in the Poetry of Silver Age

Poetry and Myth: Reception of Don Quixote
In the Poetry of the Silver Age
F'rancisco Javier Díez de Revenga
University of Murcia
In the present study of Don Quixote in the Silver Age, we
go back exactly a hundred years, i.e. to 1905, when Spain was
celebrating the year of Don Quixote. We will examine the works of
sorne Spanish poets who used the figure of Don Quixote in their
verses making him their own personal myth. Poetry, as present in
Don Quixote in Chapter XVI of Part n, in the memorable dialogue
of our knight with Don Diego de Miranda ("Poetry, illustrious
noble, in my opinion is like a soft young girl of tender age and very
beautiful ...") made Don Quixote in the fírst decades of the
twentieth century an object of profound poetic reflections. They
varied according to the ideology and thought of the poet who
studied his figure - from Rubén DarÍo to Unamuno, from Antonio
Machado to León Felipe, as we wiU see in the foIlowing pages.
And from them to other writers and poets who pondered on Don
Quixote in their prose and in their verses: Salinas, Cernuda,
Dámaso Alonso, Aleixandre, and also Guillén and Gerardo Diego,
who already in the post-war period, had included the ingenious
knight in their poems.
In 1905, in Madrid, Rubén Darlo published Cantos de vida
y esperanza (Songs ojlife and hope), as Spain commemorated the
third centenary of the publication of the First Part of Don Quixote.

Francisco Javier Díez de Revenga
At present we are doing the same: a hundred years of Cantos de
vida y esperanza, four hundred of Don Quixote. It is interesting to
dwell again on sorne aspects of Cervantism in Darío, and the
reasons why the great Nicaraguan poet found the master of the
universal novel so interesting, what aspects of his work drew his
attention. 1905 produced the most important opportunity for Rubén
to create his most relevant Cervantine poem, "Letanía de Nuestro
Señor Don Quijote" (Litany of Our Lord Don Quixote), one of the
most widely disseminated and cited works of the Quixote
centenary. That has a trajectory similar to that of other famous
books like Unamuno's Vida de don Quijote y Sancho (Lije of Don
Quixote and Sancho), Azorin's La ruta de Don Quijote (The
joumey of Don Quixote), both also published in 1905. Then there
is Ortega y Gasset's Meditaciones del Quijote (Meditations of Don
Quixote) and Ramiro de Maeztu's Don Quijote, Don Juan y La
Celestina (Don Quixote, Don Juan and La Celestina). However
Dario's contribution in verse is the most read and commented upon.
In any case, the Don Quixote that Ruben pays homage to is
singular, and adapts itself in those first years of the 20th Century,
to this way of thinking and even to this ideology of the poet as
there is in the stanzas a real social and ethical criticism of the
establishment, of homages and deceptions. But, as is proved by the
literary work of Darío, the interest in Cervantes had been there for
a while and much before the celebrations of 1905. Cervantes was a
model and a guide, and Quixote's figure was the object of
meditation and deep reflection as a character who others had
sacrificed, "the lord of the sad", a model and an example of
righteous conduct in the midst of falsity, someone who rose aboye
the human, to the sphere of the heroic and the mythical.
In any case with regards to the Cervantism of Darío, the
most interesting poem of the Cantos de vida y esperanza can be
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Poetry and Myth: Reception 01 Don Quixote In the Poetry 01 the Si/ver Age
found in the "Letanía de Nuestro Señor Don Quijote", an
exceptional and very successful evocation of the Manchegan, full
of mythical and sentimental references in tune with the earlier
manifestatÍons in Darío of the work of Cervantes, but also ful1y
within the framework that we have indicated and which by 1905,
acquires a tone of special intensity.
The figure of Don Quixote evoked by Darío in the poem
coincides with the earlier Cervantine representations in his poetry.
Heroism and sadness would be the two elements that would best
define the figure of Quixote, present even in the visions of
Cervantes, with whom Darío confuses or fuses Quixote. Already in
the first stanza, in which he once again uses the golden helmet of
the earlier Cervantine poem ("crowned with the golden helmet of
illusion", pp. 302-304), he gives us the figure of the ingenious
knight as someone forged between fantasy and illusion
incorporating words from Cervantes' own language ("with the
shield on the arm, all fantasy, I and the lance ready, all heart") thus
in the analysis of the hero a kind of revolutionary Quixote emerges,
a Quixote against this and that, against líes and truth ("against
certainties, against conscience I and against laws and against
sciences, I against líes, against truth ... "). A revolutionary"s radical
tendency is also noticed in the third stanza, where there is a very
direct allusion to the possible centenary celebrations with which
Ruben seems to be in liule in agreement. It must have been a very
unique moment when these verses were heard, in the Ateneo in
Madrid where this function of renderinghomage was being held, a
moment that he uses to wish Don Quixote good health: "Salud,
porque juzgo que hoy muy poca tienes, (Health beeause 1 feel that
today you have very little I entre los aplausos o entre los desdenes
(between applause and disdain), I y entre las coronas y los
parabienes (and between praise and good wishes I y las tonterías
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Francisco Javier
de la multitud (and the stupidities of the multitude!" And further on:
"soportas elogios, memorias, discursos, (you put up with praises,
memories, speeches) I resistes certámenes, tarjetas, concursos,
(you endure competitions, cards, contests I y, teniendo a Orfeo,
tienes a orfeón (and, having Orpheus, you have a fan club!)".
Rubén, undoubtedly prefers a mythical Don Quixote,
comparable to Roldán, shrouded in the fantasy as the names of
Clavileño and Pegasus suggest. Although he also introduces a
social and ethical angle in keeping with the Dacio of those years,
who literally preaches when he assures that his litanies "hechas
con las cosas de todos los días / y con otras que en lo misterioso vi.
(are made with everyday things I and others that 1 saw in
mysteries"
Prom the sixth stanza onwards Rubén adopts the tone
appropriate for a litany. He places sixth, seventh and eighth stanzas
on the anaphoric base of the traditional "pray for us", that
altemates with the Latín version "Pro nobis ora", in the middle of
the seventh, to draw up the image of the worshippers on the basis
of consecutive metaphors to defend himself against enemies ("que
ridiculizan el ser de la Mancha, / el ser generoso y el ser español!
(who ridicule the man of La Mancha, the generous one, the
Spanish being"). The three stanzas naturally glamourise the
mythical representation of the character, now evoked between two
great myths: "j Tiembla la floresta de laurel del mundo, (The bay
wood of the world trembles I y antes que tu hermano vago,
Segismundo, (and before your errant brother Segismundo I el
pálido Hamlet te ofrece una flor (the pale Hamlet offers you a
flower)!". Ending with an concluding list of grievances, in an
imaginative flourish of the best of Ruben of those years: "pues casi
ya estamos sin savia, sin brote, (as we are already without sap and
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Poetry and Myth: Reception 01 Don Quixote In (he Foet')' 01 the Silver Age
without shoots) / sin alma, sin vida, sin luz, sin Quijote (without
soul, without life, without light without Quixote, / sin piel y sin
alas, sin Sancho y sin Dios (without skin and without wings,
without Sancho and without God)," This list continues in the
following stanzas, pointing out the adversaries, among the
supennen of Nietzsche and the Academies, intemally and
extemally rhymed with insults and blasphemies so that there be no
doubt about the value of these institutions. Asevere ethical and
social reprimand in line with the thought and ideology of the last
poems is included in Cantos de vida y esperanza, although in the
case of Quixote the heroic and mythic dimension signfies its
transcendence beyond human misery,
From the point of view of the oration, the litany has gone
from "ora pro nobís" to "liberan os, dómine", that structurally
joins the ninth and tenth stanzas, Both joined in their subject matter
to contain the narration or recounting of the enemies. Stanzas with
the most emotive invocation are contained in the eleventh stanza, a
glamourisation of the figure. With this the textual progress of the
poem ends, as the twelfth and last is a complete repetition of the
first stanza, such that the composition ends on a cyclical note:
"Noble peregrino de los peregrinos, (Noble pilgrim of pilgrims)/
que santificaste todos los caminos, (who sanctified aH the roads/
con el paso augusto de tu heroicidad, (with the heroic march of
your heroism) / contra las certezas, contra las conciencias (against
certitudes, against consciences/ y contra las leyes y contra las
ciencias, (and against the laws and against the sciences)/ contra la
mentira, contra la verdad .., (against lies, against truth)"
Darío says that "The Litany of Our Lord Don Quixote"
affinns "my deeply rooted idealism yet again, rny passion for the
transcendent and the heroic." The figure of the symbolic knight is
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Francisco Javier
crowned with light and darkness. In this poem, there is an attempt
at the smile of "humour" -as a memory of the important
Cervantine creation - but behind this smile there is the face of
human torture when faced with realities and these do not take on
the fa

