Literary Characters of the Day: Luis Cernuda and Sam Shepard

A priori, Luis Cernuda and Sam ShepardThey have nothing in common, but only that, a priori. In addition to their common passion for literature, they are also united by a number, 5. Specifically today, November 5. On this day, one was born and the other died, yes, many years apart. On this day like today the Sevillian Luis Cernuda died in Mexico City in 1963. Sam Shepard was born on November 5, 1943 in Illionois, United States.

Here's a little bit of each, in our own way and as a special Saturday item.

Luis Cernuda

The Sevillian poet once wrote:

«Poetry for me is being with whom I love. I know well that this is a limitation. But limitation by limitation that is the most acceptable after all. The rest are words that are only valid insofar as they express what I did not think or did not want to say. In other words, a betrayal. If you separate from me, let it be to betray me. The wind will distract you with its short stories. I will forget the same thing that a tree and a river are also forgotten ».

Luis Cernuda belonged to that group of poets known as the 27 Generation. Law graduate and supporter of the Republic, went into exile after the Civil War to England, the United States and Mexico, where he would finally die.

In the poet's work the conflict between "reality and desire" is a constant, in fact, all his poetic work since 1936 is grouped under the same title: "The reality and desire".

This poetic evolution can be divided into two phases, specifically those corresponding to before and after the war. The first shows an evolution from the purest poetry («Air profile», 1927) to a surreal influence ("Forbidden Pleasures", 1931). It is also in this phase that we find his famous work "Where oblivion dwells" (1932-1933). After the war, the national theme is noted in his verses and uprooting towards the country where he was born. Little by little his work transcends some more metaphysical and philosophical levels. 

Luis Cernuda wrote very often to the frustration of love, to see it as unattainable and "prohibited" in the face of society. The feelings of loneliness, lack of freedom and the passage of time are also perceived in his verses. Hence his famous verse: "How beautiful was life and how useless."

Phrases and verses of the poet

• "We only know how to invoke the cold as children for fear of going alone in the shadow of time."
• «You justify my existence: if I don't know you, I haven't lived; if I die without knowing you, I do not die because I have not lived ».
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   "Freedom I do not know but the freedom of being imprisoned in someone whose name I cannot hear without shuddering."

• «Someone for whom I forget this petty existence, for whom day and night are whatever I want for me, and my body and spirit float in his body and spirit like lost logs that the sea flooded or raised freely, with freedom love, the only freedom that exalts me, the only freedom because I die.

• «Some bodies are like flowers, others like daggers, others like ribbons of water; but all, sooner or later, will be burns that enlarge in another body, turning a stone into a man by virtue of the fire.

Sam shepard

Sam Shepard (72 years old) is considered one of America's most important contemporary playwrights. His first works were born in the 60s, and in addition to theater he has written film scripts, is an actor and a musician. Two of his best known films are "The Pelican Report" y "Chosen for glory".

Is actual member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and as honorable distinctions that he has obtained are the Theater Pulitzer in 1979 for his work "Buried Child" ("Bored Boy") and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

He has a good relationship with the recent Nobel Prize in Literature, Bob Dylan who he worked with on the film "Renaldo and Clara" and together with the one who wrote the song "Brownsville Girl", one of Dylan's best songs.

His last written play has been "Cold in July" (2014)

Phrases by this versatile author

• «Surely it is an unfair question, don't you think? Ask someone why they are so unhappy?

• Horses are like humans. They have to know their limits. Once they discover them they are happy simply grazing in the field.

• "My last refuge, my books, are simple pleasures like finding wild onions on the side of the road or a reciprocated love."

• "The point is that my wife gorges herself on pills and I drink, it's the agreed deal, a clause of our marriage contract."

• “Democracy is a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being accountable to it and let it turn into scare tactics, it's not democracy anymore, is it? It is something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism. '