Biography of José Martí | politician and Cuban writer.

(José Julián Martí Pérez;) La Habana, 1853 - Dos Ríos, Cuba, 1895) politician and Cuban writer, outstanding forerunner of Hispano-American literary modernism and one of the main leaders of the independence of his country. Born in a Spanish family with few financial resources, at the age of twelve José Martí began studying at City College who directed the poet Rafael María de Mendive, who was set on the intellectual qualities of the boy and decided to dedicate himself personally to their education.

José Martí

The young Marti soon felt attracted by the revolutionary ideas of many Cubans, and after the start of the ten year war and the imprisonment of his mentor, began his revolutionary activity: published the El Diablo Cojuelonewsletter, and shortly after a magazine, La Patria Libre, which contained his dramatic poem Abdala.

Seventeen José Martí was sentenced to six years in prison for membership of pro-independence groups; He did forced labor in the criminal until his ill-health earned him the pardon. Deported to Spain, in this country, he published his first work of importance, the drama of the adulteress. He started law studies in Madrid and graduated in law and philosophy and letters at the Universidad de Zaragoza.

During his years in Spain emerged in a deep affection for the country, though never forgave his colonial policy. In his work The Spanish Republic against the Cuban revolution he claimed to the metropolis that make an act of contrition and recognize mistakes made in Cuba. After touring Europe and America for three years, José Martí ended up settling in Mexico.

There he married Carmen Sayes Bazán Cuban and, shortly after, thanks to the peace of Zanjón, giving end of the ten year war (1868-1878), moved to Cuba. Deported again by Cuban authorities fearful before its revolutionary past, he settled in New York and devoted himself entirely to political and literary activity.

From his residence in exile, José Martí are used in the Organization of a new revolutionary process in Cuba, and in 1892 founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party and the magazine homeland. It then became the maximum leader of the struggle for the independence of his country.

Two years later, after interviewing the generalisimo Máximo Gómez, he managed to set in motion a process of independence. Despite the embargo on their ships by the US authorities, it could split at the head of a small contingent to Cuba. It was crushed by the realistic troops when he was forty-two years. Together with Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín, Martí is one of the key players in the process of emancipation of Latin America.

The poetry of José Martí

In addition to prominent ideologue and politician, José Martí was one of the greatest American poets and the most outstanding figure of the stage of transition to modernism, which meant the arrival of new artistic ideals in America. As a poet is known as free verse (1878-1882, published posthumously); Ismaelillo (1882), work that can be considered an advancement of the modernist budgets by the domain of form over content; and simple verses (1891), a decidedly modernist poems where autobiographical notes and popular character.

José Martí

Written mostly in 1882, free verse poems did not see the light until its posthumous publication in 1913, many years after his death. The own Martí called those verses of "hirsute endecasilabos, born great fears or hopes, or indomitable love of freedom, or painful love of beauty".

The strong and harsh tone of this volume, which Martí proclaimed his own preference, vividly impressed Miguel de Unamuno, whose judgements would be the starting point for the evaluation of the work. "Its vibrating force, both formal and in content, is evident in compositions as"Poetic"," my poetry "or feature than before", in which availed themselves of a language strong and dark, at times even passionate.

The poetry of José Martí is based on a dualistic vision of humanity: reality and idealism, spirit and matter, truth and falsehood, consciousness and unconsciousness, light and darkness. The poems of Ismaelillo (1882), book dedicated to his son, are an example of this: the weakness and innocence of the child are his strength.

In simple verses (1891), José Martí expressed the feeling that wakes you the joy of nature and the evil of the civilization. The suffering and fear of the time were also elements common in its lyric, which warns an approach to the romanticism that many critics have considered superior to those of his contemporaries. In my brothers died on 27 November (1872), published during his exile in Spain, Martí dedicated his verses to students killed in a massacre which took place on that date.

Work in prose

His only novel, fatal friendship, also called Lucía Jérez and signed with the pseudonym of Adelaida Ral, was published by deliveries in the The Latin American journal between May and September of 1885; Although its argument is dominated by the love theme, in this work of tragic end also social elements appear. His dramatic works include Abdullah (1869), symbolic drama in one Act and eight, The adulteress (1873) and love with love is paid (1875), also in verse and premiered in Mexico.

José Martí

The prose of Martí was influenced by the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson American, for whom the word was to be as eloquent as poetic and intense within a simple and concise speech. He was aware, as they were just modernists immediately following it, of all the possibilities of the language, and considered that its resources were closely linked to the human qualities of the people, which ultimately was who invented them.

Both the prose and poetry of Marti are inseparable from his biography; He stated that they were indisputable part of their utmost concern, which was that the policy. Optimistic personality, his views on the man, the poetry or society are aspects that appear in his works at the service of some concepts that were always the human being as the Center. Long-term its objective was the Betterment of humankind, but in the short term was the liberation of Cuba, to which he devoted all its efforts.

Therefore, its production in prose was largely functional, as their essays on Bolivar, San Martin or the general Páez, in relation to the heroes of the past, and about the general Gómez, Walt Whitman and Emerson among the contemporaries; in such texts, which were the best of his prose, he extolled the qualities of character that he admired. Within the first edition of his complete works, the volume entitled Americans posthumously brought his studies on figures of the North; two volumes, under the title Nuestra América, contain works of Martí consecrated to study aspects of life, the culture and the history of Hispanic America. In them he expressed his American message and summarized his pioneering theory of the weakness of the Hispanic Nations, where there was a huge gulf between leaders and intellectual classes and the people.

Chronicler and outstanding critic, made many of their authentic texts, essays, some of revolutionary character as the political in Cuba presidio (1871), a reflection of great lyrical strength of its condemnation of forced labour which denounces the hardships faced by the freedom fighters. Noteworthy is also The Spanish Republic against the Cuban revolution (1873) and Cuba and the United States (1889), refutation of attacks of the American press to the Cuban patriots, as well as The manifesto de Montecristi or his campaign diary.

Also founded a magazine for children, La Edad de Oro (1889), published in New York and which appeared tales baby the pompous Mr Don, Nene cross and the black doll. Entirely drafted by Martí, this publication shows a number of aspects of his personality and is also a demonstration of how he learned to anticipate many conquests of modern pedagogy: once more, emphasized in those writings concern by the standards of Justice and human dignity, which were grown in the child from an early age.

José Martí collaborated throughout his life in countless publications from different countries such as La Revista Venezolana, The National Opinion of Caracas, La Nación of Buenos Aires, or the Universal magazine of Mexico. His complete works (consisting in the 1963-1965 Edition of twenty-five volumes) also include a large correspondence (his letters, also revealing of his singular personality, have earned exceptional reviews) and numerous speeches, many of them dedicated to inflame the patriotic sentiment of the Cubans who were like him in the emigration, calling them to the common effort thanks to which the independence of the homeland would be achieved.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas