Ernestina de Champourcín

Ernestina de Champourcin in 1996

Ernestina de Champourcín Morán de Loredo (10 July 1905 in Vitoria-Gasteiz – 27 March 1999 in Madrid) was a Spanish poet. She is most associated with the Generation of '27.

Life

Early life

Ernestina Michels de Champourcín Morán de Loredo, was born into a Catholic and traditionalist family, which offered her a thorough education (she was taught a range of different languages) as part of an aristocratic and cultured family atmosphere.

Her father was a lawyer of monarchical ideas, and despite his liberal-conservative inclination, Antonio Michels de Champourcín possessed the title of baron of Champourcín, a title which pointed to his paternal family's origin in Provence. Ernestina’s mother, Ernestina Morán de Loredo Castellanos, was born in Montevideo, being the only daughter of a military man, of Asturian descent, with whom she often traveled to Europe.

Around the age of 10, Ernestina moved, together with the rest of the family, to Madrid, where she was enrolled in the College of the Sacred Heart, received private tuition, and was examined as a free high school student. at the Instituto Cardenal Cisneros. Her desire to study at University was truncated due in part to her father's opposition, despite her mother's support. Her mother was willing to accompany her to classes, to comply with the existing standard for underage women.

Ernestina’s knowledge of French and English, and her creativity, led her to start writing poetry in French from a very young age. Later, she would use this knowledge of languages ​​to work as a translator for the Mexican publishing house Fondo de Cultura Económica, for about fifteen years (during which she stopped publishing poetry), even though her role as a translator is less well known in literary circles

Her love of reading and the cultured family atmosphere brought her into contact with the greats of universal literature from a very young age, and she grew up with the books of Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine, Vigny, Maurice Maeterlinck, Paul Verlaine and the great Castilian mystics, John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Jesus. Later, she read Valle-Inclán, Rubén Darío, Concha Espina, Amado Nervo and, above all, Juan Ramón Jiménez. The figure of Juan Ramón Jiménez is of vital importance in the development of Ernestina as a poet, and in fact, she always considered him as her teacher.

Like the vast majority of writers of her generation, the first witnesses of her poetic work are loose poems published from 1923 in various magazines of the time, such as Manantial, Cartagena Ilustrada o La Libertad. In 1926, Maria de Maeztu and Concha Méndez founded the Lyceum Club Femenino, with a view to bringing women together and encouraging unity, so that they could help each other in the struggle to find a role in the cultural and social affairs of their time. This project interested Ernestina, who became involved in it, taking care of everything related to literature.

In the same year, Ernestina published her work En silencio in Madrid and sent a copy to Juan Ramón, awaiting the poet's judgment and critique of her first work. Even though she did not receive an answer, she came across Jiménez and his wife - Zenobia Camprubí - in the Farm of San Ildefonso. From this chance encounter a friendship arose between the two that led her to consider him her mentor, just as was the case, a little later on, with their other peers. Through her acquaintance with him she also got in touch with some of the members of the Generation of '27: Rafael Alberti , Federico García Lorca, Luis Cernuda, Jorge Guillén, Pedro Salinas and Vicente Aleixandre. In addition, thanks to her mentor, she came into contact with classical and modern English poetry ( Keats, Shelley, Blake, Yeats ).

In 1927, Ernestina de Champourcín began a stage in which she published literary criticism works in newspapers (especially in the Heraldo de Madrid and La Época (Madrid) . In these articles published before the Spanish Civil War she deals with issues such as the nature of pure poetry and the aesthetics of the "new poetry" that the young people of the generation of '27 were working on. She herself felt integrated into this group, as she shared the same conception of poetry. She published her first books in Madrid - En silencio (1926), Ahora (1928), La voz en el viento ([ [1931]]), Cántico inútil (1936) -, which made her well known in the literary world of the capital. An evolution in her work can be discovered from an initial modernism in the shadow of Juan Ramón Jiménez to a more personal poetry marked by the theme of love wrapped in a rich passion. Perhaps that is why Gerardo Diego selected her for his Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Poetry, from 1934.

