Rafael Alberti - Poetry: The Early Phase

Poetry: The Early Phase

Although Marinero en tierra is generally referred to as Alberti’s first book, it was in fact his second; an earlier book, Giróscopo (‘Gyroscope’), having been lost, although it seems probable that some of its contents were included in a volume of Poesías anteriores a Marinero en tierra (‘Poems before Marinero en tierra') that he compiled during his time in Rome. In Marinero, the stylistic influence of Gil Vicente and the mediaeval cancioneros, to which Alonso had introduced him, together with a highly organised, formal, baroque style derived from Rubén Darío’s Modernismo - and ultimately from Góngora’s ballads – along with traces of Ultraism are all clearly visible. Linking these various influences together are the poet’s facility – writing poetry seems to come to him very easily – and an air of naivety and innocence that are in fact carefully contrived. When the book was submitted for the Premio Nacional, the book was called Mar y tierra (‘Sea and land’) and the title Marinero en tierra was reserved for one single series of poems inside the whole collection. This is the most close-knit series of poems in the entire collection and deserves consideration as a single long poem. It also introduces two enduring themes in his work – his love of his native sea and nostalgia for his childhood. The poems in this sequence are nearly all written in lines of irregular length and irregular assonances and derive most obviously from the cancionero tradition.

La amante (1925) and El alba del alhelí (1926) followed in quick succession. Alberti had settled on a style and was writing fluently within it. He was working on the poems which would form El alba when he was invited by his brother, who had succeeded their father as a wine-salesman, to take a trip with him to the Cantabrian coast. Alberti had never before visited northern Spain and the car-trip through the villages and mountains made a strong impression on him. In La amante, his brother is replaced by the figure of an imaginary girl-friend and he assumes the persona of a troubadour, writing short and generally light-hearted verses about the sights they saw. El alba, on the other hand, was written mainly during holidays he spent with two of his married sisters in Málaga and Rute, a claustrophobic Andalusian mountain village. He had by now met García Lorca and seems to be trying to emulate him. However, what in Lorca is tragic, violent and death-laden tends to seem false and melodramatic in Alberti.