exile as well as the Quixotic spirit, the fruit of passion. Like Don
Quixote, he feels like one confined who fights alone, and like the
noble Hidalgo (knight) what interests him is only the "universal
and eternal finallty of his goals". For this reason, he fights for an
ideal, although nobody else might share it,,4. There is a clear
identification of Unamuno with Don Quixote, in a well known
confessional passage of Cómo se hace una novela (How a novel is
written) while referring to the stoning of Don Quixote by the galley
slaves who he had freed, he points out that he himself will be
stoned by the present storrntroopers of the Holy Brotherhood "of
my Spain", as an apostle of his personal Spain that~he tries to save.
He thus, proclaims Quixotism as a kind of faith in knightly ideals.
As proof of the obsession that Unamuno had for the figure
of Don Quixote we need to look at his book De Fuerteventura a
Paris (From Fuerteventura to Paris) (1925). Here. he brings
together the poetry written during rus confinement and exile at the
hands of the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. The reference to Don
Quixote in a frequenUy cÍted sonnet is a Httle enigmatic (XVII)5:
Tu evangelio, mi señor Don Quijote,
al pecho de tu pueblo cual venablo
lancé, y el muy bellaco en el establo
sigue lamiendo el mango de su azote.
y pues que en él no hay de tu seso un brote,
me vuelvo a los gentiles y les hablo
tus hazañas, haciendo de San Pablo
de tu fe, ya que así me toca en lote.
4 A. Urrutia Jordana, 2003, p. 147.
5 M. de Unamuno, 1987. Henceforth we will indicate in brackets the
number of the pocm, as it figures in all the editions, in order to help in
searching for it.
313

