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Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Born	Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón; 23 December 1881; Moguer, Huelva, Andalucia, Spain
Died	29 May 1958 (aged 76); San Juan, Puerto Rico
Occupation	poet
Nationality	Spanish
Genre	poetry
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature 1956
Spouse	Zenobia Camprubí
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Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (Spanish pronunciation: [xwan raˈmoŋ xiˈmeneθ manteˈkon];^[a] 23 December 1881 – 29 May 1958) was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the 1956 Nobel Prize in Literature^[1] "for his lyrical poetry, which in the Spanish language constitutes an example of high spirit and artistic purity".^{[citation needed]} One of Jiménez's most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the concept of "pure poetry".^{[citation needed]}

Biography

Early life

Juan Ramón Jiménez was born in Moguer, near Huelva, in Andalucia, on 23 December 1881.^[2] He was educated in the Jesuit institution of San Luis Gonzaga, in El Puerto de Santa María, near Cadiz. Later, he studied law and painting at the University of Seville, but he soon discovered that his talents were better used for writing.^[3] He then dedicated himself to literature, under the influence of Rubén Darío and French symbolism.^[3] He published his first two books at the age of eighteen, in 1900. The death of his father the same year devastated him, and a resulting depression led to his being sent first to France, where he had an affair with his doctor's wife, and then to a sanatorium in Madrid staffed by novice nuns, where he lived from 1901 to 1903.

In about 1904 Jiménez was hoodwinked by some Peruvians. José Gálvez, Carlos Rodríguez Hübner and a 15 year old Maria Isabel Sanchez-Concha created a fictional woman named Georgina Hübner and they started a correspondence with the poet. José and Carlos were hoping to get access to his writing and Sanchez-Concha did the writing.^[4] Jiménez fell in love with their creation and planned to travel to Peru to meet the young woman. The plan was only aborted by a telegram they arranged via the Spanish consul to the poet, giving him the fabricated news of Georgina's death.^[5]

Career

He was among the contributors of the Madrid-based avant-garde magazine Prometeo between 1908 and 1912.^[6] In 1911 and 1912, he wrote many erotic poems depicting romps with numerous women in numerous locales. Some of them alluded to sex with novices who were nurses. Eventually, apparently, their mother superior discovered the activity and expelled him, although it is not known whether the sexual activity described in his poems actually occurred. ^{[citation needed]}

The main subjects of many of his other poems were music and color, which, at times, he compared to love or lust.

He suffered a mental breakdown and depression, so he stayed hospitalised in France and Madrid.^[3] He celebrated his home region in his prose poem about a writer and his donkey called Platero and I (1914). In 1916 he and Spanish-born writer and poet Zenobia Camprubí were married in the United States. Zenobia became his indispensable companion and collaborator.^{[citation needed]}

Upon the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he and Zenobia went into exile in Puerto Rico, where he settled in 1946. Jiménez was hospitalized for eight months due to another deep depression. He later became a Professor of Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Puerto Rico. His literary influence on Puerto Rican writers strongly marks the works of Giannina Braschi, René Marqués, Aurora de Albornoz, and Manuel Ramos Otero.^[7] The university named a building on campus and a writing program in his honor.^{[citation needed]} He was also a professor at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.^{[citation needed]} While living in Coral Gables he wrote "Romances de Coral Gables".^{[citation needed]} In addition, he was a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland, which renamed Jimenez Hall for him in 1981.^{[citation needed]}

Although he was primarily a poet, Jiménez' prose work Platero y yo (1917; "Platero and I"; Platero is a donkey) sold well in Latin America and in translation won him popularity in the USA.^{[citation needed]} He also collaborated with his wife in the translation of the Irish playwright John Millington Synge's Riders to the Sea (1920). His poetic output during his life was immense.^{[citation needed]}

Among his better known works are:^{[citation needed]}

Sonetos espirituales 1914–1916 (1916; “Spiritual Sonnets, 1914–15”)
Piedra y cielo (1919; “Stones and Sky”)
Poesía en verso, 1917–1923 (1923; “Poetry in Verse”)
Poesía en prosa y verso (1932; “Poetry in Prose and Verse”)
Voces de mi copla (1945; “Voices of My Song”), and
Animal de fondo (1947; “Animal at Bottom”).

Both Jiménez and Camprubí used a simplified Spanish orthography different from the RAE standard.^{[citation needed]} A collection of 300 poems (1903–53) in English translation by Eloise Roach was published in 1962.^{[citation needed]}

Later life and death

In 1956, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature; ^{[citation needed]} two days later, his wife died of ovarian cancer.^{[citation needed]} Jiménez never recovered from the emotional devastation, and he died two years afterwards, on 29 May 1958, in the same clinic where his wife had died.^{[citation needed]} Both are buried in his hometown of Moguer, Spain.^{[citation needed]}

Juan Ramón Jiménez depicted on the 1980 2,000 Pesetas banknote

In popular culture

A quotation from Jiménez, "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way," is the epigraph to Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953).^{[citation needed]}
The same quotation used in Fahrenheit 451 is used in The Lovely Bones (2002) by Alice Sebold.^{[citation needed]}
In 1968, the Spanish film director Alfredo Castellón adapted Jiménez's novel Platero and I into a movie by the same title.^{[citation needed]}
The Spanglish novel Yo-Yo Boing! (1998) by the Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi features a scene in which poets and artists debate Jiménez's genius versus that of other Spanish-language poets Francisco de Quevedo, Luis de Góngora, Rubén Darío, Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, and Julia de Burgos.^[8]
A rock band in Spain is named Platero y Tú after Jiménez's novel^{[citation needed]}

Streets named after Jiménez

Several streets have been named after Jiménez, including one in Madrid^[9] and one in Valencia.^[10]

Published works (original editions)

