Rosalía de Castro: Life, Works, and Literary Legacy

The Beginnings

Rosalía de Castro composed her first poems at age 12. By 17, she was already a prominent figure in the Gymnasium of the Joventud. Her first book, La Flor, shows influences from Espronceda and reveals a remarkable sincerity of feeling and a tragic sense of existence. Subsequently, she wrote La hija del mar, a novel in the romantic melodrama trend. Set in Muxía, this work insists on the idea of women's dignity. Her later work from this period, Mi madre, was written after her mother's death. The overall summary of this period is that Rosalía alternated between poetry and prose, focusing on two key themes: 1) unhappy love and 2) social denunciation.

Maturity

Cantares Gallegos is one of her best-known books. She wrote it after her marriage when she moved to Castile; it reflects a longing for her homeland and established her as a precursor of the Rexurdimento. The book is written in Galician and references former Portuguese-Galician poetry, specifically utilizing popular lyric metrical innovations. It serves as a protest against Castilian centralism and the miserable life of the Galician peasantry, who were compelled to emigrate. Rosalía's intention was to provide an apology for her land and language, showing that the landscape and customs of Galicia were noble and that their language was not a burlesque parody. The book depicts village life with great richness. Following this, she wrote three novels: Ruinas (a customs piece centered on three people with a plain style and warm humor), Flavio (a romantic narrative), and El caballero de las botas azules (a satirical fantasy novel).

Consecration

Her first book of poetry in this period, Follas Novas (written in Galician), offers a sad and gloomy vision of human existence. In it, Rosalía includes the mark of the Galician migrant, capturing the pain of leaving their land. Her final works include the novel El primer loco and the poetry collection En las orillas del Sar, which features an intimate tone. This collection addresses immigration from a different perspective, focusing on those who have already left and encouraging them to integrate into their beloved homeland. It also includes the pain of a mother who has lost her children, in poems known as Volved, which address the migrants who have left Galicia. These works break away from traditional metrics and highlight the suffering of the protagonist.

Style in En las orillas del Sar

Her style is characterized by a brilliant use of adjectives and an abundance of comparisons. There is a notable scarcity of metaphors, and her comparisons move from the abstract to the concrete, and from the general to the particular.