Gabriel Celaya

Rafael Gabriel Juan Múgica Celaya Leceta, known as Gabriel Celaya (Hernani, Guipúzcoa, March 18, 1911 - Madrid, April 18, 1991), was a Spanish poet of the postwar literary generation.

Celaya was one of the most outstanding representatives of what was called "committed poetry" or social poetry. His work and his figure had the influence and were the result of close collaboration with his wife, Amparo Gastón.

Biography

His full name was Rafael Gabriel Juan Múgica Celaya Leceta, which he took advantage of to sign his works as Rafael Múgica, Juan de Leceta or Gabriel Celaya. Pressured by his father, he settled in Madrid, where he began his engineering studies and worked for a time as a manager in the family business.

Between 1927 and 1935 he lived in the Student Residence, where he met Federico García Lorca, José Moreno Villa and other intellectuals who inclined him towards the field of literature, leading him to dedicate himself entirely to poetry. He fought during the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side and was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Palencia. In 1946 he founded in San Sebastián, with his inseparable Amparo Gastón, the poetry collection "Norte" and since then he abandoned his profession of engineering and his position in his family's company.

The poetry collection "North" was intended to bridge the gap between the poetry of the generation of 1927, that of exile and Europe. Thus, under this publishing label, translations by Rainer Maria Rilke, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Éluard or William Blake appear.

In 1946 he published Tentativas, a prose book in which he signed for the first time as Gabriel Celaya. This first stage is existentialist in nature.

In the fifties it was integrated into the aesthetics of commitment (Lo desa es silencio 1952 and Cantos Iberos 1955, true bible of social poetry). Together with Eugenio de Nora and Blas de Otero, he defends the idea of a non-elitist poetry, at the service of the majority, "to transform the world".

Let's sing like he's breathing. Let's talk about what we care about every day. Nothing human must be left out of our work. In the poem there must be mud, with forgiveness of poets. Poetry is not an end in itself. Poetry is an instrument, among others, to transform the world

Gabriel Celaya, quoted by Rodríguez Puértolas et. Al in Social history of Spanish literature)

In 1956 he moved to live in the neighborhood of La Prosperidad, the same year that he won the Critics' Award for his book De claro en claro.

When this model of social poetry entered into crisis, Celaya returned to his poetic origins. He published The Deaf Lantern and republished poems prior to 1936. He also essayed experimental poetry and concrete poetry in Semantic Fields (1971).

Between 1977 and 1980 his Complete Works were published in five volumes.

Contrary to the Franco regime, after the dictatorship, he presented himself as a candidate for Guipúzcoa in the 1977 general elections, on the list of the Communist Party.

He was awarded the Critics Award (1957), the International Libera Stampa Award (1963), the Etna-Taormina International Award (1967), the Atalaya Award (1967) and in 1986 he was awarded the National Award for Spanish Letters for the Culture Ministry. That same year he published The Open World.

In short, Celaya's work constitutes a great synthesis of almost all the concerns and styles of Spanish poetry of the XX century.

He died on April 18, 1991 in Madrid and his ashes were scattered in his native Hernani.

Works

Rememorative plaque in the house of Madrid where Gabriel Celaya lived until his death.

Poetry

• Marea of silence, 1935
• Loneliness closed1947
• Elementary movements1947
• Quietly speaking1947 (signed as Juan de Leceta)
• Poetic objects1948
• The endless principle, 1949
• It looks like love, 1949
• Things like, 1949
• Deriva, Alicante, 1950
• Letters up, 1951
• The rest is silence1952
• One hundred flying (with Amparo Gastón), 1953
• She was dead.1954
• Iberian songs1955
• Cose and sing (with Amparo Gastón), 1955
• Of course.1956
• Interacto1957
• Diamond resistances1957
• Heavenly music (with Amparo Gastón), 1958
• Cantatata in Aleixandre1959
• The heart in its place1959
• For you two., 1960
• Urgent situation, 1960
• Good life1961
• The poems of Juan de Leceta1961
• Rapsodia eúskara1961
• National Episode1962
• Mazorcas1962
• Autumn Versus1963
• Two cantatas1963
• The flashlight1964
• Ballads and Basque words1965
• What was missing, 1967
• Poems of Rafael Múgica, 1967
• Transparent mirrors, 1968
• I sing on my own, 1968
• Complete poetry1969
• Poetic operations, 1971
• Semantic fields, 1971
• Probation1973
• Function of One, Equis, Ene F (1.X.N)1973
• Right and wrong1973
• The daughter of Arbigorriya1975
• The red thread (Meeting political poetry), 1977
• Part of war, 1977
• Complete poetry (I-VI Volume), 1977-80
• Good morning, good night.1978
• Iberia submerged1978
• Orific poems1981
• Penultimate poems1982
• Songs and myths1984
• Basque Trilogy1984
• The Open World1986
• Origen / Hastapenak1990
• Complete poetry2001-04
• Messages2002

Tests

• Art as Language, 1951
• Poetry and truth1959
• Juan Manuel Caneja1959
• Exploration of poetry1964
• Castilla, a cultural reader (with Phyllis Turnbull), 1960
• Inquisition of poetry, 1972
• The Voice of Children, 1972
• Bécquer, 1972
• The spaces of Chillida1974
• What was missing from Gabriel Celaya1984
• Reflections on my poetry, 1987
• Literary trials2009

Prosa

• Tentative, 1946
• Lazaro calla, 1949
• Penultimate attempts, 1960
• One and the other1962
• Good business1965
• Inmemorial memories1980

Drama

• The relay1963
• Rites and charades. Complete theatrical work1985