Francisco Villaespesa

Francisco Villaespesa Martín (Laujar de Andarax, October 15, 1877-Madrid, April 9, 1936) was a Spanish modernist poet, playwright and narrator.

Biography

He was born in the Almería town of Laujar de Andarax on October 15, 1877. The landscape of the Alpujarra, steeped in history and exalting the senses, profoundly marked his work. He began studying Law at the University of Granada, but in 1897, at the age of twenty, he abandoned them and went to Malaga, where he joined the bohemian life with Narciso Díaz de Escovar, Ricardo León and Salvador González Anaya. That same year he continued his bohemian life in Madrid, where he subsisted dedicated to journalism and collaborating in numerous magazines and newspapers. There he frequented the gatherings at the Café de Levante and the Fornos, where he met Eduardo Zamacois, Alejandro Sawa, Catarineu, Fernández Vaamonde and all the others from the Germinal magazine group, where he would publish the first works of him

Caricatured by Tovar (1917)

Around 1898 his first book of poems, Intimidades, was printed and he would meet his future wife, Elisa González Columbio (died 1903), who would inspire some of his most beloved books, such as Tristitiae rerum (1906). He founded modernist magazines such as Electra , La Revista Ibérica and La Revista Latina . The great success of his play El alcázar de las perlas (1911) opened the keys to the theater for him. He traveled through Portugal and Italy and settled for more than ten years in Latin America. There he met a multitude of poets and members of the Spanish-American intelligentsia. An admirer of the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío, he was his best and most faithful disciple in the aesthetics of modernism that both tried to promote in Spain. He was a poet of torrential and extensive work: more than fifty published books of poems and several unpublished ones. He also wrote several popular novels and plays such as El alcázar de las perlas (1911) and Aben-Humeya (1913). His theater is mostly of a historical nature and in it dominates the great scenery and formal luxury. In his tribute. the Provincial Public Library of Almería, located in the capital, bears his name.

His first collections of poems (Intimidades, from 1898, and Luchas, from 1899) present strong reminiscences of the late Romanticism of José Zorrilla (musicality, oriental themes) and colorism by Salvador Rueda. With The Cup of the King of Thule (1900) he decidedly inserted himself into modernism, of whose poetic renewal he was the earliest spokesperson and main architect. Indeed, he invited Juan Ramón Jiménez to go to Madrid to "fight for modernism"; and, as he would later remind him, he was "the champion, the crusader, the fighter of modernism". However, despite the capital importance that he managed to acquire in the literary context of the 1900s, the work of the poet, playwright and novelist from Almería has reached our days blurred by the forgetfulness of readers and the scant editorial and academic attention that has come suffering for decades. His most important books coincide with the first years of the century. From approximately 1906, an orientalist note appears in his verses. Other poetic books are Under the rain, 1910; The pools of twilight, 1911, and Andalusia, 1911.

Reading María de Padilla, from Villaespesa, before a public of writers. The author is on the right of the actor.

In the capital, he made friends with Antonio Ledesma Hernández and Francisco Aquino and collaborates in the Almeria press: La Crónica, La Provincia, El Ferrocarril. In a second stage in Madrid, he began to publish in Revista Nueva and La Vida Literaria , in addition to directing El Álbum de Madrid ; He is related to Pío Baroja, Azorín, Ramiro de Maeztu, Valle-Inclán, Jacinto Benavente, Mariano Miguel de Val, Salvador Rueda, Amado Nervo and Rubén Darío himself. In 1917 he moved to the American continent, passing through Mexico, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, to return to Madrid around 1921; he would return to America again, traveling to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Colombia, Panama, Peru, Bolivia, Antofagasta, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Brazil, where he suffered an attack of hemiplegia in April 1931. He then returned to Spain, where his ills worsened in 1933; He died on April 9, 1936 in Madrid, at the age of 58.

He is the father of former actress Lola Villaespesa (1918-2005).

Works

The work of Francisco Villaespesa is very extensive; he wrote 51 books of poems, not counting the verses of circumstances and the great facet of him as a sonnetist. Twenty-five plays and some short novels are also counted to his credit.

Lyrical

• Intimities (1898), with a prologue of Vaamonde.
• Fights (1899), Madrid, Ed. Apolaza. Prologue of Salvador Rueda.
• Trusts, M., C. Apaloaza, (1899).
• The cup of the king of Thule (1900), editorial Lux, 3rd ed. in 1909.
• The high of the Bohemians (1902).
• Rapsodia (1905), M., Imp. Valero Díaz.
• The sick muse (1901).
• Songs of the way (1906). Prologue of Manuel Cardía.
• Tristitiae rerum (1906).
• Carmen: Songs (1907).
• The courtyard of the arrayanes (1908), M., Imp. Balgañón and Moreno.
• Lindaraxa's viewpoint (1908), M., Pueyo, s.f.
• The Book of Job (1909), M., Pueyo.
• The chimera gardenB., Edit. Atlantean, continuation of the edic. of Granada, s.f., 1909?
• The hours spent (1909), M., F. Granada and Cía.
• Sentimental travel, M., American Hispanic Library (1909).
• Under the rain (1910).
• The remnants of the twilight (1911).
• Andalusia (1911).
• Ivory Tower.
• Saudades.
• In memoriam.
• Dream glasses.
• Lands of charm and wonder.
• The nights of the Generalife.
• Peace, love.
• The Book of Love and Death.
• The lonely star.
• Xochimilco Tardes (1919)Mexico, Ed. Blacksmith.
• The Conquerors (1920)Caracas, Editorial Victoria.
• Indian Wales
• The charm of the Alhambra
• Panderetas y sevillanas
• I sing to the regions of Spain.
• Empty hands (1935).
• Solar corner (1936, posthumous).

Compilations and anthologies

• My best stories, Madrid, Prensa Popular, 1921.
• Complete poetry, edition of Federico de Mendizábal, Madrid, Aguilar, 2 vols., 1954.
• Complete Novels, foreword by Federico de Mendizábal, Madrid, Aguilar, 1952.
• Theatre chosen, preliminary note by F. R. S., Madrid, Aguilar, 1951.
• Thule. Poetic anthology, 1898-1936ed. José Andújar Almansa, Seville, Renaissance, 2017.

Theater

• The dawn of the pearls (1911).
• Aben-Humeya (1913).
• Doña María de Padilla (1913).
• It was him. (1914)
• Judith, biblical tragedy in three acts (1915).
• Goya's maja (1917).
• Hernán Cortés (1917).
• Bolívar.
• La leona de Castilla.
• The falconero.

• King Galaor.

Narrative

The last AbderramanNo. 143 of The Weekly Tale (24 September 1909). Agustin's cover.

• The Miracle of Roses (1907).
• The last Abderraman (1909).
• The gentle miracles (1911).
• The Revenge of Aisha (1911).
• Penelope's fabric (1913).
• The Knight of the Miracle (1916).
• The city of the opals (1921).

Tributes in buildings and public roads

Streets in the towns of: Almería, Madrid, Laujar de Andarax, El Ejido, Albox, Pechina, Dos Hermanas, Huelva, Ensanche La Fé, in Santiago de los Caballeros (Dominican Republic), Alicante, Pinto (Madrid), San Luis Potosí (Mexico), Coahuila (Mexico), Terque.

Schools: CEIP Francisco Villaespesa in El Parador de las Hortichuelas (Almería), CEIP Villaespesa in Lorca (Murcia), Francisco Villaespesa School in San Joaquín (Chile).

Libraries: Provincial Public Library of Almería, Municipal Public Library of Laujar de Andarax.

Theatres: Villaespesa Theater in Sorbas (Almería).