Pedro Salinas y Serrano
Biography of Pedro Salinas y Serrano
Pedro Salinas y Serrano (27 November 1891, Madrid – 4 December 1951, Boston) was a Spanish poet and member of the Generation of '27. He was also a scholar and critic of Spanish literature, teaching at universities in Spain, England, and the United States.
Pedro Salinas is considered one of the leading poets of the Spanish literary movement, the Generation of 27, which includes Federico Garcia Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Luis Cernuda, Emilio Prados, Vicente Aleixandre and others.
His father died when he was a child. Being young in Madrid, Salinas developed interest in various topics, including law, philosophy and writing, and dreamed of becoming involved in all these areas.
He then went on to teach at the Sorbonne (Paris) from 1914 to 1917. There, he developed a passion for Marcel Proust's works, translating the first two volumes and part of the third of the vast In Search of Lost Time into Spanish.
When he returned to Spain, he began lecturing at the University of Seville, the University of Murcia, and the University of Santander. In 1922-1923, Salinas taught at Cambridge University. The Spanish Second Republic appointed him rector of the International Menendez Pelayo University.
Before the Spanish Civil War began, Salinas had been offered a teaching position at Wellesley College, and in summer 1936 he left Spain to assume that position, and never returned. He taught in several universities in the United States and Puerto Rico, including the Johns Hopkins University.
He was laid to rest in Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in San Juan in accordance with his wishes. His complete works have been edited by Enric Bou, of Brown University.
Pedro Salinas y Serrano's Works:
* Aquí (Here)
* Ayer te besé en los labios (I Kissed Your Lips Yesterday)
* El alma tenías (The Soul You Had)
* Fue como beso o llanto? (Was It Like Kissing or Crying?)
* Horizontal, sí, te quiero (Horizontal, Yes, I Love You)
* Largo lamento (Long Lament)
* Razón de amor (Love's Reason)
* Presagios (Omens)
* Underwood Girls
* El contemplado (mar, poema) (The contemplated (sea, poem))
Pedro Salinas y Serrano Poems
First I forgot you in your voice. If you were talking to me now, here by my side, I would ask, “Who’s there?”
Wake up. Day calls you
Wake up. Day calls you to your life: your duty. And to live, nothing more. Root it out of the glum
No, no me basta, no. Ni ese azul en delirio celeste sobre mí, cúspide de lo azul.
Maybe it is because of the fog that I caress you, because all around me are fog,
Two twenty-five. Yes. But not here, no. On what day would it be that particular two twenty-five, in what world could it be
First I forgot you in your voice.
If you were talking to me now,
here by my side,
I would ask, “Who’s there?”
Then your step became unfamiliar.
If a shadow—even one of flesh
and blood—escapes in the wind,
I can’t tell if it’s you.