Francisco Antonio Gavidia Guandique (1863 in San Miguel – 24 September 1955 in San Salvador) was a prominent Salvadoran writer, historian, politician, speaker, translator, educator and journalist. His poetry evolved from romanticism to a reflective direction and conceptual character. He was greatly influenced by French poetry of the time and he introduced Rubén Darío to adapt the Alexandrian verse to the Castilian metre in addition to entering the story, poetry and essays. The trajectory of his poetry is similar to the one of his theater, as he demonstrates in his dramas Jupiter (1885), Ursino (1889), Count of San Salvador or the God of the things (1901), Lucia Lasso or the Pirates (1914) and the Ivory Tower (1920), and the dramatic poem Princess Catalá (1944).
Childhood
A son of Francisco Antonio Gavidia and of Eloisa Guandique de Gavidia, was born in the municipality of Cacahuatique, today Ciudad Barrios, San Miguel, El Salvador. Due to the loss of the original birth certificate, there was a debate about the year of his birth. According to Hugo Lindo, the year 1865 was chosen because there were indications that supported this theory, but there are other data that approach the year to 1863. In fact, according to a Decree of the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of El Salvador, the latter is recognized as the date of his birth.
Due to the death of his mother, when it counted on 8 years of age, Francisco Gavidia moved to the property of his father located in the north of the San Miguel department of San Miguel, in the present municipality of Ciudad Barrios. In 1880, he obtained the Bachelor's degree in Sciences and Letters, and then moved to San Salvador where he entered the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the University of El Salvador. However, he left the race after a year, to become a self-taught.
Links with Rubén Darío
By 1882, he was a member of the literary group "La Juventud" and already showed a strong interest in French verses. It was in that same year, according to numerous sources, that knew to Rubén Darío. Both developed a strong friendship until the point that in 1890, Gavidia was godfather of weddings of Darío.
Career
Countless books in Spanish and French passed through his hands. In order to recover from the illness caused by overwork and mental fatigue resulting from his intense intellectual activity, he was sent to Paris by order of the president Rafael Zaldívar.
Gavidia had a large cultural heritage and was able to find a place in the city of Gavidia. It mentions that he dominated perfectly the German, French, English, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Latin and Greek, besides the Mayan-Quiché language for which he got to develop a grammar in order to popularize the language. He also developed a language, called "Salvador", which sought to become universal, but received very little support from the intellectuals of his time, despite everything, Gavidia published some poems in "Los Argonautas" "Language Salvador", among which stand out "The Argonauts" and "A Marconi".
The year 1887 contracted marriage with the daughter of the journalist Carlos Bonilla. A year later, he founded the newspaper "El semanario noticioso", which was published every Thursday, as well as the Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts of San Salvador. After the overthrow of the general Francisco Menéndez Valdivieso, Gavidia exiled of the country and continued his journalistic activity in Costa Rica, where he was director of "La Prensa Libre" between 1891 and 1892; and later in Guatemala worked like co-redactor of "El bien público" of the city of Quetzaltenango.
When he returned to El Salvador, he served as editor of the Diario Oficial (1894), Director of Primary Public Education (1896) and Minister of Public Instruction (1898). In 1895 he founded the Parliamentary Party, and also served as a professor at the Normal School of Ladies, the National Institute of Men, and the University of El Salvador. He founded the magazine Los Andes. From 1906 to 1919, he held the position of titular director of the National Library Francisco Gavidia. In 1912, he became a member of the Ateneo of El Salvador.