Francisco
He de salvar el alma de mi España,
empeñada en hundirse en el abismo
con su barca, pues toma por cucaña.
lo que es maste, y llevando tu bautismo
de burlas de pasión a gente extraña
forjaré universal el quijotismo.
Obviously this attitude of Unamuno, the consideration of
Quixote as Gospel has its origins in Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho.
In the latter is evident the symbolism of Don Quixote and his
relationship as spiritual guide to Unamuno, who as a preacher of
the good news will collapse into Don Quixote, the symbol of
disillusionment. Therefore, the references to Cervantes as creator
of Don Quixote are constant, but perhaps the most prominent is the
one where he calls him brother (in his disi1lusionment) (XXIX):
"Mira, hermano Cervantes, no te asombre (Look Brother
Cervantes, do not be surprised) I que el nombre que hemos hecho
honor y gloria (that the name to whom we have brought honour
and glory) I de la patria común, el que en la historia (of our
coromon country which in history) I nos une ya con lazos de
renombre. (unites us with powerful bonds) I ¿Quién como Dios?
sea también el nombre ... (Who but God could also have that
name)". As Suárez Miramón points out, "In order to understand all
the emotional value of the quotations of Cervantes in De
Fuerteventura, that end here with the qualifier "brother", it is
important to remember the trajectory Unamuno - Cervantes
through his works, from which one arrives at this conclusion: the
ever greater identification of Unamuno with the character of Don
Quixote on whom Cervantes projects his disillusionment making
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Poetry and Myth: Receptíon 01 Don Quíxote In the Poetry 01 {he Sí/ver Age
him dream of a non material world because the natural is not "as it
should be". Por this reason Unamuno feels fraternal in his
disillusion with the author of Don Quixote" 6.
Spain, Castile, Gredos and Don Quixote will be the living
symbols of his pain for this country. As Ana Suárez Miramón
points out, "in spite of his constant references to Spain and his
grief for Spain ("Spain grieves me as if it were a part of me and me
of Her"), the theme dissolves in other myths that Spanish
philosophy enshrines, especially Don Quixote and Segismundo,
and with these and with the representation of Castile, the symbol of
Spain, this theme acquires a spiritual content that after his exile
assumes religious proportions" 7 (LXXXVII):
No consigo soñar, vil pesadilla
(1 cannot sleep, horrible nightmares)
--dicen la realidad-, me mata el sueño;
(They speak the truth, sleep kills me)
mi Dios, el de mi España, fruncen el ceño;
(My God, the God of Spain, they furrow my brow)
se nubla el sol que sobre Gredos brilla
(The sun that shines over the Gredos goes dark).
¡Y fue mi historia sueño! ¡Ancha es Castilla!
(And my history was a dream, Great is Castile!)
Soñé, cual Don Quijote, al pie del leño
(1 dreamt of Don Quixote, at the foot of the flowering oak tree)
por las noches a mi alma en maravilla.
(on nights with my soul marveling)
6 A. Suárez Marimón, 1987, voL II, p. 353.
7 A. Suárez Marimón, 1987, vol. II, p.21.
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Francisco Javier
j Miellurninosa en temblador roCÍo
gotean por la noche las estrellas
desde el camino de Santiago, (Shining honey that like
trembling dew the stars on the road to Santiago ernit)
ríoque en nuestro cielo va lavando huellas
del Romancero (A river that our sky washes the tracks of the
Romancero); plañen las querellas
de Alfonso Diez, el que soñó sin brío. (The fights that grieved
Alfonso Diez, he who drearnt without guts)
And Unamuno' s commentary: "1 have written one time on
the fIower of the oak, the so called candela, 1 cannot represent Don
Quixote but at the foot of an oak, with acoros in my hand.
Melodious heart!".
There is a basic connection between the theme of Spain
and Don Quixote and the period of total dictatorship that the
country was lfacing and suffering.
Unamuno begins another sonnet with 'a text of Antonio
Machado: "A bit of the planet on which the wandering shadow of
crosses ... " (LXXXIX): "Ay, The sad Spain of Caín, the red one I
the blood of brothers and green bile, I you bite because you don't
eat, and on your back Iyou carry centuries of grief!". It ends with a
tercel remembered many times because of its direct relation with
the military dictatorship in power: "Goveroment of sandals and
capes, I luck, charade salary at the end of the month, I and stoning
the crazy." A stoning, of a literary character remembered earlier
but also real and symbolic, mindful of the circumstances that
surround the exiled one (XVII): "Tomorrow -1 knew yesterday­
I Don Quixote, my good sir, I the galley slaves stone me, I May it
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Poetry and Myth: . Reception 01 Don Quíxote In ¡he Poetry 01 (he Silver Age
be aH for your love! I it does not matter to me that it comes, /but
today's misery, I from the side of vile gangsters I from the old
Inquisition. I Is justice liberty; I not malicious pardon I of tyrants in
the field I honorably dishonored".
Unamuno's Cancionero, (Anthology) written between
1928 and 1936, and considered a Diario poético, (Poetic Diary) as
its subtitle suggests, is an important text of the panorama of
Spanish poetry of 20th Century due to its extraordinary originality,
its monumental content, and because it represents Unamuno's
thought in those last years of his life when he was fully aware of
many things. This is a time when the poet without chains or strings,
offers his most personal view of the world. El Cancionero. (The
anthology), which remained unpublished during Unamuno's life, is
a personal and literary work of great quality. It is composed of
more than one thousand long poems with diverse meter, form,
structures and motifs and is a kind of literary autobiography.
Begun during the years of his lonely and quixotic opposition to the
dictator Primo de Rivera and his exile, many of his poems show an
Unamuno split between a monologue of his personal and his poetic
self, in which there are sorne of the most singular myths and
references of his personality: Quevedo, Don Quixote,
Segismundo ....
In effect, Don Quixote becomes one of the most frequently
used reference points of these hundreds of poems in the form of his
personal identity with the disillusioned character, a knight despised
by the resto As Ana Suárez Miramón points out, "there are constant
references to writers of the Spanish past who were like him, as they
tried to show the truth and infuse hope, culture and effort in the
mother country that suffered the punishment of imprisonment and
exile. In this context the value of Cervantes with Don Quixote and
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Francisco Javier
Quevedo is highlighted. With them he tries to bring back Spain
from its exíle" 8. However, Don Quixote is not a mere literary
reference, he is a symbol of Spain under a dictatorship, that does
not understand the ideal s of the character created by Cervantes, the
Spain in which Unamuno is irnmersed and directly suffers: "Don
Quixote, symbol of Spain capable of being infused with an ideal,
is the most cited character of Cancionero", and as Suárez Miramón
points out: "Alongwith Segismundo his brother he represents, the
dream of life, and thus the dream of Spain. In this double dream,
Unamuno identifies with him and feels equally lonely in the
society that fights fruitlessly for its ideals a new universal Don
Quixote. Unamuno raises the categories of man and Spaniard until
he can identify Don Quixote with Christ and thus (as he had
pointed out in the prologue) with himself. Thus his poetic side
(creator of hope), prophet (revealer of the truth and life) and myth
(universal symbol of the new Quixotism in its present incarnation
of political rebellion against Primo de Rivera) acquires a
transcendental value. His exile posture is thus justified to himself
and to society." 9.
There are many poems in which there are references to
Quixote, related to the present, especially those poems that
coincide chronologically with his exile. Thus, on 27 March 1928,
against action and passion, against the nothingness of the
philosophers, he proposes:
"1 will leave these servile idiots, I who talk about
action, lhe real gentleman, I and here to be quixotíc, that
Don Quixote I was not a pure doctor in Quixotism". On
8 A. Suárez Marimón, 1987, vol. III, p.28.
9 A. Suárez Marimón, 1987, vol. I1I, pp. 28-29.
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28 June 1928, it is directed to people antagonistic to
three literary myths, who also reveal their special type
of madness: "Sancho, Ciutti and Viernes, governors, I
have subjected people to reason, I otherwise the world
will end up mad: I Don Quixote, Don Juan and
Robinson".
A very interesting poem is the one written on the 29 lune
1928, that begins thus "Ay what a windmill / Don Quixote de la
Mancha / who in my Fuerteventura / ground the gulf of the soul"
(248). In this poem the figure of Don Quixote again appears as a
symbol of his exile, and the quixotic spirit in which he faced life in
those years, which is linked to another, written between the 19 and
20 luly 1928: "In a place in La Mancha / Castilla you 10st your
head; / the naked sun sucked you /who jealously loved you." There
are allusions in the poem to the mockeries the knight had to suffer:
"You were mocked by the great / and by stupid boys / the only
ones who sang your praises /were the goatherds in the hills". While
hope persists: "you flew blindfolded to the sky / on the wings of
Clavileño; the plains you're your skies, / the crib of the divine
dream". Although in the end everything faIls to the ground. "And
in Barcelona you measured / the dust with your heart; / the sea
whispered laments / of another new ballad." (297). On the October
9 a heartfelt romance relates life, dream, hope, deception and honor
and Spain with the image of Don Quixote as a symbol of this 10st
Spain (446):
Yo sé quién soy, Don Quijote,
(1 know who 1 am Don Quixote)
gracias a ti, mi señor,
(Thanks to you my lord)
y sé quién es nuestra España
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Francisco
(And 1 know who is our Spain)
gracias al divino amor.
(Thanks to divine love)
Salía el sol por la Mancha
(The sun came up on La Mancha)
cuando saliste a la flor
de tus hazañas de ensueño
dándole al cielo esplendor.
(When you went out to prove your feats giving glory to the
heavens)
Espejo del alma andante,
(Mirror of the wandering soul)
caballero del error,
(Knight of mistakes)
erraste por los embustes
del protervo encantador
(you went wrong due to the tricks of the wicked enchanter).
No es sólo sueño la vida,
que es engaño
(Only deceit is not life and honor is conquering what has
been dreamt), y e! honor
es conquistar lo soñado
¡con sueño reparador!
(with a compensatory dream).
We read in Cervantes' immortal nove!: "I know who I am
Don Quixote replied-, and I know that I can be, not only those I
have mentioned, but the twelve Peers of France as well, and even
all the Nine Paragons of Fame for my deeds will surpass all those
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Paetry and Myth: Receptian al Dan Quixate In the Paetry al the Si/ver Age
they have perfonned, together or singly." (1, V). With a similar
beginning, "1 know who 1 am, on the oath of the hidalgo", another
poem, with the title ("The last quarrel of Don Quixote") written on
the 8 November 1928, relates hope with truth while there is a
complete identification with the wise knight (Ay, you, my Alonso
Quijano!, I my supreme memory I you, my best self'), a1though the
prayer, the quarrel ends with a confession of the same sadness,
remembered in the Sorrowful Knight and evoked in the reflection
of life as a dream ("look my soul is sad, I sad to the point of death I
sad lime my countenance, I my adventure is a misadventure, I
dream of life") (488)
Antonio Machado is generally not remembered amongst
those whose verses deal with Don Quixote. But it has to be said
that this author has one of the most beautiful and endearing poems
amongst all those of militant Quixotism. The Cervantine world of
the novel is contained in his verses, as well the most memorable
protagonists, its villages and its atmosphere. AH these add upto a
fine and entertaining portrait in "La mujer manchega (The
Manchegan woman)", which is the title of the poem that belongs to
Campos de Castilla (Fields of Castile). The poem that appears in
España (Spain), in 1915, has a dedication in the beginning. "A
Dulcinea (To Dulcinea)" and, as pointed out, evokes Cervantine
places and protagonists like Argamasilla de Alba, the prison in
which Cervantes conceived or wrote Don Quixote; Valdepeñas,
that also vies for the honor with other villages of being
"Somewhere in La Mancha whose name 1 do not care to
remember" (1, 1); Esquivias, the place where Cervantes' "wife"
was boro, Doña Catalina de Salazar Palacios; the niece of Don
Quixote, Ana Quijano, or the wife of don Diego de Miranda, the
Knight of the Green Coat, doña Cristina or Teresa Cascajo or
Teresa Panza, Sancho' s wife ...
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Francisco
Machado, on the other hand was a great reader of Don
Quíxote, and wrote unforgettabJe words about him, in spite of
figuring in a review in Don Don José Ortega y Gasset's
Meditaciones del Quijote (Meditations of Quixote): "For me Don
Quixote is, first of aH, a Spanish book; secondly a problem barely
raised or, a mystery if you like." Above all Cervantes was a great
spinner of language, of living language, spoken and written; in
great sweeps Cervantes captured a great amount of common
language, which was imbued with the expression of the mentality
of the people. The material with which Cervantes works, the
simple element of his work, is not the vocabulary but the refrain,
the proverb, the saying, the witticism, the anecdote, the idiom, the
common place, popular language. Included in all of this is the
average culture of universities and seminaries. It is difficult to find
in Don Quixote an original witticism, a thought that has the mark
of the soul of its author. A first impression is that Cervantes has
saved himself the work of thinking. He lets field laborers and
scholars, shepherds and soldiers and magistrates pedlars and
vagabonds think for him. From this point of view, Don Quixote is
the encyclopedia of Spanish common sense, of the Spanish
language of the beginning of the 17th Century. lt is neither
Sancho's stubbornness nor Don Quixote's madness that astonishes
and overwhelms us on reading this irnmortal work, but the
marvellous discretion of both". 10 "La mujer manchega (The
Manchegan woman)" has as we said the fullest of this quixotic
•• 11
spmt :
10 A. Machado, 1915. pp. 52-64. Y 1986, vol. III, p. 1565.
11 A. Machado, 1986, vol. JI, pp. 565-566.
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Poelry and Myth: Reception 01 Don Quixole In the Poetry ollhe Silver Age
La Mancha y sus mujeres ... Argamasilla, Infantes
Esquivias, Valdepeñas, la novia de Cervantes,
(La Mancha and its women, Argamasilla, Infantes
Esquivias, Valdepeñas, the girlfriend of Cervantes)
y del manchego heroico, el ama y la sobrina
el patio, la alacena, la cueva y la cocina,
la rueca y la costura, la cuna y la pitanza,
(and from the heroic Mancha, the wife and the niece, the
patio, the larder, the cave, the kitchen, the distaff, the sewing, the
crib, the ration)
la esposa de don Diego y la mujer de Panza,
(the wives of Don Diego and Panza)
la hija del ventero, y tantas como están
bajo la tierra, y tantas que son y que serán
encanto de manchegos y madres de españoles
por tierras de lagares, molinos y arreboles.
(the innkeeper's daughter and many like her who are under
the ground and many who will be the delight of Manchegans and
the mother of Spaniards, in the land of windmills and red clouds)
Es la mujer manchega garrida y bien plantada,
muy sobre sí doncella, perfecta de casada.
(The Manchegan woman is pretty and handsome, full of
herself like any young girl, the perfect wife)
El sol de la caliente llanura vinariega
quemó su piel, mas guarda frescura de bodega
su corazón. Devota, sabe rezar con fe
para que Dios nos libre de cuanto no se ve.
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Francisco Javier
(The sun of the vineyards plains bumt her skin but her
heart has the freshness of a wine ceBar. Holy, she knows how to
pray with faith so that God free us from a11 that is unseen)
Su obra es la casa -menos celada que en Sevilla,
más gineceo y menos castillo que en Castilla-o
(Her handiwork is the house, less complicated than Seville
and less a castle than Castile)
y es del hogar manchego la musa ordenadora;
alinea los vasares, los lienzos alcanfora;
las cuentas de la plaza anota en su diario,
cuenta garbanzos, cuenta las cuentas del rosario.
(And this muse of order belongs to the Manchegan hearth;
She tidies the dresser, and camphorates the linen and notes
the market accounts in her diary, she counts the peas and the rosary
beads)
¿Hay más? Por estos campos hubo un amor de fuego,
dos ojos abrasaron un corazón manchego.
(Is there anything else? In these fields, a fiery love, two
eyes bumt a Manchegan heart)
¿No tuvo en esta Mancha su cuna Dulcinea?
(Wasnt Dulcinea bom here)
¿No es el Toboso patria de la mujer idea
(Isn't Toboso the home of the idea of a woman's heart, the
sed and magnet of hearts who hasn't been impregnated by men and
will yet bear sons?)
324

