Vicente Aleixandre
Vicente
Aleixandre, (b. April 26, 1898, Sevilla,
Spain—d. December 14, 1984, Madrid),
Spanish poet, a member of the Generation
of 1927, who received the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1977. He was strongly
influenced by the Surrealist technique
of poetic composition.
Aleixandre was the son of a railway
engineer. He studied law and business
management and from 1920 to 1922 taught
commercial law. He became seriously ill
in 1925 and during his convalescence
wrote his first poems. He remained in
Spain during the Spanish Civil War
although his poetry was banned from 1936
to 1944. In 1949 Aleixandre was elected
to the Spanish Royal Academy.
Aleixandre was considered a master of
free verse, the style that appears in
his first major book, La destrucción o
el amor (1935; “Destruction or Love”),
which was awarded the National Prize for
Literature. In this work the poet
explored the theme of human
identification with the physical cosmos.
Similar themes appear in Sombra del
paraíso (1944; “Shadow of Paradise”). A
greater emphasis upon human life is
found in Historia del corazón (1954;
“History of the Heart”) and En un vasto
dominio (1962; “In a Vast Domain”),
works that deal with time, death, and
human solidarity.
Aleixandre’s later poetry is of a
metaphysical nature; he explores death,
knowledge, and experience in Poemas de
la consumación (1968; “Poems of
Consummation”) and Diálogos del
conocimiento (1974; “Dialogues of
Insight”). In addition to writing poetry
of great originality and depth,
Aleixandre also published the prose work
Los encuentros (1958; “The Meetings”), a
book of fond sketches of his fellow
writers.
