Poetry and Myth: Reception of Don Quixote In the Poetry of the Silver Age

F'rancisco Javier Díez de Revenga University of Murcia

In the present study of Don Quixote in the Silver Age, we go back exactly a hundred years, i.e. to 1905, when Spain was

celebrating the year of Don Quixote. We will examine the works of sorne Spanish poets who used the figure of Don Quixote in their verses making him their own personal myth. Poetry, as present in

Don Quixote in Chapter XVI of Part n, in the memorable dialogue of our knight with Don Diego de Miranda ("Poetry, illustrious noble, in my opinion is like a soft young girl of tender age and very beautiful ... ") made Don Quixote in the fírst decades of the twentieth century an object of profound poetic reflections. They varied according to the ideology and thought of the poet who studied his figure - from Rubén DarÍo to Unamuno, from Antonio Machado to León Felipe, as we wiU see in the foIlowing pages. And from them to other writers and poets who pondered on Don Quixote in their prose and in their verses: Salinas, Cernuda,

Dámaso Alonso, Aleixandre, and also Guillén and Gerardo Diego,

who already in the post-war period, had included the ingenious knight in their poems.

In 1905, in Madrid, Rubén Darlo published Cantos de vida y esperanza (Songs ojlife and hope), as Spain commemorated the

third centenary of the publication of the First Part of Don Quixote.

Francisco Javier Díez de Revenga

At present we are doing the same: a hundred years of Cantos de

vida y esperanza, four hundred of Don Quixote. It is interesting to

dwell again on sorne aspects of Cervantism in Darío, and the

reasons why the great Nicaraguan poet found the master of the

universal novel so interesting, what aspects of his work drew his

attention. 1905 produced the most important opportunity for Rubén

to create his most relevant Cervantine poem, "Letanía de Nuestro

Señor Don Quijote" (Litany of Our Lord Don Quixote), one of the

most widely disseminated and cited works of the Quixote

centenary. That has a trajectory similar to that of other famous

books like Unamuno's Vida de don Quijote y Sancho (Lije of Don

Quixote and Sancho), Azorin's La ruta de Don Quijote (The

joumey of Don Quixote), both also published in 1905. Then there

is Ortega y Gasset's Meditaciones del Quijote (Meditations of Don

Quixote) and Ramiro de Maeztu's Don Quijote, Don Juan y La

Celestina (Don Quixote, Don Juan and La Celestina). However

Dario's contribution in verse is the most read and commented upon.

In any case, the Don Quixote that Ruben pays homage to is singular, and adapts itself in those first years of the 20th Century,

to this way of thinking and even to this ideology of the poet as there is in the stanzas a real social and ethical criticism of the

establishment, of homages and deceptions. But, as is proved by the

literary work of Darío, the interest in Cervantes had been there for

a while and much before the celebrations of 1905. Cervantes was a

model and a guide, and Quixote's figure was the object of

meditation and deep reflection as a character who others had

sacrificed, "the lord of the sad", a model and an example of

righteous conduct in the midst of falsity, someone who rose aboye

the human, to the sphere of the heroic and the mythical.

In any case with regards to the Cervantism of Darío, the

most interesting poem of the Cantos de vida y esperanza can be

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found in the "Letanía de Nuestro Señor Don Quijote", an exceptional and very successful evocation of the Manchegan, full of mythical and sentimental references in tune with the earlier manifestatÍons in Darío of the work of Cervantes, but also ful1y within the framework that we have indicated and which by 1905, acquires a tone of special intensity.

The figure of Don Quixote evoked by Darío in the poem coincides with the earlier Cervantine representations in his poetry. Heroism and sadness would be the two elements that would best define the figure of Quixote, present even in the visions of Cervantes, with whom Darío confuses or fuses Quixote. Already in the first stanza, in which he once again uses the golden helmet of the earlier Cervantine poem ("crowned with the golden helmet of illusion", pp. 302-304), he gives us the figure of the ingenious knight as someone forged between fantasy and illusion incorporating words from Cervantes' own language ("with the shield on the arm, all fantasy, I and the lance ready, all heart") thus in the analysis of the hero a kind of revolutionary Quixote emerges, a Quixote against this and that, against líes and truth ("against certainties, against conscience I and against laws and against sciences, I against líes, against truth ... "). A revolutionary"s radical tendency is also noticed in the third stanza, where there is a very direct allusion to the possible centenary celebrations with which Ruben seems to be in liule in agreement. It must have been a very unique moment when these verses were heard, in the Ateneo in Madrid where this function of renderinghomage was being held, a moment that he uses to wish Don Quixote good health: "Salud, porque juzgo que hoy muy poca tienes, (Health beeause 1 feel that today you have very little I entre los aplausos o entre los desdenes (between applause and disdain), I y entre las coronas y los parabienes (and between praise and good wishes I y las tonterías

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de la multitud (and the stupidities of the multitude!" And further on: "soportas elogios, memorias, discursos, (you put up with praises, memories, speeches) I resistes certámenes, tarjetas, concursos,

(you endure competitions, cards, contests I y, teniendo a Orfeo, tienes a orfeón (and, having Orpheus, you have a fan club!)".

