Miguel Hernández: Spanish Poet of the Civil War Era

Miguel Hernández: Life and Early Literary Career (1910–1942)

Miguel Hernández (Orihuela, 1910 – Alicante, 1942) was a Spanish poet. His literary career began with reading the Spanish classics and entering the literary circle of El Gallo Crisis, alongside Ramón Sijé, with whom he shared a great friendship. After publishing some poems in the Orihuela newspaper, in 1933 he published his first book, Proficient in Moons (Perito en lunas), whose characteristic style resonated in literary criticism of the period.

In 1934, he moved to Madrid, facing initial difficulties. He published the auto sacramental Who Has Seen and Who Sees You and Shadow of What They Were in the journal Cruz y Raya. In 1935, The Ray That Does Not Stop appeared, composed mainly of sonnets written using the classic forms of the Golden Age. At the start of the Spanish Civil War, Hernández joined the Communist Party and the Republican Army.

War Poetry and Political Activism

During the war, Hernández's poetry adopted a political, even propagandistic, character. Key works from this period include Viento del pueblo (1937) and The Man Stalks (1939). The Farmer of More Air, although published in 1937, was drafted much earlier.

That same year, he married Josefina Manresa. Throughout the war, he was deeply involved in international anti-fascist and communist activities, including attending the II Anti-Fascist Congress of Intellectuals as a guest and traveling to the Soviet Union for the Second Congress of Soviet Theater.

Imprisonment and Final Years

Following the victory of the Nationalist side, the poet was sentenced to death; this was later commuted to thirty years. As he moved through various penal institutions, he composed his final work, Songbook and Ballads of Absences (published posthumously in 1958), before dying of tuberculosis in the Alicante prison in 1942.

Selected Bibliography of Miguel Hernández

Major Poetic Works

• Proficient in Moons (Perito en lunas), Murcia, La Verdad, 1933 (Foreword by Ramón Sijé).
• The Ray That Continues (or The Ray That Does Not Stop), Madrid, Hero, 1936.
• Wind of the People: Poetry in the War (Viento del pueblo), Valencia, International Red Cross, 1937 (Foreword by Tomás Navarro Tomás).
• The Man Stalks (El hombre acecha), 1939.

Theatrical Works (Plays)

• Who Has Seen and Who Sees You and You Were a Shadow Of, 1929.
• The Most Courageous Bullfighter, 1935.
• The Farmer of More Air, 1937.
• Theater in the War, 1937.
• The Pastor of Death, 1938.

Posthumous Collections and Editions

• Songs and Ballads of Absences (1938–1941, published 1958).
• The Ray That Does Not Stop (Revised Edition), Buenos Aires, Espasa-Calpe, 1949 (Foreword by José María Cossío. Includes unpublished poems).
• Six and Nine Unpublished Poems, Alicante, Col. Ifach, 1951.
• Chosen Work, Madrid, Aguilar, 1952 (Includes unpublished poems).
• 24 Unpublished Sonnets.
• Anthologies.
• Complete Poetic Work.