Miguel Hernandez in the heart

Aitor Larrabide thus continues the Foundation’s editorial program to bring together the most representative Hernand research by the most prestigious critics and researchers. In this case, it is veteran Gabriele Morelli, dean of Hispanists in his country and one of Miguel Hernández’s first European scholars, who put together some of his best pages (307 in total) in a wide selection of works. About Miguel: From Hernández, which he published in 1970, to his most recent articles, now finally translated into Spanish. Decisive works on the relationship between Miguel and Vicente Aleixandre, the correspondence between another famous Hispanist, Dario Puccini and Josefina Manresa, the reception of the Hernandian work in Italy and the intense dedication of the poet in Italy for more than fifty years. or a reflection on the practice of translating his poems into Italian.

The homage to Neruda, which we mentioned in the title of the book, has a special meaning, because as Morelli mentions in the book, Neruda, a doctoral student at the University in 1960, visited the teaching center and asked to meet with him. For Spanish students to ask about their PhD research. When Morelli’s turn came and Morelli told him that he was working on Hernández and that he had almost no documentation on the poet, Neruda invited him to meet him and on a good day told him about his friendship and admiration for the poet. He was the Windpoet of the town and showed him ways to get the information he needed.

Spain in the sixties

There are many personal memoirs in this book by Morelli, from the point of view of an Italian who came to Spain in the sixties to study the poet, referring to the difficulties he faced even when buying a book from a Madrid bookstore. Argentine edition of the complete poems of 1960, almost secretly. Or their visit to Josefina Manresa at Elche in those years, who was not easy to deal with and who, despite Morelli’s success, always felt very suspicious about everything about her husband. He traveled with her from Elche to Orihuela in a car from Spain to visit Miguel’s house, which Josefina did not even want to go near. In any case, Morelli’s contributions are an indisputable reference.

First of all, it refers to the personal relationships of the poet. In that sense, everything about Aleixandre’s admiration and protection for him is always fundamental, even when Morelli reveals our 1977 Nobel Prize winner’s personal trust in Miguel at his home during the war, it has an emotional appeal to these pages. references to real feelings. Everything compiled around the relationship between Hernández’s wife and the great Hispanist Dario Puccini, one of his first and most prestigious supporters in Italy, is of exceptional value. Through correspondence studied and edited by Morelli, Josefina’s enthusiasm is noted when it comes to specifying specific data about the poet, especially in two respects that are highly relevant to her work. An interpretation of the El rayo que no cesa sonnets performed by some biographers of the sixties and accepted by Puccini (in relation to other possible muses of poems such as Maruja Mallo or María Cegarra), which Josefina refuses to accept. Or anything related to Miguel’s affiliation with the Communist Party of Spain, which has never been fully clarified and his wife has always denied. The testimonies of Ramón Pérez Álvarez and even an observation made by politician Alfonso Guerra are evaluated by Morelli in his conclusions. It is also noteworthy that the book describes some of the poems presented by Morelli, especially the final compositions of Cancionero y ballads of absans, which he translated and edited in Italy, on which he offers extremely clear readings between life, love and death. In eternal poems like Absence or Eternal shadow in everything I see.