SOURCE: “Nobel Lecture,” in Vicente Aleixandre: A Critical Appraisal, edited by Santiago Daydí-Tolson, Bilingual Press, 1977, pp. 35-40.

In the following lecture, which Aleixandre originally delivered at his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1977, the poet expresses his gratitude and discusses his major poetic influences.

At a moment like this, so important in the life of a man of letters, I should like to express in the most eloquent words at my command the emotion that a human being feels and the gratitude he experiences in the face of an event such as that which is taking place today. I was born in a middle-class family, but I had the benefit of its eminently open and liberal outlook. My restless spirit led me to practice contradictory professions. I was a teacher of mercantile law, an employee in a railway company, a financial journalist. From early youth...