César Vallejo Dictionary of Hispanic Biography, November 6, 1996 Listen Born: March 16, 1892 in Santiago de Chuco, Peru Died: April 15, 1938 Nationality: Peruvian Occupation: Poet César Vallejo SELECTED PUBLISHED WORKS Trilce, Lima, Penitenciaría, 1922, translated by David Smith, New York, Grossman, 1973. El tungsteno: La novela proletaria, Madrid, Editorial Cenit, 1931, translated by Robert Mezey as Tungsten: A Novel, Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 1988. Poemas humanos, Paris, Presses Modernes, 1939; translated by Clayton Eshleman as Poemas humanos: Human Poems, New York, Grove Press, 1969. Twenty Poems (bilingual edition), selected and translated by Robert Bly, James Wright, and John Knoepfle, Sixties Press, 1962. César Vallejo: An Anthology of His Poetry, edited by James Higgins, Elmsford, NY, Pergamon Press, 1970. César Vallejo: The Complete Posthumous Poetry, translated by Clayton Eshleman and José Rubia Barcia, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978. Battles in Spain, translated by Clayton Eshleman and José Rubia Barcia, Black Sparrow Press, 1978. Autopsy on Surrealism, translated by Richard Schaaf, Willimantic, CT, Curbstone Press, 1982. Poetry and politics often dovetail in Latin America and the career of Peruvian poet César Abraham Vallejo was no exception. He was born on March 16, 1892, in Santiago de Chuco, Peru to a large family of seven boys and four girls. His father, Francisco de Paula Vallejo, was the son of a Galician priest and a Chimu Indian, as was his mother, María de los Santos Mendoza. His mixed origins were often noted by biographers as significant in the poets development. Vallejo was raised as a Catholic and groomed to become a priest, a choice he soon rejected. He studied in the small schools of his northern Andes town and, at a very early age, showed an interest in books. He sporadically studied at Trujillo University, where he received a bachelors degree in literature in 1915, followed by a law degree. He also briefly studied medicine at the University of San Marcos in Lima in 1911. In between periods of university studies, Vallejo held a variety of jobs. These included stints as a clerk in his fathers notary office, working as a miner, and on a ranch as a tutor for the ranch-owners children. Another job, which brought him in close contact with both the poor working class and Indian slaves, was as an assistant cashier on a sugar plantation. When he returned to Trujillo University in 1913--having switched from the School of Letters to the School of Philosophy--Vallejo also got a job as a teacher. To keep his botany and anatomy students attention, he wrote poems of scientific explanations. This first dalliance with poetry led him to join a prestigious literary group, where he was exposed to the writings of Walt Whitman, Paul Verlaine, Count Maeterlinck, and Soren Kierkegaard, the father of Existentialism. While this exposure fed his poetic soul, Vallejo experienced a personal loss that profoundly effected him. His favorite brother died and inspired the poem, A mi hermano Miguel. Vallejo studied law from 1916 to 1917 and continued to teach and write poems that would become part of his first book, Los heraldos negros (The Black Messengers), which was published in 1918. The poems in this first collection of his work show the authors perplexity over the rigors of urban life in Trujillo and Lima. During his studies, Vallejo was introduced to the ideas of Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, and Rationalist philosophers whose theories prompted him to reject the Catholic faith. He learned more about his pre-Columbian heritage and the condition of Peruvian Indians. The year 1918 marked not only the publication of Vallejos first collection of poems, but more tragic personal losses as well. His mother, with whom he had a close and supportive relationship, died that year, as did two of his mentors. By 1919 Vallejo had had enough. Although his book was well received and praised, he was unemployed and feeling the devastation of too many deaths in too short a time. He decided to move to Europe. The Difficult Move to Paris Before he left Peru, Vallejo stopped at his hometown to say his farewells. In an ironic twist of fate, he somehow became caught up in an uprising in Santiago de Chuco in August 1920. It is unclear whether Vallejo was actually an instigator of the riot or whether he tried to restore order. The police decided it was the former and Vallejo served nearly four months in prison. It was, Flores noted, a traumatic experience for the young poet, which would be reflected in several poems that would appear in his next collection, Trilce. The subject of a number of poems, that experience reinforced his belief in the worlds arbitrary cruelty and his sense of inadequacy in the face of it, James Higgins observed in A History of Peruvian Literature. After being released from prison on parole, Vallejo returned to Lima to teach. He won first prize for the short story Entre Nous in a national contest sponsored by the Sociedad Gemenina. With his winnings, the poet published Trilce in 1922. It was, to say the least, ahead of its time--so far ahead that critics and readers alike rejected the poems. In a reprinted letter regarding his collection Vallejo wrote: [The book] has fallen into a total void. I am responsible for the book. I assume complete responsibility for its aesthetics. Today, perhaps