Rubén, undoubtedly prefers a mythical Don Quixote, comparable to Roldán, shrouded in the fantasy as the names of Clavileño and Pegasus suggest. Although he also introduces a social and ethical angle in keeping with the Dacio of those years, who literally preaches when he assures that his litanies "hechas

con las cosas de todos los días / y con otras que en lo misterioso vi. (are made with everyday things I and others that 1 saw in mysteries"

Prom the sixth stanza onwards Rubén adopts the tone appropriate for a litany. He places sixth, seventh and eighth stanzas on the anaphoric base of the traditional "pray for us", that altemates with the Latín version "Pro nobis ora", in the middle of the seventh, to draw up the image of the worshippers on the basis of consecutive metaphors to defend himself against enemies ("que ridiculizan el ser de la Mancha, / el ser generoso y el ser español! (who ridicule the man of La Mancha, the generous one, the Spanish being"). The three stanzas naturally glamourise the mythical representation of the character, now evoked between two great myths: "j Tiembla la floresta de laurel del mundo, (The bay

wood of the world trembles I y antes que tu hermano vago, Segismundo, (and before your errant brother Segismundo I el

pálido Hamlet te ofrece una flor (the pale Hamlet offers you a flower)!". Ending with an concluding list of grievances, in an imaginative flourish of the best of Ruben of those years: "pues casi

ya estamos sin savia, sin brote, (as we are already without sap and

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without shoots) / sin alma, sin vida, sin luz, sin Quijote (without soul, without life, without light without Quixote, / sin piel y sin alas, sin Sancho y sin Dios (without skin and without wings, without Sancho and without God)," This list continues in the following stanzas, pointing out the adversaries, among the

supennen of Nietzsche and the Academies, intemally and extemally rhymed with insults and blasphemies so that there be no

doubt about the value of these institutions. Asevere ethical and social reprimand in line with the thought and ideology of the last poems is included in Cantos de vida y esperanza, although in the case of Quixote the heroic and mythic dimension signfies its transcendence beyond human misery,

From the point of view of the oration, the litany has gone

from "ora pro nobís" to "liberan os, dómine", that structurally joins the ninth and tenth stanzas, Both joined in their subject matter

to contain the narration or recounting of the enemies. Stanzas with the most emotive invocation are contained in the eleventh stanza, a glamourisation of the figure. With this the textual progress of the poem ends, as the twelfth and last is a complete repetition of the first stanza, such that the composition ends on a cyclical note: "Noble peregrino de los peregrinos, (Noble pilgrim of pilgrims)/ que santificaste todos los caminos, (who sanctified aH the roads/ con el paso augusto de tu heroicidad, (with the heroic march of your heroism) / contra las certezas, contra las conciencias (against certitudes, against consciences/ y contra las leyes y contra las

ciencias, (and against the laws and against the sciences)/ contra la

mentira, contra la verdad .. , (against lies, against truth)"

Darío says that "The Litany of Our Lord Don Quixote"

affinns "my deeply rooted idealism yet again, rny passion for the

transcendent and the heroic." The figure of the symbolic knight is

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crowned with light and darkness. In this poem, there is an attempt at the smile of "humour" -as a memory of the important Cervantine creation - but behind this smile there is the face of

human torture when faced with realities and these do not take on the fa<;;ade and complexion of Sancho"!.

In the bibliography on Cervantes, Miguel de Unamuno undoubtedly occupies an important place. His Vida de don Quijote

y Sancho (Life 01 Don Quixote and Sancho,), as mentioned earlier published in 1905, coincides precisely with the third centenary of Don Quixote, a pioneer work in the literary and philosophical reflections on Cervantes' singular creation, with whom Unamuno will have throughout his life a very intense, literary and ideological relationship. So much so that even their names "Miguel" ("Who like God") were the s ame , as he commented many times. Apart from that fundamental book for the literature of the 20th Century, there were many occasions when Unamuno involved himself with Don Quixote in his articles, thoughts, etc. The presence of Quixote becomes more intense in his poetry precisely at the time of his exile from 1923 onwards, and during the regime of the military dictator, who he accuses of "stoning the mad Don Quixote", which in turn shows the connection between his personal situation during that political situation and the figure of Don Quixote. U namuno, as Ana Urrutia Jordana2 reminds us, was always of the opinion that

"the noble Quixotic madness of wanting the world to be not as it is but as we believe it should be and want it to be, is a madness that always leads to the greatest triumph,,3. And as Urrutia Jordana

points out, "Unamuno carried the personality of Spain into his

1 R. Darío, 1919, p. 37. 2 A. Urrutia Jordana, 2003, p. 147. 3 M. de Unamuno, "Grandes, negros y caídos", Los Lunes del Imparcial,

3 de noviembre de 1914.

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exile as well as the Quixotic spirit, the fruit of passion. Like Don Quixote, he feels like one confined who fights alone, and like the noble Hidalgo (knight) what interests him is only the "universal and eternal finallty of his goals". For this reason, he fights for an ideal, although nobody else might share it,,4. There is a clear

identification of Unamuno with Don Quixote, in a well known

confessional passage of Cómo se hace una novela (How a novel is written) while referring to the stoning of Don Quixote by the galley slaves who he had freed, he points out that he himself will be

stoned by the present storrntroopers of the Holy Brotherhood "of

my Spain", as an apostle of his personal Spain that~he tries to save. He thus, proclaims Quixotism as a kind of faith in knightly ideals.

As proof of the obsession that Unamuno had for the figure of Don Quixote we need to look at his book De Fuerteventura a

Paris (From Fuerteventura to Paris) (1925). Here. he brings together the poetry written during rus confinement and exile at the hands of the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. The reference to Don Quixote in a frequenUy cÍted sonnet is a Httle enigmatic (XVII)5:

Tu evangelio, mi señor Don Quijote, al pecho de tu pueblo cual venablo lancé, y el muy bellaco en el establo sigue lamiendo el mango de su azote.

y pues que en él no hay de tu seso un brote, me vuelvo a los gentiles y les hablo tus hazañas, haciendo de San Pablo

de tu fe, ya que así me toca en lote.

