Miguel Hernández: The Poetry of Life, Love, and Death

Life and Death in the Poetry of Miguel Hernández

The life and works of Miguel Hernández are inseparable; he incorporates his experiences into his poetry just as his life is nourished by his verse.

Early Works and the Vitality of Nature

Most of his early poems contain a certain lack of conscious support and a carefree vitality. In many poems, he pays homage to nature—one of his major themes—with an almost exultant joy, proclaiming that all life is beautiful. At this stage, the "wound of love-life-death" has not yet been felt.

The Lightning That Never Stops

These Hernandian wounds begin to breathe in the fullness of The Lightning That Never Stops. These are songs of love and sorrow, reflecting a tragic sense of love and a life that is essentially a "death for love."

Symbols of Tragedy: The Bull and the Blood

In the poetry of Miguel Hernández, love and death—torn and insoluble in almost physical pain—find their accommodation through the symbols of the bull and blood. These two symbols, associated with tragedy, are joined by a constellation of hurtful imagery, such as:

• The sword
• The ray

These are the instruments of the wounds of love and death for the poet. However, it is not only love and death that define his work, but also friendship and death, as seen in the "Elegy" dedicated to Ramón Sijé.

War, Combat, and Human Pessimism

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, Winds of the People launches voice tones and epic combat, hopeful for victory. Now, death is part of the struggle, life, and solidarity for the oppressed. However, as the conflict progresses, he abandons hope. Hernández modulates his voice toward pain and pessimism in The Man Lurking. There is no longer a death of heroes, but of victims. Through fear, the poet begins a path of introspection and intimacy.

Prison and the Journal of Desolation

When the war ended and he was sent to prison, facing disease and cruel despair, his poems darkened with disappointment and the absence of everything. In jail, he composed what might be described as a "Journal of Desolation." He lost his first child and was sentenced to death. Yet, amid the darkness, the poet's voice—devoid of rhetoric—speaks of nostalgia, his living child (Onion Lullaby), and his wife.