Miguel Hernández

Miguel Hernández (born Oct. 30, 1910, Orihuela, Spain—died March 28, 1942, Alicante) was a Spanish poet and dramatist who combined traditional lyric forms with 20th-century subjectivity.

A goatherd in his youth, Hernández joined the Spanish Communist Party in 1936 and fought in the Civil War (1936–39). Condemned to death by the Nationalists after the war, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after international protests. He died in prison soon afterward, at the age of 31. Hernández’s predominant themes are love—particularly of a sorrowful nature—war, death, and social injustice. Beginning with a rich, Góngoristic style, his poetry became more intimate, simple, and tragic later in life.

His first collection of poetry is the elaborate Perito en lunas (1933; “Connoisseur of Moons”). The poet sounds a tragic and lyric note in his best work, El rayo que no cesa (1936; “The Never-Ending Lightning”), a collection mostly of sonnets of great classical purity. El hombre acecha (1939; “The Man Who Lurks”) is a desolate book full of the horror of war and prison. The posthumous Cancionero y romancero de ausencias (1958; Songbook of Absences) contains poems and lullabies he wrote in prison for his starving wife and son and is filled with passion and sorrow.

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Famous Poets and Poetic Form

In addition to verse, Hernández also produced dramatic works. Several one-act plays of propaganda appeared during the Civil War, the most notable of which is Pastor de la muerte (1938; “Shepherd of Death”).