4 A. Urrutia Jordana, 2003, p. 147. 5 M. de Unamuno, 1987. Henceforth we will indicate in brackets the

number of the pocm, as it figures in all the editions, in order to help in searching for it.

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Francisco

He de salvar el alma de mi España, empeñada en hundirse en el abismo

con su barca, pues toma por cucaña.

lo que es maste, y llevando tu bautismo de burlas de pasión a gente extraña forjaré universal el quijotismo.

Obviously this attitude of Unamuno, the consideration of

Quixote as Gospel has its origins in Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho.

In the latter is evident the symbolism of Don Quixote and his

relationship as spiritual guide to Unamuno, who as a preacher of

the good news will collapse into Don Quixote, the symbol of

disillusionment. Therefore, the references to Cervantes as creator

of Don Quixote are constant, but perhaps the most prominent is the

one where he calls him brother (in his disi1lusionment) (XXIX):

"Mira, hermano Cervantes, no te asombre (Look Brother

Cervantes, do not be surprised) I que el nombre que hemos hecho

honor y gloria (that the name to whom we have brought honour

and glory) I de la patria común, el que en la historia (of our

coromon country which in history) I nos une ya con lazos de

renombre. (unites us with powerful bonds) I ¿Quién como Dios?

sea también el nombre ... (Who but God could also have that

name)". As Suárez Miramón points out, "In order to understand all

the emotional value of the quotations of Cervantes in De

Fuerteventura, that end here with the qualifier "brother", it is

important to remember the trajectory Unamuno - Cervantes

through his works, from which one arrives at this conclusion: the

ever greater identification of Unamuno with the character of Don

Quixote on whom Cervantes projects his disillusionment making

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him dream of a non material world because the natural is not "as it

should be". Por this reason Unamuno feels fraternal in his

disillusion with the author of Don Quixote" 6.

Spain, Castile, Gredos and Don Quixote will be the living

symbols of his pain for this country. As Ana Suárez Miramón

points out, "in spite of his constant references to Spain and his

grief for Spain ("Spain grieves me as if it were a part of me and me

of Her"), the theme dissolves in other myths that Spanish

philosophy enshrines, especially Don Quixote and Segismundo,

and with these and with the representation of Castile, the symbol of

Spain, this theme acquires a spiritual content that after his exile

assumes religious proportions" 7 (LXXXVII):

No consigo soñar, vil pesadilla

(1 cannot sleep, horrible nightmares)

--dicen la realidad-, me mata el sueño;

(They speak the truth, sleep kills me) mi Dios, el de mi España, fruncen el ceño; (My God, the God of Spain, they furrow my brow) se nubla el sol que sobre Gredos brilla

(The sun that shines over the Gredos goes dark).

¡Y fue mi historia sueño! ¡Ancha es Castilla!

(And my history was a dream, Great is Castile!)

Soñé, cual Don Quijote, al pie del leño

(1 dreamt of Don Quixote, at the foot of the flowering oak tree)

por las noches a mi alma en maravilla. (on nights with my soul marveling)

6 A. Suárez Marimón, 1987, voL II, p. 353. 7 A. Suárez Marimón, 1987, vol. II, p.21.

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j Miellurninosa en temblador roCÍo

gotean por la noche las estrellas

desde el camino de Santiago, (Shining honey that like

trembling dew the stars on the road to Santiago ernit)

ríoque en nuestro cielo va lavando huellas

del Romancero (A river that our sky washes the tracks of the

Romancero); plañen las querellas

de Alfonso Diez, el que soñó sin brío. (The fights that grieved

Alfonso Diez, he who drearnt without guts)

And Unamuno' s commentary: "1 have written one time on

the fIower of the oak, the so called candela, 1 cannot represent Don

Quixote but at the foot of an oak, with acoros in my hand.

Melodious heart!".

There is a basic connection between the theme of Spain and Don Quixote and the period of total dictatorship that the country was lfacing and suffering.

Unamuno begins another sonnet with 'a text of Antonio Machado: "A bit of the planet on which the wandering shadow of

crosses ... " (LXXXIX): "Ay, The sad Spain of Caín, the red one I

the blood of brothers and green bile, I you bite because you don't

eat, and on your back Iyou carry centuries of grief!". It ends with a

tercel remembered many times because of its direct relation with

the military dictatorship in power: "Goveroment of sandals and

capes, I luck, charade salary at the end of the month, I and stoning

the crazy." A stoning, of a literary character remembered earlier

but also real and symbolic, mindful of the circumstances that

surround the exiled one (XVII): "Tomorrow -1 knew yesterday­

I Don Quixote, my good sir, I the galley slaves stone me, I May it

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Poetry and Myth: . Reception 01 Don Quíxote In ¡he Poetry 01 (he Silver Age

be aH for your love! I it does not matter to me that it comes, /but today's misery, I from the side of vile gangsters I from the old Inquisition. I Is justice liberty; I not malicious pardon I of tyrants in the field I honorably dishonored".

Unamuno's Cancionero, (Anthology) written between 1928 and 1936, and considered a Diario poético, (Poetic Diary) as its subtitle suggests, is an important text of the panorama of Spanish poetry of 20th Century due to its extraordinary originality,

its monumental content, and because it represents Unamuno's thought in those last years of his life when he was fully aware of many things. This is a time when the poet without chains or strings, offers his most personal view of the world. El Cancionero. (The anthology), which remained unpublished during Unamuno's life, is a personal and literary work of great quality. It is composed of more than one thousand long poems with diverse meter, form, structures and motifs and is a kind of literary autobiography.

