, there is a radical change in Aleixandre's poetic conception. Inspired by the predecessors of [[surrealism]] (especially [[Arthur Rimbaud]] and [[Lautréamont]]) and by [[Freud]], he adopts [[prose poetry]] (''Passion of the Earth'', 1935), [[free verse]], and plainly surreal methods such as free verse and the visionary image (''[[Swords like Lips]]'', 1932; ''[[Destruction or Love]]'', 1935; ''[[Shadow of Paradise]]'', 1944) as his form of expression. The aesthetics of these poems are irrational, and the expression comes close to "flow", even without accepting it as a dogma of faith. Along with surrealism, the poet does not take on any tradition, not even the metric, and frees himself. [[Luis Cernuda]] could say: "Your verse is like nothing else." And in effect his style brings unpublished stylistic novelties such as the inverted [[simile]] (''Swords like Lips'') or the equivalent disjunctive nexus (''Destruction or Love''), the [[hyperbole]] adds, the uncoded dream [[symbol]], enriching without question the stylistic possibilities of the Spanish poetic language, just as [[Garcilaso de la Vega (poet)|Garcilaso]], [[Góngora]] and [[Rubén Darío]], each one a great renovator of lyric language, did in the past. The poet celebrates love as a natural, ungovernable force that breaks down all human limitations and criticizes the conventionalism with which society attempts to conquer it.

== Popular culture ==

* A sculptural monument to Aleixandre, designed by the Spanish artist Juan López Ballesteros, is installed in la plaza mayor in Madrid, Spain.<ref>{{Cite web|last=días|first=Chamberí 30|date=2018-09-17|title=TRIBUNA ABIERTA: Sobre la autoría del monumento a Vicente Aleixandre|url=https://www.chamberi30dias.es/cultura/tribuna-abierta-sobre-la-autoria-del-monumento-a-vicente-aleixandre|access-date=2020-10-23|website=chamberi30dias.es|language=es}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|date=1978-11-11|title=El busto de Aleixandre será colocado en la plaza Mayor|language=es|work=El País|url=https://elpais.com/diario/1978/11/12/madrid/279721457_850215.html|access-date=2020-10-23|issn=1134-6582}}</ref>
* The Spanish government has issued several postage stamps featuring portraits of Aleixandre, including a centenary series in 2001.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Philatelia.Net: The literature / Stamps / Vicente Aleixandre|url=http://www.philatelia.net/classik/stamps/?id=12512|access-date=2020-10-23|website=www.philatelia.net}}</ref>
* Poesin blev min räddning (1977), documentary directed by Humberto López y Guerra about the Spanish Literature Nobel Prize Winner Vicente Aleixandre produced for Swedish Television TV1-Kultur

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{Nobelprize}}

{{RAE seat uppercase O}}
{{Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates 1976–2000}}
{{1977 Nobel Prize winners}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleixandre, Vicente}}
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Literature]]
[[Category:Spanish Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Writers from Seville]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Spanish Academy]]
[[Category:1898 births]]
[[Category:1984 deaths]]
[[Category:Generation of '27]]
[[Category:Complutense University of Madrid alumni]]
[[Category:LGBTQ Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Spanish LGBTQ poets]]
[[Category:Spanish male poets]]
[[Category:20th-century Spanish poets]]
[[Category:Surrealist poets]]
[[Category:Spanish surrealist writers]]