In 1930, while doing activities at the Lyceum Club Femenino, alongside other intellectuals of the Second Spanish Republic , she met Juan José Domenchina, poet and personal secretary of Manuel Azaña , whom she married on November 6 1936.

The Civil War and exile

Shortly before the coup, Ernestina de Champourcín published what would be her only novel (in addition to this she only wrote excerpts for the unfinished novel Mientras allí se muere ), in which she narrates the experiences experienced in her work as a nurse during the civil war): La casa de enfrente . The political events that took place after the beginning of the civil war, justify that its diffusion was eclipsed. However, this work represents an important milestone in the literature written by women, as the author carries out, through a narrator-protagonist, a fine analysis of the upbringing, education and socialization of bourgeois girls in the first decades of the 20th century. This work allows us to consider Ernestina de Champourcín as a moderately feminist author.

During the Spanish Civil War , Juan Ramón and her wife, Zenobia Camprubí, worried about orphaned or abandoned children, founded a kind of committee called the "Junta de Protección de Menores". Ernestina de Champourcín joined as a nurse, but due to some problems with some militiamen she had to leave and enter the hospital run by Lola Azaña as a nurse's assistant.

One of the consequences of her husband's work as Azaña's political secretary was that the couple had no choice but to leave Madrid, embarking on a journey that took them to Valencia, Barcelona and France, where they were in Toulouse and Paris, until, finally, 1939, they were invited by the diplomat and writer Mexican Alfonso Reyes, who was the founder and director of the Casa de España in Mexico, making this country the definitive site of her exile.

Although at first Ernestina de Champourcín wrote numerous verses for magazines such as Romance and Rueca , her creative activity was reduced due to her economics needs. During this time she worked as a translator for the Mexican publishing house Fondo de Cultura Económica and an interpreter for the "Association of Technical Staff of International Conferences".

Her stay in Mexico is one of her most fruitful stages, she published Presencia a oscuras (1952), Cárcel de los sentidos (1960) and El nombre que me diste (1960).

Her mentor, Juan Ramón Jiménez, worked as a cultural attaché at the Spanish embassy in the United States, and other members of the group of 27 also went into exile to America, such as this was the case, among others, of Emilio Prados and Luis Cernuda. Despite all the change, it was not easy. The couple had no children, and they endured the breakup with their roots very differently. Juan José Domenchina, her husband, did not adapt to her new life as an exile, and died prematurely in 1959; she, for her part, came to have strong feelings of union with this new "homeland". During this time her work gains a hitherto unknown mysticism, and in 1952 she asked to join Opus Dei . During this time she writes Hai-kais espirituales (1967), Cartas cerradas (1968) and Poemas del ser y del estar (1972).

Return from exile

In 1972, Ernestina de Champourcín returned to Spain. The return was not easy and she had to live a new period of adaptation to her own country, an experience that gave rise to feelings in her that she reflected in works such as Primer exilio (1978). Feelings of loneliness and old age and an invasion of memories of the places she had been in and the people she had lived with flooded each of her later poems: La pared transparente (1984), All the islands fled (1988), The frustrated encounters (1991), From the void and its gifts (1993) and Presence of the past (1996).

The work entitled La ardilla y la rosa (Juan Ramón en mi memoria) (1981) is an annotated selection of her correspondence with Zenobia Camprubí, published by the Zenobia-Juan Ramón Jiménez Foundation. , and entitled it Los libros de Fausto. Zenobia, for her part, published a small and revealing book entitled Vivir con Juan Ramón , which condenses pages from her "Diario" from [ [1916]] and its text " Juan Ramón y yo ".

She died in Madrid on March 27 in 1999.

Recognition

According to Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, professor of sociology at the Universidad Complutense and nephew of Ernestina de Champourcín, one of the reasons for the silence about the work of this great Spanish writer is because of her mysticism. For this author, the intimacy of her work and the growing weight of religious poetry meant that she was not taken into account either for her great social work or her commitment to the republican cause or her activities in favor of the recognition of the rights of women to be treated just as their male companions.