Begun during the years of his lonely and quixotic opposition to the dictator Primo de Rivera and his exile, many of his poems show an Unamuno split between a monologue of his personal and his poetic self, in which there are sorne of the most singular myths and references of his personality: Quevedo, Don Quixote, Segismundo ....

In effect, Don Quixote becomes one of the most frequently

used reference points of these hundreds of poems in the form of his personal identity with the disillusioned character, a knight despised by the resto As Ana Suárez Miramón points out, "there are constant

references to writers of the Spanish past who were like him, as they tried to show the truth and infuse hope, culture and effort in the

mother country that suffered the punishment of imprisonment and

exile. In this context the value of Cervantes with Don Quixote and

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Francisco Javier

Quevedo is highlighted. With them he tries to bring back Spain from its exíle" 8. However, Don Quixote is not a mere literary

reference, he is a symbol of Spain under a dictatorship, that does not understand the ideal s of the character created by Cervantes, the Spain in which Unamuno is irnmersed and directly suffers: "Don Quixote, symbol of Spain capable of being infused with an ideal,

is the most cited character of Cancionero", and as Suárez Miramón points out: "Alongwith Segismundo his brother he represents, the dream of life, and thus the dream of Spain. In this double dream, Unamuno identifies with him and feels equally lonely in the society that fights fruitlessly for its ideals a new universal Don Quixote. Unamuno raises the categories of man and Spaniard until he can identify Don Quixote with Christ and thus (as he had pointed out in the prologue) with himself. Thus his poetic side (creator of hope), prophet (revealer of the truth and life) and myth (universal symbol of the new Quixotism in its present incarnation of political rebellion against Primo de Rivera) acquires a transcendental value. His exile posture is thus justified to himself and to society." 9.

There are many poems in which there are references to Quixote, related to the present, especially those poems that coincide chronologically with his exile. Thus, on 27 March 1928,

against action and passion, against the nothingness of the philosophers, he proposes:

"1 will leave these servile idiots, I who talk about

action, lhe real gentleman, I and here to be quixotíc, that

Don Quixote I was not a pure doctor in Quixotism". On

8 A. Suárez Marimón, 1987, vol. III, p.28. 9 A. Suárez Marimón, 1987, vol. I1I, pp. 28-29.

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28 June 1928, it is directed to people antagonistic to

three literary myths, who also reveal their special type

of madness: "Sancho, Ciutti and Viernes, governors, I

have subjected people to reason, I otherwise the world

will end up mad: I Don Quixote, Don Juan and

Robinson".

A very interesting poem is the one written on the 29 lune

1928, that begins thus "Ay what a windmill / Don Quixote de la

Mancha / who in my Fuerteventura / ground the gulf of the soul"

(248). In this poem the figure of Don Quixote again appears as a

symbol of his exile, and the quixotic spirit in which he faced life in

those years, which is linked to another, written between the 19 and

20 luly 1928: "In a place in La Mancha / Castilla you 10st your

head; / the naked sun sucked you /who jealously loved you." There

are allusions in the poem to the mockeries the knight had to suffer:

"You were mocked by the great / and by stupid boys / the only

ones who sang your praises /were the goatherds in the hills". While

hope persists: "you flew blindfolded to the sky / on the wings of Clavileño; the plains you're your skies, / the crib of the divine dream". Although in the end everything faIls to the ground. "And

in Barcelona you measured / the dust with your heart; / the sea whispered laments / of another new ballad." (297). On the October

9 a heartfelt romance relates life, dream, hope, deception and honor and Spain with the image of Don Quixote as a symbol of this 10st

Spain (446):

Yo sé quién soy, Don Quijote,

(1 know who 1 am Don Quixote)

gracias a ti, mi señor, (Thanks to you my lord)

y sé quién es nuestra España

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Francisco

(And 1 know who is our Spain) gracias al divino amor. (Thanks to divine love)

Salía el sol por la Mancha (The sun came up on La Mancha) cuando saliste a la flor de tus hazañas de ensueño dándole al cielo esplendor. (When you went out to prove your feats giving glory to the heavens) Espejo del alma andante, (Mirror of the wandering soul) caballero del error, (Knight of mistakes) erraste por los embustes del protervo encantador (you went wrong due to the tricks of the wicked enchanter).

No es sólo sueño la vida, que es engaño (Only deceit is not life and honor is conquering what has been dreamt), y e! honor es conquistar lo soñado ¡con sueño reparador! (with a compensatory dream).

