Jiménez, Juan Ramón

Jiménez, Juan Ramón (hwän rämōn` hēmā`nāth), 1881–1958, Spanish lyric poet, b. Andalusia, studied at the Univ. of Seville. In his youth Jiménez was influenced by the French symbolists; he wrote the romantic Almas de violeta in 1900. He later turned to greater simplicity of style in Diario de un poeta recién casado [diary of a recently married poet]. Later collections include Unidad (1925), Sucesión (1932), and Presente (1935). During the civil war he left Spain and lived for many years in the United States, Cuba, and, finally, Puerto Rico. Jiménez wrote some 32 volumes of poetry. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. For English translations see Platero and I (1956) and Three Hundred Poems, 1903–53 (1962).

Bibliography

See studies by H. T. Young (1967) and M. Coke-Enguídanos (1982).

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Jiménez, Juan Ramón

(born Dec. 24, 1881, Moguer, Spain—died May 29, 1958, San Juan, P.R.) Spanish poet. His early poetry reflects the influence of Rubén Darío; this highly emotional style gave way to a more austere tone c. 1917. He achieved popularity in America with Platero and I (1917), a prose story of a man and his donkey. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), he allied himself with Republican forces; after their defeat he moved to Puerto Rico, where he spent most of the rest of his life. His poetic output was immense. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956.

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Jiménez, Juan Ramón 

Born Dec. 24, 1881, in Moguer; died May 29, 1958, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Spanish poet.

Jiménez was associated with the generation of 1898. He became the leading figure in Spanish modernism. Several of Jiménez’ works, including the collection Mournful Arias (1903), are pervaded with subjectivism and melancholy. The collection Ballads of Spring (1910) revealed an interest in Andalusian folklore. Man’s inner world is explored in the poems published in Spiritual Sonnets (1917), Diary of a Poet Recently Married (1917), and Eternities (1918).

Jiménez departed from classical forms and expressed his emotions spontaneously and frankly in his poems and lyric prose, for example, in Platero and 1 (1914) and The Beast From Within (1949). This is also true of his critical essays, including Spaniards of Three Worlds (1942) and The Endless Stream (1961). Jiménez was faithful to humanist and republican ideals. His poetry influenced R. Alberti and J. Guillén.

Jiménez was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1956.

WORKS

Páginas escogídas, vols. 1–2. Madrid, 1958.
Tercera antolojia poética (1898–1953). Madrid, 1970.
In Russian translation:
[Stikhi.] Inostrannaia literatura, 1957, no. 12.
[Stikhi.] In O. Savich. Izbrannye perevody: Poety Ispanii i Latinskoi Ameriki. Moscow, 1966.

REFERENCE

Palau de Nemes, G. Vida y obra de Juan Ramón Jiménez. Madrid-Barcelona, 1968.

V. K. IASNYI