An investigation brings to light 170 unpublished writings by Miguel Hernández

"It is possible that this voice looks like any other, I presume it does, but what fault do I have that my face is like that of Federico [García Lorca], that my step has to do with that of Pablo [Neruda]" .

The poet Miguel Hernández (Orihuela, 1910-Alicante, 1942) claimed his "right to deserve" with two of his own references.

His resemblance to Lorca and Neruda, physically with the former and as a poetic voice with the latter, is reflected in the unpublished texts of the poet from Alicante that Professor Carmen Alemany Bay has dusted off from the Historical Archive of Elche (Alicante) after many years of research. .

"Miguel Hernández did not have inferiority complexes, but he did claim a role similar to that of his poet friends," Alemany emphasizes.

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Unpublished and unfinished texts by Miguel Hernández

(Estudio y Edición, Universidad de Jaén and Fundación Legado Literario Miguel Hernández), which began as Carmen Alemany's doctoral thesis, brings to light more than 170 writings that Miguel Hernández produced at different stages of his short life, mainly from his early youth, when he published

and the period of the Civil War.

The texts could be preserved thanks to the poet's widow, Josefina Manresa, considered the "guardian", assuming a lot of risk, of the Hernandiano legacy, and have now been reinterpreted by Alemany.

"They reveal the richness of the poet's creative process, which, contrary to what might be believed, is the result of deep meditation and exhaustive work until reaching the final version of the poem," explains the professor at the University of Alicante.

“One of the main novelties of the finding is”, according to the professor, “the insistent and willful process of creation” by Hernández.

Pages and pages in which she writes images, metaphors and loose verses;

In short, literary exercises that served as poetic learning and as a reference to compose her poems ”, she adds.

"Even this and I deserve more / I deserve more and more I ask of you / I deserve the sponge, I deserve the sand...", wrote Miguel Hernández, obsessed with driving away any inferiority complex with respect to his contemporary writers. .

In these writings there is a succession of ideas or images separated by hyphens that allow one to get an idea of ​​the theme and focus of the poem, but also semi-finished or finished texts, such as some octaves that the author completely crossed out.

Miguel Hernández was also deeply concerned about the value of the image in poetry, spending a lot of time thinking over and over again about possible visual references for his poems.

"The image doesn't let me be until I write it," he said in one of these unpublished texts.

The book

has been presented in Jaén within the framework of the II International Seminar on the Miguel Hernández Legacy Foundation.

It analyzes the poet's literary influences, such as San Juan de la Cruz, Lope de Vega, Góngora, Quevedo, Gabriel Miró, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda.

In addition, a contextualized analysis of his work and of the great literary models, both traditional and modern, which powerfully influenced the creation of the author from Alicante, has been carried out.

"Miguel Hernández stands out for absorbing the entire Spanish lyrical tradition and, later, converting it with his creative power into a personal and genuine voice," said Rafael Alarcón, professor of Spanish Literature and coordinator of the seminar held on the 80th anniversary of the death of the poet

The Jaén Provincial Council acquired in 2013 the legacy of Miguel Hernández, until then abandoned on a bank in Elche (Alicante) due to the disagreement between the heirs of the poet and the local rulers, of the PP.

Since then, the legacy has been kept, fully digitized, in the facilities of the Institute of Giennenses Studies (IEG), and another part in the Miguel Hernández-Josefina Manresa Museum, in Quesada (Jaén), the town where the wife of the Alicante poet.

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