We read in Cervantes' immortal nove!: "I know who I am Don Quixote replied-, and I know that I can be, not only those I have mentioned, but the twelve Peers of France as well, and even all the Nine Paragons of Fame for my deeds will surpass all those

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they have perfonned, together or singly." (1, V). With a similar beginning, "1 know who 1 am, on the oath of the hidalgo", another poem, with the title ("The last quarrel of Don Quixote") written on the 8 November 1928, relates hope with truth while there is a complete identification with the wise knight (Ay, you, my Alonso Quijano!, I my supreme memory I you, my best self'), a1though the

prayer, the quarrel ends with a confession of the same sadness, remembered in the Sorrowful Knight and evoked in the reflection

of life as a dream ("look my soul is sad, I sad to the point of death I sad lime my countenance, I my adventure is a misadventure, I dream of life") (488)

Antonio Machado is generally not remembered amongst those whose verses deal with Don Quixote. But it has to be said that this author has one of the most beautiful and endearing poems amongst all those of militant Quixotism. The Cervantine world of the novel is contained in his verses, as well the most memorable protagonists, its villages and its atmosphere. AH these add upto a fine and entertaining portrait in "La mujer manchega (The Manchegan woman)", which is the title of the poem that belongs to Campos de Castilla (Fields of Castile). The poem that appears in España (Spain), in 1915, has a dedication in the beginning. "A Dulcinea (To Dulcinea)" and, as pointed out, evokes Cervantine places and protagonists like Argamasilla de Alba, the prison in which Cervantes conceived or wrote Don Quixote; Valdepeñas,

that also vies for the honor with other villages of being "Somewhere in La Mancha whose name 1 do not care to

remember" (1, 1); Esquivias, the place where Cervantes' "wife" was boro, Doña Catalina de Salazar Palacios; the niece of Don

Quixote, Ana Quijano, or the wife of don Diego de Miranda, the Knight of the Green Coat, doña Cristina or Teresa Cascajo or Teresa Panza, Sancho' s wife ...

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Francisco

Machado, on the other hand was a great reader of Don

Quíxote, and wrote unforgettabJe words about him, in spite of

figuring in a review in Don Don José Ortega y Gasset's

Meditaciones del Quijote (Meditations of Quixote): "For me Don

Quixote is, first of aH, a Spanish book; secondly a problem barely

raised or, a mystery if you like." Above all Cervantes was a great

spinner of language, of living language, spoken and written; in

great sweeps Cervantes captured a great amount of common

language, which was imbued with the expression of the mentality

of the people. The material with which Cervantes works, the

simple element of his work, is not the vocabulary but the refrain,

the proverb, the saying, the witticism, the anecdote, the idiom, the

common place, popular language. Included in all of this is the

average culture of universities and seminaries. It is difficult to find

in Don Quixote an original witticism, a thought that has the mark

of the soul of its author. A first impression is that Cervantes has

saved himself the work of thinking. He lets field laborers and

scholars, shepherds and soldiers and magistrates pedlars and

vagabonds think for him. From this point of view, Don Quixote is

the encyclopedia of Spanish common sense, of the Spanish

language of the beginning of the 17th Century. lt is neither

Sancho's stubbornness nor Don Quixote's madness that astonishes

and overwhelms us on reading this irnmortal work, but the

marvellous discretion of both". 10 "La mujer manchega (The

Manchegan woman)" has as we said the fullest of this quixotic •• 11 spmt :

10 A. Machado, 1915. pp. 52-64. Y 1986, vol. III, p. 1565. 11 A. Machado, 1986, vol. JI, pp. 565-566.

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La Mancha y sus mujeres ... Argamasilla, Infantes Esquivias, Valdepeñas, la novia de Cervantes, (La Mancha and its women, Argamasilla, Infantes Esquivias, Valdepeñas, the girlfriend of Cervantes) y del manchego heroico, el ama y la sobrina el patio, la alacena, la cueva y la cocina, la rueca y la costura, la cuna y la pitanza,

(and from the heroic Mancha, the wife and the niece, the patio, the larder, the cave, the kitchen, the distaff, the sewing, the crib, the ration)

la esposa de don Diego y la mujer de Panza, (the wives of Don Diego and Panza) la hija del ventero, y tantas como están bajo la tierra, y tantas que son y que serán encanto de manchegos y madres de españoles por tierras de lagares, molinos y arreboles.

(the innkeeper's daughter and many like her who are under the ground and many who will be the delight of Manchegans and the mother of Spaniards, in the land of windmills and red clouds)

Es la mujer manchega garrida y bien plantada, muy sobre sí doncella, perfecta de casada.

(The Manchegan woman is pretty and handsome, full of herself like any young girl, the perfect wife)

El sol de la caliente llanura vinariega quemó su piel, mas guarda frescura de bodega su corazón. Devota, sabe rezar con fe para que Dios nos libre de cuanto no se ve.

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(The sun of the vineyards plains bumt her skin but her

heart has the freshness of a wine ceBar. Holy, she knows how to

pray with faith so that God free us from a11 that is unseen)

Su obra es la casa -menos celada que en Sevilla,

más gineceo y menos castillo que en Castilla-o

(Her handiwork is the house, less complicated than Seville

and less a castle than Castile)

y es del hogar manchego la musa ordenadora;

alinea los vasares, los lienzos alcanfora;

las cuentas de la plaza anota en su diario,

cuenta garbanzos, cuenta las cuentas del rosario.

(And this muse of order belongs to the Manchegan hearth;

She tidies the dresser, and camphorates the linen and notes

the market accounts in her diary, she counts the peas and the rosary

beads)

¿Hay más? Por estos campos hubo un amor de fuego,

dos ojos abrasaron un corazón manchego.

(Is there anything else? In these fields, a fiery love, two

eyes bumt a Manchegan heart)

¿No tuvo en esta Mancha su cuna Dulcinea?

(Wasnt Dulcinea bom here)

¿No es el Toboso patria de la mujer idea

(Isn't Toboso the home of the idea of a woman's heart, the

sed and magnet of hearts who hasn't been impregnated by men and

will yet bear sons?)

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___ P_o_et-,ry and Myth: Reception 01 Don Quixo¡e In ¡he Poe¡ry 01 ¡he Si/ver Age

del corazón, engendro e imán de corazones, a quien varón no impregna y aun parirá varones?