___ P_o_et-,ry and Myth: Reception 01 Don Quixo¡e In ¡he Poe¡ry 01 ¡he Si/ver Age
del corazón, engendro e imán de corazones,
a quien varón no impregna y aun parirá varones?
Por esta Mancha -prados, viñedos y molinosque
so el igual del cielo iguala sus caminos,
(On this Mancha, plains, vineyards and windmills that like
the sky are all along the way)
de cepas arrugadas en el tostado suelo
(of wrinkled vines on the scorched ground)
y mustios pastos como raído terciopelo:
(and withered grass like threadbare velvet)
por este seco llano de sol y lejanía,
(on these dry plains of sun and distances)
en donde el ojo alcanza su pleno mediodía
(where the eye stretches to midday )
(un diminuto bando de pájaros puntea
el índigo del cielo sobre la blanca aldea,
(a small band of birds pierces the blue of the sky above the
white village)
y allá se yergue un soto de verdes alamillos,
(and there líes a thicket of green poplars)
tras leguas y más leguas de campos amarillos)
(three leagues and more of yellow fields),
por esta tierra, lejos del mar y la montaña,
(on this land far from the sea and mountains)
el ancho reverbero del claro sol de España,
(the wide reflection of the clear sun of Spain)
anduvo un pobre hidalgo ciego de amor un día
-amor nublóle el juicio: su corazón veía-o
325

