Jose Maria Heredia

José María Heredia y Heredia (Santiago de Cuba, December 31, 1803- Mexico City, May 7, 1839) was a Cuban-born poet considered by many to be the first romantic poet. of America, the initiator of romanticism in Latin America and one of the most important poets of the Spanish language. In more recent years this romantic affiliation has been qualified, pointing out the importance of neoclassicism and the aesthetics of Enlightenment sensibility for Heredian thought and work. He is known as the "Cantor of Niagara" and was named Cuba's national poet.

He was also a prominent humanist, prosecutor, judge of letters, lawyer, professor, historian, translator, journalist, secretary, historical novelist, soldier, playwright, congressman, and director of the Literary Institute of the State of Mexico. He was private secretary of Antonio López de Santa Anna in 1832; he was also a proprietor deputy in the Congress of the State of Mexico in 1833 and minister of the Audiencia in Mexico.He should not be confused with the Cuban poet and translator José María de Heredia Girard (1842-1905), who was the cousin-brother of the.

Biography

Son of José Francisco de Heredia y Mieses and María de la Merced Heredia and Campuzano-Polanco, natives of Santo Domingo. While still small he moved with his family to Santo Domingo, where he spent most of his childhood. His father was named Oidor and Regent of the Royal Audience of Caracas in 1810 and the family moved to Venezuela. In 1818, back in Cuba, he began his law studies at the University of Havana, which he continued the following year in Mexico. After the death of his father José Francisco Heredia in October 1820 (he was assassinated in Mexico), in 1821 José María returned to Cuba. Two years after receiving his doctorate in law, he established himself as a lawyer in Matanzas. By this time he had collaborated in different newspapers, among them El Revisor , and directed the weekly La Biblioteca de las Damas . In 1823, about to publish an edition of his poetry, he became involved in the Conspiracy & # 34; Soles y Rayos de Bolívar & # 34; and he had to rush to the United States.

His life in that country is widely documented in his correspondence, among others, with Domingo del Monte, published by the Revista de Cuba. The first edition of his verses appeared in 1825 in New York. He is credited with the historical novel Jicoténcal , published anonymously in 1826 in Philadelphia, although the authorship is also attributed to other writers, such as his compatriot Félix Varela or the Spanish Félix Mejía. In 1825 he undertook his second trip to Mexico and on the voyage he wrote the Hymn of the Banished . His activity in Mexico was rich and varied. Among other legal and administrative functions, he served as a professor of Literature and History, legislator, judge of Cuernavaca, as well as judge and prosecutor of the Audiencia de México. In 1832 he published in Toluca a second edition of his verses, considerably revised and enlarged. He was editor of several magazines such as El Iris and La Miscelánea , and main editor of El Conservador .

Monument to Heredia in the Niagara Falls

In 1836, after making a public retraction of his independence ideals, he obtained permission to return to Cuba. His stay on the island lasted four months. In great pain and deadly discouragement, he returned to Mexico, where President Guadalupe Victoria offered him asylum. At the age of thirty-five, he died of tuberculosis, a disease he had contracted in the United States, on May 7, 1839 in the city of Toluca (another authorized version affirms that he died in the Mexican capital).

José María Heredia spent many years in exile in the United States and Mexico outside of his homeland. Many of his poems reflect a mixture of tropical sensuality and dreamy melancholy, often inspired by nostalgia for him. The strength and beauty of nature and the focus on individuality emerge strongly in his poems. Some of his works are extraordinary descriptive compositions where he captures his fine and fast perception of nature. One of the central characteristics of his work is also the spiritual sense of the physical landscape.

It has been said that "if the United States had Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe, Latin America had the poet José María Heredia" As far as the prominence and literary importance of his poetry is concerned, his romanticism is that of the search and longing for freedom, both political and literary. To this extent, his poetry comes directly from his life.

The life of José María Heredia is one of the main themes of Leonardo Padura's work La novela de mi vida published in 2002.

For many years, Heredia was regarded as a mere translator of French and Italian tragedies of the 18th century, but recently Guillermo Schmidhuber proved that the Heredian tragedies were original as they are a Paraphrasian translation that reduces the size of the days and even changes the number of characters. In the same way as Shakespeare wrote his Julio César , adapting the classic story, so Heredia wrote his tragedies; in fact, The Last Romans, by Heredia, coincides in theme with Shakespearean tragedy. Another literary contribution is the poetic capacity of the Heredian parliaments that could not be surpassed by any Spanish-American or Spanish playwright of the romantic period.

Works

Among the many editions of Heredian poetry, the Complete Poems of José María Heredia: Critical Edition, ed. Tilmann Altenberg (Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2020).

