Heredia, José María de

Heredia, José María de, 1842–1905, French poet, a leading exponent of the poetic ideals of the Parnassians, b. Cuba. His reputation rests on Les Trophées (1893), containing 118 masterful sonnets in the Petrarchan manner. This work displays an almost unparalleled effort to reproduce the sensory effects of painting, music, and sculpture in poetic terms.

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Heredia, José María de 

Born Dec. 31, 1803, in Santiago de Cuba; died May 7, 1839, in Toluca, near Mexico City. Cuban poet.

One of the founders of Cuban poetry, Heredia was the author of revolutionary-patriotic lyrics written in a classical style. He was subjected to repressive measures for his activities in the struggle against Spanish colonial rule. His two collections of verse entitled Poems (1825, 1832) exhibit elements of romantic rebellion and melancholy and an interest in local color. Especially popular are Heredia’s patriotic poem “Hymn of the Exile” (1825), his philosophic narrative poem At the Temple of Cholula (1820; Russian translation, 1959), and his poems “Into the Storm” (1822) and “Niagara” (1824; Russian translation, 1959), both of which depict the power of nature.

WORKS

Poesías, discursos y cartas, vols. 1–2. Havana, 1939.
Versos. Havana, 1960.
Poesías. Havana, 1965.
In Russian translation:
[“Stikhi.”] In the collection Poeziia kubinskogo romantizma. [Moscow, 1971.]

REFERENCES

González, M. P. José María Heredia, primogénito del romanticisimo hispano. Mexico City [1955].
Re, A. del. José María Heredia, poeta e patriota cubano (1803–39). Rome, 1958.

Z. I. PLAVSKIN

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Heredia, José María De 

Born Nov. 22, 1842, in La Fortuna, Cuba; died Oct. 3, 1905, at Chateau de Bourdonné, Seine-et-Oise Department. French poet. Member of the Académie Française (1894).

Heredia was educated in France. His only collection of verse, Les Trophées (1893), contains poems written over a 30-year period. He and C. Leconte de Lisle were the leading figures in the Parnassian school of poets. Heredia’s sonnets are organized the-matically into such groups as Greece and Sicily, Rome and the barbarians, and the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The historical elements of the sonnets, however, often serve as merely a pretext for virtuosic stylization.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Trofei. Moscow, 1973.

REFERENCE

Martino, P. Parnasse et symbolisme. Paris, 1947.