Franci.,eo Javier
(A poor hidalgo blind with love walked
love had clouded his judgement his heart looked on)
y tú, la cerca y lejos, por el inmenso llano
eterna compañera y estrella de Quijano,
(And you near and far, the eternalcompanion and star of
Quijano on the immense plains)
lozana labradora fincada en tus terrones
(lively farm girl on your land)
--oh madre de manchegos y numen de visiones-,
viviste, buena Aldonza, tu vida verdadera
cuando tu amante erguía su lanza justiciera,
y en tu casona blanca ahechando el rubio trigo.
(Oh mother of Manchegans and inspirer of dreams
you lived. Good Aldonza your real life when your lover
lifted his lance of justice and in your white house chafing the white
wheat)
Aquel amor de fuego era por ti y contigo.
(That fiery love was for you and with you_.
Mujeres de la Mancha con el sagrado mote
de Dulcinea, os salve la gloria de Quijote.
(W omen of La Mancha with the sacred mote of Dulcinea
may Don Quixote's glory save you)
León Felipe is a much forgotten and often badly
understood poet and of course quite unknown for poetry readers of
today. Perhaps, his personal story of wanderings and roving, his
life as a traveler and pilgrim has deterrnined the reception of his
work. Born in a period of transition between two great generations
of writers during the first thirty years of the XX Century, a
326

