Notes For December 24th, 2024
This Day In Literary History
On December 24th, 1881, the legendary Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez was born in Moguer, Andalusia, Spain. Although he studied law at the University of Seville, Jiménez never practiced it, choosing to become a writer instead.
Jiménez' first two poetry books were published in 1900; he was eighteen at the time. That same year, his father died. Jiménez was devastated and fell into a severe depression. He was sent to France for psychiatric treatment, where he had an affair with his doctor's wife.
From there, Jiménez would spend time at a sanitarium in Madrid. The sanitarium was run by the nuns who lived at the nearby convent of the Sisters of the Holy Rosary order. He stayed there from 1901 to 1903.
While at the sanitarium, Jiménez supposedly had passionate affairs with three young nuns who cared for him - Sister Pilar, Sister Amalia, and Sister Filomena. To this day, the nuns' order insists that there is no concrete evidence proving that these affairs took place.
There is one concrete fact that the Sisters of the Holy Rosary can't deny - Jiménez was expelled from the sanitarium by the Mother Superior, along with the three young nuns, who were transferred to other convents belonging to their order.
Beginning in 1911, Jiménez would write poems about his affairs with the young nuns. One of the best known of these poems is Three Verses:
Sister! We stripped off our ardent bodies
In endless and senseless profusion….
It was autumn and the sun – don’t you remember?
Added sweet sadness to the white splendor of our abode
Sister Pilar, are your eyes still so black?
And your mouth so fresh and red?
And your breasts? How are they?
Oh, do you recall how you would come into my room late at night,
calling to me like a mother, telling me off like a child?
When she fled, in a flight of deranged wimples,
from the impetuous will of my desire
she would seek shelter in a corner, like a cat…
but her nails were sweeter than my kisses.
In 1913, Jiménez met and fell in love with Zenobia Camprubi, a writer and translator known for her Spanish translation of the works of Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore. Shortly after meeting Zenobia, Jiménez published a book of mildly erotic lyrical poems.
He planned to follow it with a book of more explicitly erotic poetry, but changed his mind after Zenobia reacted with disgust to his previous collection. Nevertheless, he continued writing and publishing collections of poems at a prolific rate.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Jiménez refused to side with the fascists or live in a fascist country. He and Zenobia left Spain on a self-imposed exile, settling first in Cuba, then in the United States, and finally in 1946, Puerto Rico.
He would be hospitalized again for severe depression, this time for eight months. Jiménez later became a professor of Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Maryland, which would name a building on its campus and a writing program after him.
In 1956, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Three days later, his wife died of cancer. He was devastated by the loss, and his health began to deteriorate. He lost the will to live and died in 1958 at the age of 76.
Among the most popular works of Juan Ramón Jiménez were poetry collections such as Spiritual Sonnets 1914-1916 (1916), Stones and Sky (1919), Poetry in Prose and Verse (1932), Voices of My Song (1945), and Animal At Bottom (1947).
He also wrote a popular book-length prose poem, Platero and I (1917), a whimsical tale of a writer and his donkey still read and studied by Spanish schoolchildren today.
In 2007, a Spanish publisher released Books of Love, a compilation of Jiménez's erotic poetry. It contained his original book, plus a collection of previously unpublished poems - the more explicitly erotic poetry that he had wanted to publish earlier.
The poems about the author's affairs with the three young nuns were included in the new volume, resulting in a furious letter of protest from the nuns' order, the Sisters of the Holy Rosary.
Juan Ramón Jiménez remains one of the greatest Spanish poets of all time.
Quote Of The Day
"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way."
- Juan Ramón Jiménez
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a presentation on and a collection of poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez. Enjoy!
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