Miguel Hernández: Poetry, War, and Social Commitment
Miguel Hernández: A Poet of the People
(Continued from pictures and symbols in the poetry of MH)
Some of his poems reveal a full sexual relationship, there are critical elements that do not identify with Josefina Manresa, but a fleeting relationship that MH had. Village Wind exemplifies what is considered poetry of war. In this book, the poet shows a displacement of self to others. The eye of the poet becomes solidarity towards those who suffer. Some poems are like a child’s Hai Yuntero. The contrast between rich and poor is given in The Hands, a poem in which symbols for MH were the two Spains. Matrimonio is sung after motherhood. The symbol will be the belly. In Man Stalks, we find the theme of man and beast. The book emphasizes poems dealing with the disasters of war. Songs and Ballads of Absences opens with elegies on the death of the writer’s first child. Intag is evoked through images. Hope is reborn with the coming of a new child. This leads to the extremely sad Nanas de la Cebolla. MH remains in jail longing for his beloved. Death, symbolized here by the sea, is becoming the only certainty for the poet.
Social and Political Commitment of MH:
MH is said to belong to the Generation of ’36, yet his poetic career can include it in the Generation of ’27. His work acts as a link between the Generation of ’27 and the poets of the postwar period, taking the first steps toward social call poetry. In the work of MH, three attitudes of Spanish contemporary poetry are present: poetry and avant-garde cutting, neogongorino represented by experts on moons, subjective poetry of the loving type that does not stop lightning, and poetry of social character of the people, like the wind. Focusing on his writing’s social and political character, we have to note the transition from ‘I’ to ‘we’, the shift towards social poetry of the poet’s anxieties that are identified with the people. MH’s poetic attitude is reflected in the above words. Poetry is born of the people, and the poet is merely a shell of his feeling. Solidarity will be the great theme of MH, who has a concept of solidarity in the struggle for life and love, justice, and freedom. In Wind of the People and The Man Lurking, we find the man-poet and his will to transform society. Poetry as testimony and denunciation of social injustice. On his trip to Madrid, he had met Pablo Neruda and Vicente Aleixandre. Neruda’s Residence on Earth opened a new way of making poetry, “impure poetry.” The young poet Orihuela, open to all kinds of influences, was impressed by the aesthetics of Neruda and built the most “impure poetry”. In short, the new generation of poets and MH starts to move ahead to verse experiences, bleeding daily preoccupation and distress. The writer is aware of their responsibility and does not remain closed in his ivory tower, not worrying about his time and its conflicts. The influence of Marxist ideas of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda on the young poet helped understand the ideological evolution that led him to take belligerent compromise positions on the Republican side during the civil war. The gray triggerfish indicates the revolution of 1934, when Asturias miners began to be projected in the form of literature of testimony and complaint. In 1937, they released their Seeing the People. Concha Zardoya said that these poems are his people. In The Soldier Husband’s Song, MH harbors an internal struggle between the rejection of war and the need to fight for victory. The combative tone characterizes the book Wind of the People. With The Man Lurking, he warns of a poet tired before the grim death toll, wounded, and senseless hatred in jails. The difference between old and young men. Hunger is a fundamental issue. Solidarity with the poor is clear. In The Train of Wounded, we can see the image of a wounded Spain. In Songs and Ballads of Absence, the reason for the war, hunger, reappears.