contemporary of Juan Ramón Jiménez (who despised his poetry)
and a world traveler precisely during the years that his poetry was
becoming known, he remained away from many of the established
canons, although Gerardo Diego included him in the second
edition of his famous anthology of 1934, as he was a personal
friend of his when Felipe was a chemist in Santander.
The literary oeuvre of León Felipe begins with Versos y
oraciones del caminante 1 (Verses and prayers of wanderer l)
(1920-1929), a poetic work that reveals his obsession for
wandering without fixed place for settlement. He reiterates this in
Versos y oraciones del caminante II (Verses and prayers of
Wanderer II)(l929) and in Drop a star (1933). Here together with
the metaphysical sense of instability, there is the component of fate,
luck and destiny that will lead him to wandering paths. When the
Civil War breaks out, his poetry ineludes a commitment of defence
against injustice, reflected in his immediate works like La insignia
(Insignia) (1936), El payaso de las bofetadas (Iñe clown of blows)
(1938), Pescador de caña (Cane fisherman) (1938), and El hacha
( Iñe axe) (1939). During the period of his exile, he became one of
the most angry voices among the exiled and his verses cried out
against oppression and tyranny in Español del éxodo y del llanto
(Spaniard against exodus and cries) (1939) and in the El gran
responsable (Iñe great responsible one) (1940). He immersed
himself in the foIlowing books in the search of his personal destiny
and in the metaphysical intensity of his own thoughts, especially in
his book ofpoems Ganarás la luz (You will reach the light) (1943),
but also in Llamadme republicano (Call me a Republican) (1950)
or El ciervo (Iñe Deer) (1954). After he finished his writing in
1965, there still appear two surprising books: Oh, este viejo y solo
violín (Oh this old and lonely violin) (1968) and Rocinante
(Rocinante) (1969), published after his death. The figure of
327

Francisco
Quixote emerges here not as the adventurous knight but as a victim
of Spanish misunderstanding and incomprehension.
Of course, amongst the most noteworthy figures of
Spanish poetry of the Silver Age, León Felipe is, undoubtedly the
one who demonstrated maximum loyalty to the figure of Don
Quixote. For him, Quixote was not anymore just a symbol, but a
complex allegory of Spain, as is evident in numerous and sorne
very long poems, and even in whole books. The first poem in
which the figure of Don Quixote appears is found in his first book
Versos y oraciones de caminante, (Verses and prayers of a
wanderer). Here, with the title "Vencidos" (Conquered) there is
the figure of the defeated knight who, León Felipe completely
identifies with, as they are both refugees and have suffered defeat
in the face of injustice and power 12:
Por la manchega llanura
se vuelve a ver la figura
de Don Quijote pasar ...
(On the Manchegan plains one again sees Don Quixote's
figure go by)
y ahora ociosa y abollada va en el rucio la armadura,
(and now idle and worn out the armour on the horse
y va ocioso el caballero, sin peto y sin espaldar ...
(and the knight goes idly by, without his breastplate and
without his shield, he goes by with bitterness)
va cargado de amargura ...
que allá encontró sepultura
su amoroso batallar ...
12 L. Felipe, 2004, p. 88.
328

