Jose de Espronceda Spanish poet of the Romantic era Date of Birth: 25.03.1808 Country: Spain

Biography of Jose de Espronceda

Jose de Espronceda was a Spanish poet of the Romantic era. He was born in the small town of Almendralejo in the province of Badajoz, Extremadura, in a military family. Espronceda studied at the San Matvei School in Madrid under its founder, the liberal thinker Alberto Lista. Even in his youth, Espronceda showed a tendency towards radical views.

In 1823, along with his friends Ventura de la Vega and Patricio de la Escosura, who later became prominent opposition figures, Espronceda founded a secret society called "Los Numantinos." The society aimed to fight against the absolutism of Ferdinand VII and seek revenge for the execution of Rafael del Riego, the leader of the military revolution in 1820. Espronceda was arrested for his participation in the society and sentenced to five years of imprisonment in a monastery-prison in Guadalajara. However, thanks to the efforts of his father, he was eventually released.

In 1826, Espronceda left Spain through Gibraltar and embarked on a long journey across Europe, visiting Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom, where he met his future lover, Teresa Mancha. Espronceda actively participated in the life of the Spanish liberal exile community and went to Paris during the 1830 revolution to fight on the barricades. Shortly after his participation in the revolution, Teresa married a wealthy merchant, as her parents insisted. However, they reunited in Paris in 1833 and returned to Spain together after the death of Ferdinand VII, when political exiles were granted amnesty. In 1838, Teresa separated from the poet and died shortly after.

After Teresa's death, Espronceda devoted himself entirely to public life and journalism. He joined the National Guard, was elected to the Cortes from the Progressive Party, and was appointed secretary of the Spanish embassy in The Hague. Espronceda died at the age of 34 from diphtheria.

Espronceda began writing poetry from his early youth. During his imprisonment, he started the poem "Pelaeo," an unfinished historical poem in the style of classicism. He then turned to prose and created the historical novel "Sancho Saldaña." In 1840, his collection of poems was published, which immediately gained success and had a significant influence on the development of Spanish Romanticism. Immersed in the European Byronian tradition, Espronceda created a cycle of poems that touched on important themes of romantic poetry such as solitude, freedom, love, disillusionment, and social protest. His work also includes "dramatic lyrics" written from the perspective of society's outcasts, such as pirates, Cossacks, executioners, and beggars, who despise its laws and deny its morals.

Espronceda introduced new rhythms into Spanish poetry and significantly diversified the poetic meters used before him. Two of his poems, "The Student of Salamanca" (1837) and "The Devil-World" (1841), are connected with the "eternal images" of world literature, Don Juan and Faust. In "The Student of Salamanca," Espronceda creates the character of Felix de Montemar, a freethinker and immoralist who challenges both human and divine laws, using Spanish legends about the "Sevillian seducer" and the tradition of Byron's poem. In the unfinished philosophical poem "The Devil-World," the author sought to depict the eternal tragic contradictions of human life, the impossibility of returning to a state of original ignorance and innocence, and the power of oppressive social and worldly evils. The protagonist, an old man named Adam, regains his youth and innocent perception of the world through the intervention of supernatural forces. However, after experiencing the harshness and cruelty of the surrounding reality, hitting rock bottom in society, and going through the death of his beloved, Adam undergoes severe disillusionment. The poem contains autobiographical elements, and elevated lyric and philosophical fragments are mixed with romantic irony and social satire.

Espronceda's works gained recognition in Russia in the 1880s thanks to the articles and translations by Yu.V. Doppelmeier and M.V. Watson. D.K. Petrov, one of the founders of Russian Hispanism, analyzed Espronceda's poem "The Song of the Cossack" in his article "Essays on Political Poetry of the 19th Century: Russia and Nicholas I in the Poems of Espronceda and Rossetti" (1909). A significant number of translations were made by K.D. Balmont. They were commissioned by the Academia publishing house in 1919 and partially published in Balmont's anthology "From World Poetry" (Berlin, 1923). Unpublished translations, kept in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, are being prepared for publication by Vodoley Publishers. In 1958, a collection titled "Selected Works" was published, including Espronceda's major poems and both of his epic poems.