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“Romanticism” is a literary movement. Its main feature is subjectivism dressed by an exalted individual personality and opposed to classical standards. It began in the late 1700s and lasted throughout most of the 19th. Century. Cuba was still a Spanish Colony in the "romantic" 19th. Century. Thus, Gertrudis Gomez the Avellaneda, born in March 23, 1814, in Puerto Principe, today’s Camaguey, Cuba, became by birth right the top “romantic” literary figure of Spain, the country where she lived almost her entire life, and Cuba, where she got part of her education and where she had the greatest influence.
Gomez de Avellaneda came to Europe with her family when she was 22 years old. Back then she revealed her passionate and tragic temperament, very consistent with “romanticism”, which was sweeping the old continent. She loved passionately. Yet, in spite of her physical beauty, she was never corresponded leaving an indelible mark on her soul and her most passionate poems. In 1839, she began publishing her poems in “La Aureola”, a newspaper of Cadiz, under the pen name “La Peregrina” (The Pilgrim). Later she moved to Madrid where, after reading her poems at the Liceo Artistico (Art Lyceum), she conquered the literary world of the great capital. Her friends were the romantic authors of that time including Manuel Jose Quintana, Jose de Espronceda and Jose Zorrilla. They met in literary gatherings and exchanged poems and readings.
Throughout her poetry, love becomes an essential theme – it is passionate, tender, nostalgic: a lyric expression denoting the influence of her circle of friends combined with her own romantic vision, filled with pessimistic insights resulting from her own personal pain. In her playwriting, characters emerge from a serious psychological analysis, within the framework of a carefully built dramatic structure. Thus, “Munio Alfonso” (1848) inspired by the life of Alfonso X, “Saul” (1849), a most successful biblical drama, and “Baltasar” (1858), also based on a biblical character, became some of the best plays of the time. In her work, Gertrudis was not only passionate about love. She also advocated some very bold ideas considering the atmosphere prevailing in the mid 1800s. Her novel “Sab” (1841) is the first Spanish novel criticizing slavery openly.
Ms. Avellaneda, a major figure in Cuban and Spanish literature, is also considered as the precursor of modern feminism in Spain, France, and Cuba, both because of her lifestyle and for her ideas expressed in her work, especially through her female characters. She did not advocate equality versus men or the right of women to vote. She did, however, denounce the oppression of women in a world where beauty and motherhood were the only attributes granted them. This small fragment illustrates her ideas: “Oh women! Poor, blind victims; like slaves, they patiently drag their chains and lower their heads under the yoke of human laws.” On February 1, 1873, diabetes finally beat Gertrudis’ vibrant, lyrical, dramatic, and deeply feminist spirit. Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, an example of the best of the latin spirit. |
Could
a Cuban Be the Best Spanish Poet of the Romantic Period?
Having
no tragedies to read, I began to write them.
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