Poetry
La realidad y el deseo
Not translated into English
Luis Cernuda · 1936
Synopsis
The whole poetic work of the author, gathered under a single title and expanded with each edition, from the poems of his youth to the last verses written in Mexico. From one book to the next, a desire that liberates and a constraining, bitter reality confront each other: the gap between what one wishes for and what one can attain. The first collections, in décimas or in the manner of Garcilaso, give way to a period marked by surrealism, in which the poet embraces his homosexuality, then to books of exile nourished by English poetry and Hölderlin, in which a growing bitterness towards Spain appears.
Context
The idea of gathering all his poetry under this title came to the author in the mid-thirties. The first edition appeared in April 1936, published by José Bergamín in the series of the journal Cruz y Raya; it brought together six books, the first under the name Primeras poesías. A few days later, a banquet in his honour brought together Lorca, Alberti, Aleixandre, Salinas and Neruda. The later editions, published in Mexico from 1940, added the books written in exile; the last, posthumous, dates from 1964. The author recounted the genesis of the whole in an autobiographical text, Historial de un libro.
Who it is for
A lifetime's work, to be read book by book, following a poet over nearly forty years; in French, only a selection is translated.
Prizes and reception
The title designates all of the author's poetry; a bilingual selection, prefaced by Juan Goytisolo, appeared from Gallimard in 1969.