Rafael Alberti was one of the Spanish writers belonging to the Generation of ’27 who had the greatest relevance. The writer was born in Puerto de Santa María in Cádiz on December 16, 1902 and died in the same city on October 28, 1999. During his life he obtained numerous awards and recognitions. He published his memoirs with the title The lost grove.
Poems by Rafael Alberti
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The writer lived in his childhood in Cádiz within a family of Italian origin of wealthy winemakers who had gone through some economic hardships. Rafael Alberti began his studies at a Carmelite school and continued at the Jesuit school, although He never adapted to the school discipline from which he was expelled in 1916 for misconduct.
The first poems of Rafael Alberti
In 1917 the writer moved with his family to Madrid and He continued with his vocation as a painter managing to exhibit his works at the Salon d’Automne and at the Ateneo de Madrid. The death of his father in 1920 marked a milestone in Rafael’s life and was the moment in which he wrote his first verses.
A lung condition forced him to live in the Segovian town of San Rafael where he began to work on the verses that would later form Sailor on land. After recovering, the writer returned to Madrid and he met writers such as García Lorca, Pedro Salinas and Vicente Aleixandre who had great influence on his life and work. He discovers Alberti’s poems.
The maturity of his work
In 1924, Rafael Alberti received the National Poetry Prize for Sailor on land and his life and work took a great turn. In 1927, on the occasion of the tricentenary of the death of Luis de Góngora, a series of poets decided to pay tribute to him at the Ateneo de Sevilla, which marked the consolidation of the Generation of ’27.
Alberti suffered an existential crisis caused by his delicate health, his financial problems and the loss of faith. A moment that is noticeable in his work About the angels and which he overcame with his political commitment. During the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera he participated in numerous student revolts, supported the advent of the Second Republic and joined the communist party. His poetry changes and he becomes a weapon to change the world.
In 1930 he met María Teresa León, with whom he founded the revolutionary magazine in 1933. October and with which he traveled to the Soviet Union to a meeting of anti-fascist writers. When they returned to Spain, they learned about the Asturian revolution of 1934 and stayed in Paris where the Comintern embarked them on a propaganda and fundraising mission through North America, Central America and the Caribbean in favor of the prisoners of the 1934 revolution.
Alberti’s poems: final works
During the Civil War Rafael Alberti expressed his position through the Alliance of Antifascist Intellectuals and had to leave Spain. Exile forced him to live in various parts of the world, from Paris to Buenos Aires. In 1963, he moved to live in Rome where he lived until his return to Spain in 1977. In this city he wrote his well-known work Rome, danger for walkerspublished in 1968 and Songs of the upper Aniene valley (1972). Enjoy Rafael Alberti poems with us.
Upon his return to Spain he was elected deputy to Congress on the PCE lists but resigned to continue his work as a poet and painter in Rome. During his lifetime He received awards as important as the Cervantes Prize in 1983.the Lenin Peace Prize in 1965 and the Rome Prize for Literature in 1991. On October 28, 1999, he died at his home in El Puerto de Santa María, his hometown.