Por esta Mancha -prados, viñedos y molinos­que so el igual del cielo iguala sus caminos,

(On this Mancha, plains, vineyards and windmills that like the sky are all along the way)

de cepas arrugadas en el tostado suelo (of wrinkled vines on the scorched ground) y mustios pastos como raído terciopelo: (and withered grass like threadbare velvet) por este seco llano de sol y lejanía, (on these dry plains of sun and distances) en donde el ojo alcanza su pleno mediodía (where the eye stretches to midday ) (un diminuto bando de pájaros puntea el índigo del cielo sobre la blanca aldea,

(a small band of birds pierces the blue of the sky above the white village)

y allá se yergue un soto de verdes alamillos, (and there líes a thicket of green poplars) tras leguas y más leguas de campos amarillos) (three leagues and more of yellow fields), por esta tierra, lejos del mar y la montaña, (on this land far from the sea and mountains) el ancho reverbero del claro sol de España, (the wide reflection of the clear sun of Spain) anduvo un pobre hidalgo ciego de amor un día -amor nublóle el juicio: su corazón veía-o

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Franci.,eo Javier

(A poor hidalgo blind with love walked love had clouded his judgement his heart looked on)

y tú, la cerca y lejos, por el inmenso llano eterna compañera y estrella de Quijano, (And you near and far, the eternalcompanion and star of

Quijano on the immense plains) lozana labradora fincada en tus terrones (lively farm girl on your land) --oh madre de manchegos y numen de visiones-, viviste, buena Aldonza, tu vida verdadera cuando tu amante erguía su lanza justiciera, y en tu casona blanca ahechando el rubio trigo. (Oh mother of Manchegans and inspirer of dreams you lived. Good Aldonza your real life when your lover

lifted his lance of justice and in your white house chafing the white wheat)

Aquel amor de fuego era por ti y contigo. (That fiery love was for you and with you_.

Mujeres de la Mancha con el sagrado mote de Dulcinea, os salve la gloria de Quijote. (W omen of La Mancha with the sacred mote of Dulcinea may Don Quixote's glory save you)

León Felipe is a much forgotten and often badly understood poet and of course quite unknown for poetry readers of today. Perhaps, his personal story of wanderings and roving, his life as a traveler and pilgrim has deterrnined the reception of his work. Born in a period of transition between two great generations of writers during the first thirty years of the XX Century, a

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contemporary of Juan Ramón Jiménez (who despised his poetry) and a world traveler precisely during the years that his poetry was becoming known, he remained away from many of the established canons, although Gerardo Diego included him in the second edition of his famous anthology of 1934, as he was a personal

friend of his when Felipe was a chemist in Santander.

The literary oeuvre of León Felipe begins with Versos y

oraciones del caminante 1 (Verses and prayers of wanderer l)

(1920-1929), a poetic work that reveals his obsession for wandering without fixed place for settlement. He reiterates this in Versos y oraciones del caminante II (Verses and prayers of Wanderer II)(l929) and in Drop a star (1933). Here together with

the metaphysical sense of instability, there is the component of fate, luck and destiny that will lead him to wandering paths. When the Civil War breaks out, his poetry ineludes a commitment of defence against injustice, reflected in his immediate works like La insignia

(Insignia) (1936), El payaso de las bofetadas (Iñe clown of blows)

(1938), Pescador de caña (Cane fisherman) (1938), and El hacha ( Iñe axe) (1939). During the period of his exile, he became one of the most angry voices among the exiled and his verses cried out against oppression and tyranny in Español del éxodo y del llanto

(Spaniard against exodus and cries) (1939) and in the El gran responsable (Iñe great responsible one) (1940). He immersed himself in the foIlowing books in the search of his personal destiny and in the metaphysical intensity of his own thoughts, especially in

his book ofpoems Ganarás la luz (You will reach the light) (1943),

but also in Llamadme republicano (Call me a Republican) (1950) or El ciervo (Iñe Deer) (1954). After he finished his writing in

1965, there still appear two surprising books: Oh, este viejo y solo

violín (Oh this old and lonely violin) (1968) and Rocinante

(Rocinante) (1969), published after his death. The figure of

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Francisco

Quixote emerges here not as the adventurous knight but as a victim of Spanish misunderstanding and incomprehension.

Of course, amongst the most noteworthy figures of Spanish poetry of the Silver Age, León Felipe is, undoubtedly the one who demonstrated maximum loyalty to the figure of Don Quixote. For him, Quixote was not anymore just a symbol, but a complex allegory of Spain, as is evident in numerous and sorne very long poems, and even in whole books. The first poem in which the figure of Don Quixote appears is found in his first book Versos y oraciones de caminante, (Verses and prayers of a

wanderer). Here, with the title "Vencidos" (Conquered) there is the figure of the defeated knight who, León Felipe completely identifies with, as they are both refugees and have suffered defeat in the face of injustice and power 12:

Por la manchega llanura se vuelve a ver la figura de Don Quijote pasar ... (On the Manchegan plains one again sees Don Quixote's

figure go by)

y ahora ociosa y abollada va en el rucio la armadura, (and now idle and worn out the armour on the horse y va ocioso el caballero, sin peto y sin espaldar ... (and the knight goes idly by, without his breastplate and

without his shield, he goes by with bitterness) va cargado de amargura ... que allá encontró sepultura su amoroso batallar ...