_____ Poetry and Myth: Receplion of Don Quixote In ¡hePoetry of the Si/ver Age
va cargado de amargura ...
que allá «quedó su ventura»
en la playa de Barcino, frente al mar ...
(his longed for battles He buried, he goes by bitterly
beca use there lies his adventure,
on the beach in Barcelona in front of the sea)
Por la manchega llanura
se vuelve a ver la figura
de Don Quijote pasar ...
va cargado de amargura ...
va, vencido, el caballero de retorno a su lugar.
(On the Manchegan plains. one again sees the figure of Don
Quixote go by, he is full of bitterness, he goes by beaten again to
his place)
Cuántas veces, Don Quijote, por esa misma llanura
en horas de desaliento así te miro pasar ...
y cuántas veces te grito: Hazme un sitio en tu montura
y llévame a tu lugar;
hazme un sitio en tu montura
caballero derrotado,
hazme un sitio en tu montura
que yo también voy cargado
de amargura
y no puedo batallar.
Ponme a la grupa contigo,
caballero del honor,
ponme a la grupa contigo
y llévame a ser contigo
pastor.
329

Francisco
(How many times, Don Quixote during moments of
disillusionment have 1 seen you cross these plains
and how many times have 1 shouted to you, make me a place
on your horse, vanquished knight
make me a place on your horse as 1 am also fuIl of bittemess
and 1 cannot fight anymore.
Put me on the rump with you honorable knight
Put me on the rump with you and take me with you to be a
shepherd.
Por la manchega llanura
se vuelve a ver la figura
de Don Quijote pasar...
(On the Manchegan pIains one sees the figure of Don Quixote
go by)
This is the first encounter between the defeated knight and
the dejected poet, defeated by the misadventures that unite them,
and joined by the cornmon feeling of desolation. For León Felipe,
this is a moment as unfortunate as it is contradictory. But the great
images that Don Quixote will represent are still to come in the
future. As in this initial poem León Felipe is closer to the
interpretation of the generation just before bis - that of Unamuno,
Azorín, Maeztu, Ortega. This is also the case in Versos y oraciones
de caminante, (Verses and Prayers of a Wayfarer) in the well
known poem "Romero solo (Lonely Romero)" he will inelude the
following verses: "One day we all know how to do justice; I like
the Hebrew king, I knew how I Sancho the knight I and Pedro
Crespo the farmer" The relation of the Quixotic world with justice
is a background for the great Cervantine poems of León Felipe,
although even the mistake, represented by Don Quixote, and
coinciding with Unamuno, will be the theme of a brief poem in his
330

Poetry ami Myth: Reception oi Don Quixote In the Poetry oi the Silva Age
first book: "Now what is happening to mel is the opposite of what
happened to the Manchegan hidalgo: Ithat I consider armíes I
flocks of sheep".
In Versos y oraciones de caminante JI (Verses and prayers
of a wanderer JI) he presents us with the figure of Sancho Panza,
also on the way to being mythified. In another celebrated poem by
León Felipe, "A foot for the Child of Vallecas, from V elázquez",
which is preceded by an inscription: "Basin, Helmet, Halo, I This
is the order of Sancho". The poet recovers the quixotic symbols in
the poem: "One returns always. Always. I Till one day (One fine
day!) I Mambrino's helmet I -now a halo, not a helmet nor a
basin-is seen around Sancho's temples I and around yours and
around mine I identicall as if made to order. I Then we will go. AH
of us I behind the scenes: I Y ou and 1 and Sancho and the child
from Vallecas I and the mystic and the suicidal one.',13
Sorne years pass before the myth appears in León Felipe's
poetry. As Miguel Nieto Nuño has pointed out, in the poem "Pie
para el niño de Vallecas, de Velázquez (A foot for the child of
Vallecas from Velázquez) the only thing lacking was action for it to
be an epic poem". León Felipe then calls upon the dream which
Don Quixote has in Cervantes' novel, awakens the knight and
makes him put on his arms on the shield of history. The myth was
forged, as with only his invocation he gathered and enthused as
many as he wanted who were unable to participate directly in the
cause of light and it was so because he showed the essence of those
who participated in the same blood of his symbol" 14.
Don Quixote figures in the work of León Felipe as one
who has been disinherited, soli tary , without a country, fighting for
13 L. Felipe, 2004, pp. 144-145.
14 M. Nieto Nuño, 1986, p. 109.
331