more than ever, I sense an until now unknown and sacred obligation gravitating over me as a man and as an artist: to be free! Upon examination of the books title some of what Vallejo was doing in his controversial work is revealed. The word Trilce is both a combination of triste (sad) and dulce (sweet) and an evocation of three-ness, as in triple. (Numbers, odd and even, are one of Vallejos obsessions as a poet), Christopher Maurer wrote in New Republic. What Trilce is about is not easy to say. Like all great poetry, it was designed to survive paraphrase, and these poems range from the manageably mysterious to the truly hermetic. Mauer called Vallejo one of the greatest and least-known poets of the century. The book of 77 poems is one of the masterpieces in the Spanish language. The title itself is an untranslatable neologism, one of many in a book that pushes Spanish to its syntactical and lexical breaking point. It is in his manipulation of the language, in the creation of his own unique syntax, that Vallejos brilliance shines through. However, this brilliance was not easily understood and, indeed, not studied or praised until decades later. While critics in succeeding generations would find much to admire in Vallejos poetry, he had little success in his lifetime. The poor reception of Trilce and the rumors that a trial was still pending over the riots, prompted Vallejo to leave for Paris; he arrived there in July, 1923. He struggled to find work and, at times, suffered heartbreaking poverty. As he struggled to make ends meet in Paris, Vallejos health started to fail. He spent a month in a charity hospital where he was operated on for an intestinal hemorrhage. His health was never the same again. After recovering, he traveled often to Madrid to collect a scholarship he had managed to receive. Although it was intended for Peruvian scholars studying in Spanish, Vallejo somehow became its recipient. He was involved with two women in Paris, one of whom, Georgette Philippart, he married in 1934. And he traveled, extensively and, significantly, to the Soviet Union several times. While his political agenda became more pronounced in his activities and fiction, Vallejos views did not permeate his poetry to the same extent. He helped found the Centro Latinoamericano de Estudios Marxistas (Latin American Center for Marxist Studies). Though his health and economic situation did not improve, he traveled to various cities such as Berlin, Leningrad, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Rome, and Genoa in 1929. Around this same time he also finished a collection entitled Poemas en prosa, though it was not published during his life. Banished From France In December of 1930, the French government banned Vallejo from the country for attending public protests, numerous arrests, participating in secret meetings, having connections with Bolsheviks, visiting the library of a Marxist newspaper, and traveling to the U.S.S.R. So, in 1931 Vallejo and Philippart moved to Madrid, where life was no easier than it had been in Paris. A commissioned short story for children was rejected by an editor and while his essay collection Ruisa en 1931: reflexiones al pie de Kremlin (Russia in 1931: Reflections at the Foot of the Kremlin) was a number-two best seller, he could not get his authors rights and royalties. His second work on Russia was rejected, as was a collection of plays. Soon, the couple was back in Paris secretly--and then openly. Though told by the government to watch his step, Vallejo did participate in a demonstration. Despite this, he was allowed to remain in Paris until his death in 1938. His last great political endeavor was being involved in the Spanish Civil War. At first Vallejo wanted to go the battlefront itself, but had to settle for writing propaganda from the safety of Paris. In 1938 his numerous illnesses at last caught up with him, and Vallejo died on the morning of April 15th. After his death, his widow selected some of his poems for publication in Poemas humanos. Though he earned little critical acclaim prior to his death, afterward Vallejo was to be recognized as an artist of world stature, the greatest poet not only of Peru but of all Spanish America, Higgins claimed in The History of Peruvian Literature. Further Readings Books Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature, Volume II, edited by Emir Rodriguez Monegal, New York, Knopf, 1977. Flores, Angel, Spanish American Authors, New York, H. W. Wilson, 1992. Higgins, James F., A History of Peruvian Literature, F. Cairns, 1987. Hispanic Writers, edited by Bryan Ryan, Detroit, Gale, 1991. Periodicals New Republic, July 12, 1993, pp. 34-39. Source Citation César Vallejo. Dictionary of Hispanic Biography. Gale, 1996. Biography in Context. Web. 22 Nov. 2013. Document URL ic.galegroup/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=BIC1&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CK1611000442&source=Bookmark&u=spl_main&jsid=c9906db720be8671552c62a48f9ed97c Gale Document Number: GALE|K1611000442 ic.galegroup/ic/bic1/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Reference&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=BIC1&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CK1611000442&source=Bookmark&u=spl_main&jsid=c9906db720be8671552c62a48f9ed97c
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:37:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015