• Poets (on the Internet Archive, 1858)
• Lyric poetry (on Internet Archive, 1893)

Poems

• A Elpino (Happy, Elpino, the one who never knows)
• A Emilia (From the fatal soil of his banishment)
• Bye.Beauty of pain, in whom I thought)
• To the star of Venus (Silent evening star)
• To the beauty (Sweet beauty, of the daughter heavens)
• To Lola in his days (Go back to my arms, delicious Lira)
• To my lover (It's a half night, steamy calm)
• To my wife in her days (Oh! How pure and serene)
• To the ocean (What! From the waves the insane hervor)
• Al PopocatépetlYou that of eternal snow crowned)
• Absences and memories (What deep sadness, how empty)
• Calm in the sea (Heaven is pure)
• The woe of me (How hard is man)
• In the Teocalli of Cholula (How beautiful the land they lived in.)
• In a storm, also called "Oda al Hurricane", (Hurricane, hurricane, coming I'm sorry)
• Hymn to the banished (Cuba, you gave me life.)
• Hymn to the SunIn the deserts of the sea, where you live)
• Number (You still keep, dear tree.)
• The North Station (I was already tempted by the fatty man)
• The inconstant (In that peaceful retreat)
• Melancholy (Lone leaves and mustia)
• Item (To God, beloved, to God!)
• The resolution (Never from soft peace and comfort)
• The recesses (Why, my beloved)
• Niagara (Niagara)Template my lira, give it to me, I feel)
• Oda at nightQueen the night: with grave silence)
• Oda al cometa de 1825 (Horror Planet, Sky Monster)
• Sáficos (Sweet memory of my garment)
• Return to the south (Fly the ship: the dark beaches)

Sonnets

• To my dear (Come, sweet friend, let your love implore:)
• ImmortalityWhen in the foul and serene ether)
• The mistrust (Look, my good, how musty and discarded )
• To be recorded on a tree (Tree, that of Fileno and his worship)
• I remember (Destiny just the pink aurora)
• Renunciating poetry (It was time for sweet poetry)
• Soneto to my wife (When in my fervent veins,)
• Vanity of wealth (If the pale death is blown)

Dramatic Play

• The creepy peasantin Havana, in 1818. Undoubtedly it is original from Heredia; it is a comic toy that goes up to the scene Afro-Cuban characters. It wasn't published. ♪
• Eduardo IV or the usurper clemente, in an act and in prose, was represented in Matanzas, Cuba, in February 14 and 23 of 1819 by a group of fans, with Heredia in the role of Guillermo. One possibility is that it is a translation from the work of Thomas Heywood, Eduard IV, published in 1600; since the original includes the character of Guillermo de Hastings, the same name of the character that the young Heredia acted. It wasn't published.
• Atreowhich was presented on 16 February 1822 in Matanzas, Cuba (Cairo 2003: 244). This piece is adapted by Atreo and Tiestes (1707), from the French playwright Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674-1762). It wasn't published.
• Sila It was published in 1825 in Mexico by Heredia and represented on December 12, 1825, “in the celebrity of the day of the most excellent Mr. D. Guadalupe Victoria, president of the United Mexican States”, as the edition affirms on its cover. Heredia's text: "In Sila I made a tyrant admiring the eternal majesty of the peoples (1827: vi). Paráfrasis de la obra del francés Étienne de Jouy (1764-1846).
• Abufar or The Arab Family, work that was mentioned in 1830 by his author in his Miscellaneous; finished in Cuba and published until 1875. Inspired by Jean-François Ducis (1733-1816), French author, who successfully adapted several pieces of Shakespeare to the scene: Hamlet, Otelo and Le Roi Lear.
• Tiberius was represented on January 8, 1827 at the Teatro Principal de México by the famous Spanish actor Andrés Prieto. Posted in Mexico in 1827 by Heredia. Inspired by the neoclassical tragedy of Josep-Marie Chenier (1764-1811), Tibère (1804).
• The last Romans, published by Heredia in December 1829, in Tlálpam (sic.), Mexico. His late premiere was on November 30, 1889, at Hardman Hall (New York); José Martí led the launch and presented a magnificent speech. It was a fundraising function to acquire the poet's house in Matanzas.
• Saultragedy in five acts. The namepiece of the Italian Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803). He was a king of Israel who proceeded as a tyrant and suffered as a victim. Cited by M. Menéndez and Pelayo. Piece that is a homonym of the romantic drama of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Saul (1849). Heredia finished it at the end of 1835.

For an analysis of Heredia's dramatic work, see Guillermo Schmidhuber and Olga Martha Peña Doria, Heredia Independentista, poet, playwright (Universidad de Guadalajara, 2017) and Guillermo Schmidhuber, Heredia, his years in Mexico (Instituto Mexiquense de Cultural, 2017).