Ruben Dario
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| Pseudonym(s): | Rubén Darío |
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| Born: | January 18, 1867 Ciudad Darío, Nicaragua |
| Died: | February 6, 1916 León, Nicaragua |
| Occupation(s): | Poet, Journalist |
| Nationality: |  Nicaraguan
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| Literary movement: | Modernismo |
| Influences: | Diaz Miron, Julian de Casal |
| Influenced: | Pablo Antonio Cuadra |
Félix Rubén García Sarmiento (January 18, 1867 – February 6, 1916) was a Nicaraguan journalist, diplomat, and influential poet who wrote under the pseudonym of Rubén Darío and is also known as The Father of Modernism. His poetry brought vigor to the stale, monotonous Spanish-language poetry of the time.
Childhood and youth
Darío was born in Metapa, Nicaragua now renamed Ciudad Darío in his honor. His childhood was filled with difficult economic and personal situations. Darío's parents separated after his birth, he was raised by his godfather Colonel Félix Ramírez. He felt the abandonment from his parents from a very early age. During his lifetime, Rubén Darío only met his mother on two occasions and very briefly. He viewed his father like one of his uncles.
Darío displayed much talent from an early age, gaining a reputation as "El Niño Poeta" ("the poet child"); by the age of 12 he was publishing poems, the first three being "La Fe" ("Faith"), "Una Lágrima" ("A Tear") and "El Desengaño" ("Deceit"). In 1882, at age 15, he made an unsuccessful attempt to secure a government scholarship to study in Europe, and read before a group including conservative Nicaraguan President Joaquín Zavala. His poem "El Libro" did not go over well. President Zavala said to him, "My son, if you so write against the religion of your fathers and their homeland now, what will become of you if you go to Europe and learn worse things?"[1] As a result, his goal of a European education was thwarted.
Instead, Darío traveled to El Salvador, where he met Francisco Gavidia, who introduced him to Castilian and French poetry that would so influence his own writing.[2] While still in his teens, he worked in the National Library of Nicaragua.[3]
He later moved to Chile at the age of 19. There he published an unsuccessful first novel, Emelina and fell under the protection of Pedro Balmaceda, who helped him to publish his book of poems, Azul… in 1888. This 134-page, privately printed book, printed in Valparaiso, a city that at the time was not a notable intellectual center, was nonetheless, in González Echevarría's words, "a turning point in Spanish-language literature." [4] Initial reviews were disparaging, but Spanish critic Juan Valera of the Real Academia Española launched the young poet's career, praising his poems, although sharing other critics' disparagement of his degree of adoption of French models.[4]
In 1883, Dario returned to Nicaragua. He married Rafaela Contreras in 1890; they moved to El Salvador. Contreras died in 1892. Some time after Contreras' death, he married Rosario Murillo; they separated soon after but were never divorced.
Father of Modernism
Rubén Darío produced many exquisite literary works that greatly contributed to revive the literarily moribund Spanish language, thus he became known as the Father of Modernismo . Other great literary writers call him "Príncipe de las Letras Castellanas" (The Prince of Spanish Literature).
Rubén Darío participated in, or was the leader of, many literary movements in Nicaragua, Chile, Spain and Argentina. The Modernismo movement was a recapitulation of three movements in Europe: Romanticism (romanticismo), Symbolism (simbolismo) and Parnassianism (parnasianismo). These ideas express passion, visual art, and harmonies and rhythms with music.
Darío was the genius of this movement. His style was exotic and very vibrant. In his poem Canción de Otoño en Primavera ("The Song of Fall in Spring") there is much evidence of passion and strong emotions. Soon many literary writers would start using his style in a cautious and elegant form to make music with poetry.
His fundamental collection, Azul ("Blue"), was published in 1888 and established his reputation as one of the most important Spanish-language exponents of Modernismo. Many critics consider his death in 1916 to mark the symbolic end of Modernismo.
He has been cited as inspiration for later Latin American and Carribean writers such as Álvaro Mutis, Reinaldo Reinas, Lezama Lima, Luisa Valenzuela, Clarice Lispector, and Giannina Braschi.
Assessment
Darío marks an important shift in the relationship between literary Europe and America. Before him, American literary trends had largely followed European ones; however, Darío was clearly the international vanguard of the Modernist Movement.
Roberto González Echevarría considers him the beginning of the modern era in Spanish language poetry: "In Spanish, there is poetry before and after Rubén Darío. … the first major poet in the language since the seventeenth century … He ushered Spanish-language poetry into the modern era by incorporating the aesthetic ideals and modern anxieties of Parnassiens and Symbolism, as Garcilaso had infused Castilian verse with Italianate forms and spirit in the sixteenth century, transforming it forever. Darío and Garcilaso led the two most profound poetic revolutions in Spanish, yet neither is known abroad, except by Hispanists. They have not traveled well, particularly in English-speaking countries, where they are all but unknown."[5]
In honor of Darío's 100th birthday in 1967, the government of Nicaragua struck a 50 cordoba gold medal and issued a set of postage stamps. The set consists of eight airmail stamps (20 centavos depicted) and two souvenir sheets.
