Luis Cernuda Bidón (September 21, 1902 – November 5, 1963) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. During the Spanish Civil War, in early 1938, he went to the UK to deliver some lectures and this became the start of an exile that lasted till the end of his life. He taught in the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge before moving in 1947 to the US. In the 1950s he moved to Mexico. While he continued to write poetry, he also published wide-ranging books of critical essays, covering French, English and German as well as Spanish literature. He was frank about his homosexuality at a time when this was problematic and became something of a role model for this in Spain. His collected poems were published under the title La realidad y el deseo.
Biography
Seville and early life
Cernuda was born in the Barrio Santa Cruz, Calle Conde de Tójar 6 (now Acetres), in Seville in 1902, the son of a colonel in the Regiment of Engineers. He had two older sisters. The recollections and impressions of childhood contained in his poems, and the prose poems collected in Ocnos, suggest that he was always a solitary, introverted, and timid child whose unhappiness in the family led to his living vicariously through books and through his strong visual impressions of his native city. His first encounter with poetry came at the age of 9 when he glanced through a copy of Bécquer's Rimas that had been lent to his sisters by their cousins Luisa and Brígida de la Sota. Despite the fact that he later testified that this left no more than a dormant impression upon him, he began to write poetry himself during his studies at the Escolapios School in Seville from 1915 to 1919 around the age of 14. In 1914, the family moved into the Engineers' Barracks in the Prado, on the outskirts of Seville. In 1918, they moved to Calle del Aire, where he would later write the poems of Perfil del aire.
In 1919 he began to study Law at the University of Seville, where, during his first year, he attended classes in Spanish Language and Literature given by Pedro Salinas. His extreme shyness prevented him from mentioning his literary activities until Salinas' notice was caught by a prose poem published in a student magazine. He gave Cernuda encouragement and urged him to read both classical Spanish poetry and modern French literature. It was at Salinas' suggestion that Cernuda sent his first collection of poetry, Perfil del aire, to Manuel Altolaguirre and Emilio Prados, who had begun, late in 1926, to publish a magazine called Litoral. As was the practice in those days, many such magazines published collections of poetry as supplements.
His father died in 1920 and he continued to live at home with his mother and sisters. In 1923 he did military service in the Regiment of Cavalry. In 1924, as he was reaching the end of his undergraduate course, he participated in a series of meetings with a small group of fellow students in Salinas's house. These stimulated his poetic vocation and helped to guide his readings of French literature.
He became a Bachelor of Law in September 1925 but was undecided about what to do next. He thought about joining the diplomatic service but decided not to on discovering that it would entail a move to Madrid. In October, Salinas arranged for him to make the acquaintance of Juan Ramón Jiménez in the gardens of the Alcázar of Seville.
In January 1926, he made his first trip to Madrid, where Salinas was instrumental in arranging introductions to, among others, Ortega y Gasset - who had published some of his poems in his Revista de Occidente in December 1925 - Juan Chabás, Melchor Fernández Almagro, and Enrique Díez-Canedo; At the time his first book was being unfavourably received around April 1927, he was again in Madrid. Although he later described himself at that time as inexperto, aislado en Sevilla, he was in reality already known to a number of the influential Spanish literati of the period. His indecision about a choice of career continued through 1926-27. In December 1927, the Góngora tercentenary celebrations reached a climax with a series of poetry readings and lectures at the Arts Club of Seville by people such as García Lorca, Dámaso Alonso, Rafael Alberti, Jorge Guillén, José Bergamín and others. Although he took no direct part in the proceedings, he did get the chance to read some of his poems and he made the acquaintance of Lorca.