‘Emprendiendo el camino del corazón’: the role played by memory in Rafael Alberti's Retornos de lo vivo lejano

Abstract

The poems of Retornos de lo vivo lejano (1948–1956) were written during Rafael Alberti's residence in Argentina (1940–1963). Forced to leave Spain at the end of the Spanish Civil War, in this celebrated collection he recalls and appraises pivotal events from his childhood, youth and adulthood. Far from simply seeking to escape from his exiled condition by retreating into nostalgia, as often argued by critics, this article contends that Alberti uses memory as an analytical tool. In the first and second chapters, he undertakes a journey of self-exploration as he meditates upon the development of his poetic vocation and commemorates his discovery of the redemptive nature of love. Finally, in the third chapter, in which he pays homage to his fellow countrymen, his preferred writers and poetry itself, he creates a set of ethical values upon which he bases his poetic identity during the long years of physical exile.

Keywords:

• Rafael Alberti
• memory
• exile
• identity
• ethics

Notes

 1. Rafael Alberti, La arboleda perdida: libro primero, 3^rd edn, Barcelona, Bruguera, 1984, p. 42.

 2. In her astute analysis of the book's title, Concha Argente del Castillo notes that: ‘lo que está vivo lo está en el propio poeta, porque de alguna forma este es el resultado de esas vivencias, aunque sea un resultado todavía en proceso abierto’, in Rafael Alberti: poesía del destierro, Granada, Universidad de Granada, 1986, p. 103.

 3. Rafael Alberti, Obras completas: poesía III, Jaime Siles (ed.), 4 vols, Barcelona, Seix Barral, 2003–2006, 3: p. 795. All references to the poems of Retornos will be to this edition. They will be incorporated into the article with page and line numbers.

 4. Eduardo González Lanuza, ‘Homenaje a Rafael Alberti’, Sur, 281 (1963), pp. 50–62 (p. 59).

 5. Catherine G. Bellver, Rafael Alberti en sus horas de destierro, Salamanca, El Colegio de España, 1984, p. 89, p. 63.

 6. Bellver, Rafael Alberti, p. 168.

 7. Isabel Paraíso, ‘Retornos de lo vivo lejano: elegía, sublimación y mito’, in José. J. Morales (ed.), Rafael Alberti libro a libro: el poeta en su centenario (1902–2002), Cádiz, Universidad de Cádiz, 2003, pp. 321–34 (p. 333).

 8. This has been one of the most commented poems in the book. For excellent readings, see Salvador Jiménez-Fajardo, Multiple Spaces: the Poetry of Rafael Alberti, London, Tamesis Books, 1985, pp. 106–10, Patricia Pinto Villarroel, ‘El exilio y el poder de la palabra: Retornos de lo vivo lejano de Rafael Alberti’, Acta literaria, 10–11 (1985–1986), pp. 167–78 (pp. 173–75), Pieter Wesseling, Revolution and Tradition: the Poetry of Rafael Alberti, Valencia, Albatros Hispanofila, 1981, pp. 104–6, Emilia de Zuleta, Cinco poetas españoles, Madrid, Gredos, 1971, pp. 371–75.

 9. According to Luis García Montero, ‘[en Retornos] los alejandrinos […] se repiten con una frecuencia poco usual, como llaves que sirven para abrir las galerías de la memoria’: ‘La poesía de Rafael Alberti’, in Rafael Alberti, Obras completas, Luis García Montero (ed.), 3 vols, Madrid, Aguilar, 1988, 1: pp. 29–133 (p. 109). Kurt Spang also points out that ‘las estrofas extensas e irregulares, el ritmo pausado y lento […] confieren a los retornos un tono solemne, de vez en cuando hasta sacral’: Inquietud y nostalgia: la poesía de Rafael Alberti, 2^nd edn, Pamplona, Universidad de Navarra, 1991, p. 146.

10. Alberti, Obras, 3: p. 19.

11. In ‘Arión (Versos sueltos del mar)’, Alberti writes: ‘Dale a mi verso, mar, la ligereza, / la gracia de tu ritmo renovado’, in Obras, 3: p. 15.

12. Alberti, Obras, 3: p. 69.

13. Rafael Alberti, Obras completas: poesía II, Robert Marrast (ed.), 4 vols, Barcelona, Seix Barral, 2003–2006, 2: p. 406.

