Bécquer's Rima XLI: Love, Conflict, and Poetic Expression

Analysis of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's Rima XLI

Poem Context and Themes

• Poem Title: "XLI: You were the HURRICANE"
• Subject: Disappointment in love, panic, and anguish. The speaker conveys a tone of profound disappointment in love.
• Core Conflict: A failed attempt at reconciliation between lovers, marked by character incompatibility and pride on both sides.
• Summary: A fight between lovers who fail to understand each other. Each is identified with conflicting elements, yet they cannot bridge the gap.

Poem Structure

This poem is divided into two distinct parts:

• Part 1 (Stanzas 1-2): Develops the conflicting nature, using powerful imagery such as "hurricane / tower" and "ocean / rock." These elements are identified with the lovers' struggle.
• Part 2 (Verse 3): Shifts focus from the natural elements to the human dimension, highlighting the clash of two inflexible wills.

Literary Devices and Expressive Resources

The poem employs several key expressive resources:

• Anaphora: Appears in the first line of the first and second stanzas, "You were," emphasizing the definitive end of the love.
• Refrain: The repetition of "It could not be!" at the end of stanzas powerfully underscores the failure of love.
• Parallelism: A notable parallel is found in phrases like "you had to shoot me down... crashing or break you or tear." This vocabulary suggests intense passion and strength, often in violent opposition (e.g., "crashing," "tearing," "picking"). These verbs mirror the violent confrontation of a hurricane against a tower or the ocean against a rock.
• Opposition: A clear "you-I" opposition is evident in the first three lines of each stanza:
  • "Hurricane" versus "tower" (Stanzas 1 and 2)
  • "Ocean" versus "rock" (Stanzas 5 and 6)
  These metaphors describe the beloved (hurricane, ocean) and the love/speaker (tower, rock).
• Adjectives and Verbs: The final stanza features evocative adjectives like "beautiful" and "proud," and verbs such as "run over" and "not to give."
• Exclamations: Numerous exclamations highlight the expressive function of the language.
• Syntactic Structure: Adjectives like "high," "rock," "tower," and "erect" often overlap at the end of verses. The repetition of the same syntactic structure in the first two stanzas creates a strong parallel.

Metric Analysis

The poem employs a characteristic Becquerian rhyme scheme:

• Line Lengths: Hendecasyllable (eleven-syllable) and seven-syllable lines.
• Rhyme Scheme: Assonance rhyme in even-numbered lines and consonant rhyme in odd-numbered lines.

Stylistic Elements of Bécquer's Poetry

Bécquer's lyrical style is distinguished by several key traits:

• Simplicity and Restraint: Characterized by its simplicity, transparency, and restraint.
• Intimate Tone: His tone is intimate and often indistinct, with a complete absence of overt rhetorical or conceptual ideological intentions.
• Suggestive Power: He excels in his ability to evoke emotion and draw the reader's imagination with subtle hints.
• Symbolism: Bécquer's lyricism can be classified as symbolic. He identifies nature with the poet's state of mind and relates physical elements to surrounding feelings, transforming them into symbols to express the ineffable.
• Condensation: His entire effort aims to shed all accessories, to condense the poem, reducing its loudness and brightness to a soft, melancholic solitude.
• Poetic Intimacy: To create this intimacy, he uses suggestive, veiled lines, often rooted in his own skepticism.
• Verbal Limitations: For Bécquer, verbal communication seems insufficient; it is only possible to suggest rather than express directly.