SOURCE: “The Early Works,” in Vicente Aleixandre, Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1970, pp. 65-80.

In the following essay, Schwartz presents an overview of Aleixandre's early poetry.

I Ambito

Ambito (Ambit), Aleixandre's first volume of poetry, was composed between 1924 and 1927. It went to press in the summer of 1927, appearing the following year in Litoral, the poetry review of Emilio Prados and Manuel Altolaguirre in Málaga. Ambit, supposedly a marginal work in the author's production, is somewhat related to Shadow of Paradise, to be published years later. Composed of seven sections plus eight “Nights,” including an initial and final “Night” and one “Sea,” it contains classical and gongoristic forms, not unexpected at the time, since it was partly composed during the tercentenary of Góngora when baroque formalism ruled the day. One can find a minor delicate reminiscence of the poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez. Nature is everywhere, but...