14. See Alberti's sonnet ‘Esta pobre raíz…’ from Poemas diversos (1941–1963), in Obras, 3: p. 732.

15. In his memoir Alberti sums up the four years spent at the Jesuit ‘Colegio de San Luis Gonzaga’: ‘Allí sufrí, rabié, odié, amé, me divertí y no aprendí casi nada durante cerca de cuatro años de externado’, in La arboleda perdida, p. 34. For a study of Alberti's treatment of his schooldays in a selection of poems from the 1920s to the 1950s, see Geoffrey W. Connell, ‘A Recurring Theme in the Poetry of Rafael Alberti’, Renaissance and Modern Studies, 1 (1957), pp. 95–105.

16. For an insightful commentary on this poem, see Aurora de Albornoz, ‘Por los caminos de Rafael Alberti’, in Hacia la realidad creada, Barcelona, Península, 1979, pp. 221–37 (p. 232). There is a striking similarity between this retorno and Luis Cernuda's ‘Viendo volver’ from Vivir sin estar viviendo (1944–1949). The exiled Cernuda also envisages a possible voyage from America to Spain: ‘Irías, y verías / Todo igual, cambiado todo, / Así como tú eres / El mismo y otro. ¿Un río / A cada instante / No es él y diferente?’, in Luis Cernuda, Poesía completa: obra completa, Derek Harris and Luis Maristany (eds), 3 vols, Madrid, Ediciones Siruela, 1993–1994, 1: pp. 430–31.

17. This line is a clear allusion to Lope de Vega's novel El peregrino en su patria.

18. Gregorio Torres Nebrera compares Alberti's vision of love to Neruda's in Veinte poemas de amor (1924), in ‘Introducción’, in Rafael Alberti, Retornos de lo vivo lejano: Ora maritima, Gregorio Torres Nebrera (ed.), Madrid, Cátedra, 1999, pp. 11–106 (pp. 74–75).

19. Torres Nebrera, ‘Introducción’, p. 85.

20. This is also the central argument of Barbara D. May's book, El dilema de la nostalgia en la poesía de Alberti, Berne, Peter Lang, 1978. In his discussion of María Teresa León's Memoria de la melancolía, Angel G. Loureiro argues that ‘There is not such a thing as a properly personal memory: no one owns his/her memory, because memory is always a response and a responsibility. Memory […] is not simply marked or haunted by the other, but it is also addressed to the other, it is for the other’, in The Ethics of Autobiography: Replacing the Subject in Modern Spain, Nashville, Vanderbilt UP, 2000, pp. 97–98.

21. This line connects with Alberti's earlier poem ‘Toro en el mar’ from the fourth section of Entre el clavel y la espada (1939–1940).

22. The third and fourth lines allude to the opening of Quevedo's famous sonnet from Heráclito cristiano ‘¡Cómo de entre mis manos te resbalas! / ¡Oh, cómo te deslizas, edad mía!’, in Francisco de Quevedo, Obras completas: poesía original, José Manuel Blecua (ed.), Clásicos Planeta, 4, Barcelona, Planeta, 1963, p. 33.

23. Ricardo Gullón, ‘Alegrías y sombras de Rafael Alberti (segundo momento)’, in Manuel Durán (ed.), Rafael Alberti, Serie El escritor y la crítica, Persiles, 85, Madrid, Taurus, 1975, pp. 241–64 (p. 262).

24. Vicente Llorens, ‘El desterrado y su lengua: sobre un poema de Salinas’, in Manuel Aznar Soler (ed.), Estudios y ensayos sobre el exilio republicano de 1939, Biblioteca del exilio, 26, Seville, Renacimiento, 2006, pp. 155–66 (p. 166). Llorens observes that for an exiled writer ‘la lengua es casi el único bien que le queda, quizá el más precioso de todos, y el que nadie le puede arrebatar’, in ‘El desterrado y su lengua’, p. 158.

25. Rafael Alberti, Poemas del destierro y de la espera (antología), J. Corredor-Matheos (ed.), Madrid, Espasa–Calpe, 1978.

26. Alberti, Obras, 2: p. 375.

27. Alberti, Obras, 3: p. 379.

28. Jaime Siles, ‘Noticias, notas y variantes’, in Alberti, Obras, 3: pp. 735–880 (p. 795).

29. Alberti, Obras, 2: p. 442.