Quotations
- "My pick is working deep in the soil of this unknown America, turning out gold and opals and precious stones, an altar, a broken statue. And the Muse divines the meaning of the hieroglyphics. The strange life of a vanished people emerges from the mist of time."—Rubén Darío
- "Si la patria es pequeña, uno grande la sueña."
- "If the homeland is small, one dreams it large."—Rubén Darío[6]
Further Reading
English:
- Poet-errant: a biography of Rubén Darío, Charles Dunton Watland, 1965
- Ruben Dario centennial studies, Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth, 1970
- Critical approaches to Rubén Darío, Keith Ellis, 1974
- Rubén Darío and the romantic search for unity, Cathy Login Jrade, 1983
- Beyond the glitter : the language of gems in modernista writers, Rosemary C LoDato, 1999
- An art alienated from itself : studies in Spanish American modernism, Priscilla Pearsall, 1984
- Modernism, Rubén Darío, and the poetics of despair, Alberto Acereda, 2004
- Darío, Borges, Neruda and the ancient quarrel between poets and philosophers, Jason Wilson, 2000
- The meaning and function of music in Ruben Dario a comparative approach, Raymond Skyrme, 1969
Spanish:
- Miradas críticas sobre Rubén Darío, Nicasio Urbina., 2005
- La poesía de Rubén Darío : ensayo sobre el tema y los temas del poeta, Pedro Salinas., 2005
- Luis Cernuda y Rubén Darío : modernismo e ironía, James Valender, 2004
- Rubén Darío, Julio Ortega, 2003
- Rubén Darío visto por Juan de Dios Vanegas, Juan de Dios Vanegas, 2003
- Rubén Darío, puente hacia el siglo XXI y otros escritos, Carlos Tünnermann Bernheim, 2003
- Rubén Darío, Blas Matamoro, 2002
- Paralelismo entre Rubén Darío y Salomón de la Selva, Nicolás Navas, 2002
- Bases para una interpretación de Rubén Darío, Mario Vargas Llosa, 2001
- La angustia existencial en la poesía de Rubén Darío, Roque Ochoa Hidalgo, 2001
- Rubén Darío, addenda, José María Martínez Domingo, 2000
- Aproximación a Rubén Darío, Teodosio Muñoz Molina, 2000
Notes
- ↑ (Spanish)Humberto C. Garza, [Biografía de Rubén Darío], www.los-poetas.com. Retrieved November 8, 2007. "Hijo mío, si asi escribes ahora contra la religión de tus padres y de tu patria, que será si te vas a Europa a aprender cosas peores?"
- ↑ Daniela Villacres, [Ruben Dario, on the site of Postcolonial Studies at Emory University]. Accessed 27 March 2006.
- ↑ (Spanish) Rubén Darío, Nicaragua Actual, accessed online 7 March 2007, lists him as working there 1884–1888. [Cronología, simply lists him as working there 1884]. www.dariana.com. Retrieved November 8, 2007
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Roberto González Echevarría, The Master of Modernismo, The Nation, posted January 25, 2006 (February 13, 2006 issue, p. 30).
- ↑ Roberto González Echevarría, The Master of Modernismo, The Nation, posted January 25, 2006 (February 13, 2006 issue, p. 29–33).
- ↑ Caldera Mejía, Rodolfo, "Si la Patria es pequeña, uno grande la sueña", El Nuevo Diario. Retrieved 2007-07-31. (written in Spanish)
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Mapes, Edwin K. (1925) L'influence française dans l'oeuvre of Rubén Darío Paris, republished in 1966 by Comisión Nacional para la Celebración del Centenario del Nacimiento de Rubén Darío, Managua, Nicaragua OCLC 54179225. worldcat.org. Retrieved November 8, 2007.
- Orringer, Nelson R. (2002) "Introduction to Hispanic Modernisms," Bulletin of Spanish Studies LXXIX: 133-148.
- Ramos, Julio (2001) Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America trans. John D. Blanco, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, ISBN 0-8223-1981-0
- Rivera-Rodas, Oscar (1989) "El discurso modernista y la dialéctica del erotismo y la castidad" Revista Iberoamericana 146-147: 45-62
- Rivera-Rodas, Oscar (2000) "'La crisis referencial' y la modernidad hispanoamericana" Hispania 83(4): 779-90
- Schulman, Iván A. (1969) "Reflexiones en torno a la definición del modernismo" In Schulman, Iván A. and Gonzalez, Manuel Pedro (1969) Martí, Darío y el modernismo Editorial Gredos, Madrid, OCLC 304168
- Ward, Thomas (1989) "El pensamiento religioso de Rubén Darío: Un estudio de Prosas profanas y Cantos de vida y esperanza" Revista Iberoamericana 55: 363-375.
- Ward, Thomas (2002) "Los posibles caminos de Nietzsche en el modernismo". revistas.colmex.mx. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 50(2): 489-515.
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