Francisco Javier
freedom and justice through the plains of La Mancha. But in the
two last poems, alongwith Don Quixote there are other figures of
the great novel who are complementary symbols in the
construction of the great and complex myth. This happens with
Sancho Panza, and also with Rocinante. The new kind of myth first
appears in the poem that starts thus: ¡Oh, este viejo y roto violín!,
(Oh this old and broken violín) in which we find the Manchegan
knight returning to his land to Uve there, as the title of the poem,
"La gran aventura" (The great adventure) suggests: "Four
centuries have passed ... I And Rocinante retums very tired. I
Years and years of dark and bloody adventures ... I Walking and
walking on the rough and twisted roads of History." 15 The poet
continues with the known trademark of the two Cervantine
characters on the Manchegan plains, now seen in a new light: "And
the two come, I kníght and squire, I silent I slowly I on their
humble and glorious mounts ... I on the open and bumíng plain of
Castile. I Under its blinding light! I Oh, what a light! lItis not a
favorable light for the great poetic metaphor, I the great miracles
and surprise !,,16
The poet, from his radical position, recovers the meaning
and representation of Spanish Quixotism, but everything is
different about it: the disquieting image of the knight of the
sorrowful countenance, literarily appropriated by the writers of the
beginning of the century, is treated afresh by León Felipe: Don
Quixote does not figure as the angry and hallucinating knight, sure
of himself, ready to hit out at anything that goes against him, but
the ingenious hidalgo ready to have a dialogue with Sancho Panza
on the dove that willlead Jesús in the Jordan. Thus in the "Diálogo
perdido (Lost Dialogue between Don Quijote y Sancho)" 17:
15 León Felipe, 2004, p. 733.
16 León Felipe, 2004, p 733.
17 León Felipe, 2004, p. 788-789.
332

-Todos andan buscando, Sancho, una paloma por el mundo
y nadie la encuentra.
(Everyone is looking Sancho for a dove in the world and
nobody finds one)
-Pero ¿qué paloma es la que buscan?
(But which dove are they looking for?)
-Es una paloma blanca que lleva en el pico
el último rayo amoroso de luz
que queda ya sobre la tierra.
(It is a dove who has in its beak the last loving ray of light that
is left on earth)
-Como la golondrina de Tristán.
(Like Tristan's swalIow)
-Eso, como la golondrina de Tristán. Bien te acuerdas
Sancho.
(Yes like Tristan's swallow, you remember weIl Sancho)
Aquel cabello dorado de Isolda
que dejó caer la golondrina sobre el hombro cansado del Rey
era el rayo de amor que andaba buscando el hombre sobre la
tierra
(That golden hair of Isolde that the swallow dropped on the
shoulder of the King was the ray of love that man was looking for
on earth)
Pero no es esto ...
Hay otra definición;
te lo explicaré mejor:
(But it is not just this, there is another definition that 1 will
explain better to you)
esa paloma que andan buscando
es aquella que una vez se le posó en la cabeza
a un pobre Nazareno en el Jordán;
333

Francisco
(This dove that they are looking for is the one that once
hopped on the head of a poor Nazarene in Jordan)
aquello si fue un buen juego de prestidigitación:
un hombre sencillo entra a bañarse en el Jordán,
se le posa una paloma blanca sobre la cabeza
y sale de las aguas ...
convertido en el hijo de la Luz ...
en el hijo de Dios ...
en el hijo del Hombre ...
(That of course was a good sleight of hand:
a simple man enters to bathe in the River Jordan,
and a dove hops on his head
and he comes out of the water
now a son of Light
in the son of God
in the son of Man.)
y aquel juego se hizo sin trucos y sin trampas ...
(And that game was without tricks or traps)
por eso fue un gran milagro.
(For this reason it was a great mirac1e)
j JEI gran milagro del mundo!!
(The great miracle of the world!)
Desde entonces
el Hombre vale más ...
(Since then Man has greater value)
y desde entonces todos andan buscando esa paloma para que
se haga otra vez el Milagro ...
(And since then everyone is looking for this bird so that the
Miracle take place all over again)
iY el Hombre valga más!
(And so that Man be valued more!)
334

In the same way, Rocinante has the value of being the
protagonist of a whole book and represents the poet. Rocinante had
aIread y emerged as a symbol in the poem "La gran aventura (The
great adventure)" 18 ("And I also salute you, Rocinante ... I Oh oId
horse without pedigree. I Y ou don't have a pedigree ... I But your
glory is greater than aIl those of "pure blood" in the world. I Y our
breeding as you master wanted I springs from you within." The
vision of the horse in Oh, este viejo y roto violín, (Oh this old and
broken violin) goes into a whole book, Rocinante, where one
passes from a symbol to a myth. As Miguel Nieto Nuño points out,
"in the quixotic fire that motivated León Felipe' s verse, the poet
identified with those without a people or a country like such as the
knight who had lost his mount. However the perspectives changed
with Rocinante, León Felipe's last work. Don Quixote had
achieved the transfiguration of the myth in the earlier poem "The
great adventure", he had reached a place where the poet could not
reach him anymore. The humble mount remained here, on the land
that sighed for light; the Spanish people remained behind and the
poef also remained behind those who had to support the hero at
that altitude; León Felipe's identification is now with Rocinante,,19.
He thus clarifies and defines in a posthumous book: "People say, I
The Americans, I The North Americans generally say: I León
Felipe is a "Don Quixote". I Not so, gentlemen, not so. I I just
support the hero nothing more ... I and yes I can say .. , I and 1 like
saying: / that 1 am Rocinante.,,20
These were the different ideas of four great poets about an
eterna} creatíon, that of Don Quixote, who we see in these
examples bcing con verted from poetry into myth.
lB León Felipe, 2004, p 733
19 M. Nieto Nuño, 1986, p. 119
20 León Felipe, p 940.
335

Francisco
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Felipe, L., Poesías completas, ed. José Paulino, Madrid, Visor,
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Machado, A., "Las Meditaciones del Quijote de José Ortega y
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Machado, A., Obras completas, ed. Oreste Macri, Madrid, Espasa
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vida y en la obra de León Felipe, Homenaje de Castilla-La
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336