SOURCE: “The Poetics of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer,” in Modern Language Notes, Vol. 80, No. 2, 1965, pp. 185-201.

In the following essay, González-Gerth reviews Bécquer's Rimas in light of the author's poetic philosophy.

During his short life, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (Seville 1836—Madrid 1870) wrote about seventy-five short poems or Rimas which were not published in book form until after his death. They are now numbered among the lesser treasures of Spanish literature. Into these generally brief lyrics, Bécquer projected tremendous intensity of feeling without resorting to the verbal effusiveness so characteristic of his time. He made the poems into vehicles for subtle confession, devoid of artificiality. And his simple sincerity, restraint of expression, and tenuous, unrhetorical phrasing made Bécquer a favorite of contemporary Spanish poets from Juan Ramón Jiménez¹ to Jorge Guillén and Rafael Alberti, of whom the last two are specific assayers of...