12 L. Felipe, 2004, p. 88.

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_____ Poetry and Myth: Receplion of Don Quixote In ¡hePoetry of the Si/ver Age

va cargado de amargura ... que allá «quedó su ventura» en la playa de Barcino, frente al mar ... (his longed for battles He buried, he goes by bitterly beca use there lies his adventure, on the beach in Barcelona in front of the sea)

Por la manchega llanura se vuelve a ver la figura de Don Quijote pasar ... va cargado de amargura ... va, vencido, el caballero de retorno a su lugar. (On the Manchegan plains. one again sees the figure of Don

Quixote go by, he is full of bitterness, he goes by beaten again to his place)

Cuántas veces, Don Quijote, por esa misma llanura en horas de desaliento así te miro pasar ... y cuántas veces te grito: Hazme un sitio en tu montura y llévame a tu lugar; hazme un sitio en tu montura caballero derrotado, hazme un sitio en tu montura que yo también voy cargado de amargura y no puedo batallar. Ponme a la grupa contigo, caballero del honor, ponme a la grupa contigo y llévame a ser contigo pastor.

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Francisco

(How many times, Don Quixote during moments of disillusionment have 1 seen you cross these plains

and how many times have 1 shouted to you, make me a place on your horse, vanquished knight

make me a place on your horse as 1 am also fuIl of bittemess and 1 cannot fight anymore.

Put me on the rump with you honorable knight Put me on the rump with you and take me with you to be a

shepherd.

Por la manchega llanura se vuelve a ver la figura de Don Quijote pasar... (On the Manchegan pIains one sees the figure of Don Quixote

go by)

This is the first encounter between the defeated knight and the dejected poet, defeated by the misadventures that unite them, and joined by the cornmon feeling of desolation. For León Felipe, this is a moment as unfortunate as it is contradictory. But the great images that Don Quixote will represent are still to come in the future. As in this initial poem León Felipe is closer to the interpretation of the generation just before bis - that of Unamuno, Azorín, Maeztu, Ortega. This is also the case in Versos y oraciones de caminante, (Verses and Prayers of a Wayfarer) in the well known poem "Romero solo (Lonely Romero)" he will inelude the following verses: "One day we all know how to do justice; I like the Hebrew king, I knew how I Sancho the knight I and Pedro Crespo the farmer" The relation of the Quixotic world with justice is a background for the great Cervantine poems of León Felipe, although even the mistake, represented by Don Quixote, and coinciding with Unamuno, will be the theme of a brief poem in his

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Poetry ami Myth: Reception oi Don Quixote In the Poetry oi the Silva Age

first book: "Now what is happening to mel is the opposite of what happened to the Manchegan hidalgo: Ithat I consider armíes I flocks of sheep".

In Versos y oraciones de caminante JI (Verses and prayers

of a wanderer JI) he presents us with the figure of Sancho Panza, also on the way to being mythified. In another celebrated poem by León Felipe, "A foot for the Child of Vallecas, from V elázquez", which is preceded by an inscription: "Basin, Helmet, Halo, I This is the order of Sancho". The poet recovers the quixotic symbols in the poem: "One returns always. Always. I Till one day (One fine day!) I Mambrino's helmet I -now a halo, not a helmet nor a basin-is seen around Sancho's temples I and around yours and around mine I identicall as if made to order. I Then we will go. AH

of us I behind the scenes: I Y ou and 1 and Sancho and the child from Vallecas I and the mystic and the suicidal one.',13

Sorne years pass before the myth appears in León Felipe's poetry. As Miguel Nieto Nuño has pointed out, in the poem "Pie para el niño de Vallecas, de Velázquez (A foot for the child of

Vallecas from Velázquez) the only thing lacking was action for it to be an epic poem". León Felipe then calls upon the dream which Don Quixote has in Cervantes' novel, awakens the knight and makes him put on his arms on the shield of history. The myth was forged, as with only his invocation he gathered and enthused as many as he wanted who were unable to participate directly in the cause of light and it was so because he showed the essence of those who participated in the same blood of his symbol" 14.

Don Quixote figures in the work of León Felipe as one who has been disinherited, soli tary , without a country, fighting for

13 L. Felipe, 2004, pp. 144-145. 14 M. Nieto Nuño, 1986, p. 109.

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Francisco Javier

freedom and justice through the plains of La Mancha. But in the two last poems, alongwith Don Quixote there are other figures of the great novel who are complementary symbols in the construction of the great and complex myth. This happens with Sancho Panza, and also with Rocinante. The new kind of myth first appears in the poem that starts thus: ¡Oh, este viejo y roto violín!, (Oh this old and broken violín) in which we find the Manchegan knight returning to his land to Uve there, as the title of the poem, "La gran aventura" (The great adventure) suggests: "Four centuries have passed ... I And Rocinante retums very tired. I Years and years of dark and bloody adventures ... I Walking and walking on the rough and twisted roads of History." 15 The poet continues with the known trademark of the two Cervantine characters on the Manchegan plains, now seen in a new light: "And the two come, I kníght and squire, I silent I slowly I on their humble and glorious mounts ... I on the open and bumíng plain of Castile. I Under its blinding light! I Oh, what a light! lItis not a favorable light for the great poetic metaphor, I the great miracles and surprise !,,16

The poet, from his radical position, recovers the meaning and representation of Spanish Quixotism, but everything is different about it: the disquieting image of the knight of the sorrowful countenance, literarily appropriated by the writers of the beginning of the century, is treated afresh by León Felipe: Don Quixote does not figure as the angry and hallucinating knight, sure of himself, ready to hit out at anything that goes against him, but the ingenious hidalgo ready to have a dialogue with Sancho Panza on the dove that willlead Jesús in the Jordan. Thus in the "Diálogo perdido (Lost Dialogue between Don Quijote y Sancho)" 17:

15 León Felipe, 2004, p. 733. 16 León Felipe, 2004, p 733. 17 León Felipe, 2004, p. 788-789.

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-Todos andan buscando, Sancho, una paloma por el mundo

y nadie la encuentra. (Everyone is looking Sancho for a dove in the world and

nobody finds one) -Pero ¿qué paloma es la que buscan? (But which dove are they looking for?)