Ninfeas (Water Lilies), 1900-Madrid.
Almas de violeta (Souls of Violet), 1900-Madrid.
Rimas (Rhymes), 1902-Madrid.
Arias tristes (Sad Arias), 1902
Jardines lejanos (Distant Gardens), 1904
Elejías puras (Pure Elegies), 1908
Elejías intermedias (Intermediate Elegies), 1909
Las hojas verdes (The Green Leaves), 1909
Poemas mágicos y dolientes (Magic and Painful Poems), 1909
Elejías lamentables (Sad Elegies), 1910
Baladas de primavera (Ballads of Spring), 1910
La soledad sonora (The Sonorous Loneliness), 1911
Pastorales (Pastoral), 1911
Melancolía (the sonorous loneliness), 1912
Laberinto (Labyrinth), 1913
Platero y yo (Platero and I) (edición reducida), 1914
Estío (Summer), 1916
Sonetos espirituales (Spiritual Sonnets), 1917
Diario de un poeta recién casado (Diary of a Recently Married Poet), 1917
Platero y yo (edición completa) (Platero and I), 1917
Eternidades (Eternities), 1918
Piedra y cielo (Stone and Sky), 1919
Segunda antología poética (Second Poetic Anthology), 1922
Poesía (Poetry), 1923
Belleza (Beauty), 1923
Canción (Song), 1935
Voces de mi copla (Voices of my Verse), 1945
La estación total (The Full Season), 1946
Romances de Coral Gables (Romances from Coral Gables), 1948
Animal de fondo (Animal from the Deep), 1949
Una colina meridiana (A Shining Hill) , 1950 (1° edición en España: Huerga & Fierro editores, 2002). Prólogo y estudio preliminar de Alfonso Alegre Heitzmann.
La frente pensativa (1911-1912) [cuatro poemas inéditos] (The Thoughtful Face), introducción de José Luis Puerto, Zamora: Lucerna, 2001.

I Am Not I

Published works (translations)

Books of Love: The Lost Poems of Juan Ramon Jimenez. Athens:Kinchafoonee Creek Press, 2022.

Notes

^ In isolation, Ramón is pronounced [raˈmon].

References

^ The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Juan Ramón Jiménez".
^ Mateo Pérez, Manuel (November 10, 2010). "Moguer y Juan Ramón Jiménez". El Mundo (in Spanish). Retrieved February 17, 2018.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Juan Ramón Jiménez. Biografía". Instituto Cervantes (in Spanish). Madrid. March 2016. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
^ Guardia, Sara Beatriz (2014). "Homenaje. María Isabel Sánchez Concha de Pinilla. 1889 - 1977" (PDF). Revista Historia de las Mujeres. ISSN 2522-3690.
^ "Georgina y yo: Cuando Juan Ramón Jiménez fue trolleado por una falsa admiradora". Verne (in Spanish). 2015-07-19. Retrieved 2024-08-09.
^ "Prometeo (Madrid. 1908)" (in Spanish). Hemeroteca Digital. Retrieved 7 September 2022.
^ "Elemental Creature". The Times Literary Supplement (in Spanish). March 10, 2015. Archived from the original on April 21, 2016. Retrieved February 17, 2018. His lyrical and philosophical work influencing Puerto Rican writers such as Manuel Ramos Otero and René Marqués.
^ Braschi, Giannina (1998). Sommer, Doris (ed.). Yo-Yo Boing!. Latin American Literary Review Press. p. 205. ISBN 0-935480-97-8.
^ "Calle de Juan Ramón Jiménez". Callejero.net (in Spanish). Madrid: Hispanetwork Publicidad y Servicios, SL. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
^ "C/ Juan Ramón Jiménez". Callejero.net (in Spanish). Valencia: Hispanetwork Publicidad y Servicios, SL. Retrieved February 17, 2018.

Bibliography

de Albornoz, Aurora, ed. 1980. Juan Ramón Jiménez. Madrid: Taurus.
Blasco, F. J. 1982. La Poética de Juan Ramón Jiménez. Desarrollo, contexto y sistema. Salamanca.
Campoamor González, Antonio. 1976. Vida y poesía de Juan Ramón Jiménez. Madrid: Sedmay.
Campoamor González, Antonio. 1982. Bibliografía general de Juan Ramón Jiménez. Madrid: Taurus.
El Cultural. 14 Jun 2007. Los poemas eróticos de Juan Ramon Jiménez. Aparece Libros de amor. Conoce los poemas del JRJ más lujurioso
Diario de Córdoba. 6 Jan 2007. ´Libros de amor´ descubre a un Juan Ramón Jiménez erótico Archived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine
Díez-Canedo, E. 1944. Juan Ramón Jiménez en su obra. México City.
Guardian (London). 19 Jun 2007. My sex in the convent - by Nobel poet
Font, María T. 1973. Espacio: autobiografía lírica de Juan Ramón Jiménez. Madrid.
Guerrero Ruiz, J . 1961. Juan Ramón de viva voz. Madrid.
Gullón, R. 1958. Conversaciones con Juan Ramón Jiménez. Madrid.
Jensen, Julio, 2012, The Poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez. An Example of Modern Subjectivity. Copenhagen.
Juliá, M. 1989. El universo de Juan Ramón Jiménez. Madrid.
Olson, P.R. 1967. Circle of Paradox: time and essence in the poetry of Juan Ramon Jimenez. Baltimore.
Palau de Nemes, G. 1974. Vida y obra de Juan Ramón Jiménez. 2/e. 2 v. Madrid: Gredos.
Predmore, Michael P. 1966. La obra en prosa de Juan Ramón Jiménez. Madrid: Gredos.
Salgado, M. A. 1968. El arte polifacético de las caricaturas líricas juanramonianas. Madrid.