-Es una paloma blanca que lleva en el pico el último rayo amoroso de luz que queda ya sobre la tierra. (It is a dove who has in its beak the last loving ray of light that

is left on earth) -Como la golondrina de Tristán. (Like Tristan's swalIow) -Eso, como la golondrina de Tristán. Bien te acuerdas

Sancho. (Yes like Tristan's swallow, you remember weIl Sancho) Aquel cabello dorado de Isolda

que dejó caer la golondrina sobre el hombro cansado del Rey era el rayo de amor que andaba buscando el hombre sobre la

tierra (That golden hair of Isolde that the swallow dropped on the

shoulder of the King was the ray of love that man was looking for on earth)

Pero no es esto ... Hay otra definición; te lo explicaré mejor:

(But it is not just this, there is another definition that 1 will explain better to you)

esa paloma que andan buscando es aquella que una vez se le posó en la cabeza

a un pobre Nazareno en el Jordán;

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Francisco

(This dove that they are looking for is the one that once hopped on the head of a poor Nazarene in Jordan)

aquello si fue un buen juego de prestidigitación: un hombre sencillo entra a bañarse en el Jordán,

se le posa una paloma blanca sobre la cabeza y sale de las aguas ...

convertido en el hijo de la Luz ... en el hijo de Dios ...

en el hijo del Hombre ... (That of course was a good sleight of hand: a simple man enters to bathe in the River Jordan,

and a dove hops on his head and he comes out of the water now a son of Light in the son of God in the son of Man.) y aquel juego se hizo sin trucos y sin trampas ... (And that game was without tricks or traps) por eso fue un gran milagro. (For this reason it was a great mirac1e) j JEI gran milagro del mundo!! (The great miracle of the world!)

Desde entonces el Hombre vale más ... (Since then Man has greater value) y desde entonces todos andan buscando esa paloma para que

se haga otra vez el Milagro ...

(And since then everyone is looking for this bird so that the Miracle take place all over again)

iY el Hombre valga más! (And so that Man be valued more!)

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In the same way, Rocinante has the value of being the

protagonist of a whole book and represents the poet. Rocinante had aIread y emerged as a symbol in the poem "La gran aventura (The great adventure)" 18 ("And I also salute you, Rocinante ... I Oh oId

horse without pedigree. I Y ou don't have a pedigree ... I But your glory is greater than aIl those of "pure blood" in the world. I Y our breeding as you master wanted I springs from you within." The vision of the horse in Oh, este viejo y roto violín, (Oh this old and

broken violin) goes into a whole book, Rocinante, where one

passes from a symbol to a myth. As Miguel Nieto Nuño points out, "in the quixotic fire that motivated León Felipe' s verse, the poet identified with those without a people or a country like such as the

knight who had lost his mount. However the perspectives changed with Rocinante, León Felipe's last work. Don Quixote had achieved the transfiguration of the myth in the earlier poem "The

great adventure", he had reached a place where the poet could not

reach him anymore. The humble mount remained here, on the land that sighed for light; the Spanish people remained behind and the poef also remained behind those who had to support the hero at that altitude; León Felipe's identification is now with Rocinante,,19.

He thus clarifies and defines in a posthumous book: "People say, I The Americans, I The North Americans generally say: I León Felipe is a "Don Quixote". I Not so, gentlemen, not so. I I just support the hero nothing more ... I and yes I can say .. , I and 1 like saying: / that 1 am Rocinante.,,20

These were the different ideas of four great poets about an eterna} creatíon, that of Don Quixote, who we see in these

examples bcing con verted from poetry into myth.

lB León Felipe, 2004, p 733 19 M. Nieto Nuño, 1986, p. 119 20 León Felipe, p 940.

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Francisco

Bibliograpby

Darío, R., Azul ... Cantos de vida y esperanza, ed. José María Martínez, Madrid, Cátedra, 1995.

Darío, R., El viaje a Nicaragua e Historia de mis libros, Madrid, Mundo Latino, 1919.

Felipe, L., Poesías completas, ed. José Paulino, Madrid, Visor, 2004.

Machado, A., "Las Meditaciones del Quijote de José Ortega y

Gasset", La Lectura, 169, enero 1915, pp. 52-64 ..

Machado, A., Obras completas, ed. Oreste Macri, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1988.

Nieto Nuño, M., Memoria de tierra y luz. Castilla-La mancha en la

vida y en la obra de León Felipe, Homenaje de Castilla-La Mancha a León Felipe, Toledo, Junta de Comunidades de Castilla­La Mancha, 1986.

Suárez Marimón, A., edición de Miguel de Unamuno, Poesía completa, ed., Madrid, Alianza, 1987

Unamuno, M. de, Poesía completa, ed. Ana Suárez Marimón, Madrid, Alianza, 1987.

Unamuno, M. de., "Grandes, negros y caídos", Los Lunes del

Imparcial, 3 de noviembre de 1914.

Urrutia Jordana, A., La poetización de la política en el Unamuno

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Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, 2003.

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