It could be said that de Champourcín has suffered the bad luck of the so-called " third ways ", not being clearly on the right or left, a bit as it happened, altough in very different circumstances, for Ortega y Gasset, rejected by some as an atheist and by others as an elitist, accused at the same time of being on the right and being on the left.

Emilio Lamo d'Espinosa also considers that Ernestina's position is mainly due to the character of the author herself, her independence of total and resounding, wild, almost asocial criteria, her will to not be typified, categorized, reified.

In spite of being able to consider Ernestina de Champourcín like the unique woman who really was in a situation of equality with the rest of the poets today called of the 27, her recognition in Spain does not take place until 1989, and, as of that year, the Euskadi Prize for Literature in Castilian in the Poetry modality is granted to her (1989), the Progressive Woman Prize, the nomination to the Prize Prince of Asturias Prize of the Letters in 1992 and the Medal for Artistic Merit of the Madrid City Council in 1997.  

Stages in her poetry

First stage: poetry of human love

Ernestina's work is divided into three stages, two of which are very clear . A first stage, that of the poetry of human love, includes the four books published before the civil war: from En silencio (1926) to Cántico inútil (1936). In these works the author evolves from origins that could described as pertaining to late-romanticism and modernism to a “pure poetry” very close to that of Juan Ramón Jiménez.

Second stage: poetry of divine love

This stage is separated from the previous stage by a period characterised by a lack of writing at the beginning of her exile in Mexico. This was due to the need to work to earn a wage. After this period of literary silence came her stage of the poetry of divine love (1936-1974) . It begins with Presencia a oscuras (1952), a work that represents a new thematic focus in her poetry. The theme shifts from human love to divine love. During this period, the protagonist of El nombre que me diste... (1960), Cárcel (1964), Hai-kais espirituales (1967), Cartas cerradas (1968) and Poemas del ser y del estar (1972), has a deep religious concern.

Third stage: poetry of the memory of love

The stage of the poetry of the memory of love (1974-1991) begins with her return from exile, at which time new concerns arise for the author: namely to be able to adapt to her new situation, to be reunited with places both known and unrecognizable. The final books, like Huyeron todas las islas (1988), are a memory and an epilogue of a poetry that is both intimate and transcendent.

Works

Obras

• En silencio. Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1926.
• Ahora. Madrid, Imprenta Brass, 1928.
• La voz en el viento. Madrid, Compañía Ibero-Americana de Publicaciones, 1931.
• Cántico inútil. Madrid, Aguilar, 1936.
• Presencia a oscuras. Madrid, Rialp, 1952.
• El nombre que me diste.... México, Finisterre, 1960.
• Cárcel de los sentidos. México, Finisterre, 1964.
• Hai-kais espirituales. México, Finisterre, 1967.
• Cartas cerradas. México, Finisterre, 1968.
• Poemas del ser y del estar. Madrid, Alfaguara, 1972.
• Primer exilio. Madrid, Rialp, 1978.
• Poemillas navideños. México, 1983.
• La pared transparente. Madrid, Los Libros de Fausto, 1984.
• Huyeron todas las islas. Madrid, Caballo Griego para la Poesía, 1988.
• Antología poética, (prologue by Luz María Jiménez Faro). Madrid, Torremozas, 1988.
• Ernestina de Champourcín. Málaga, Centro Cultural de la Generación del 27, 1991.
• Los encuentros frustrados. Málaga, El Manatí Dorado, 1991.
• Poesía a través del tiempo. Barcelona, Anthropos, 1991.
• Del vacío y sus dones. Madrid, Torremozas, 1993.
• Presencia del pasado (1994-1995) . Málaga, Poesía circulante, núm. 7, 1996.
• Cántico inútil, Cartas cerradas, Primer exilio, Huyeron todas las islas. Málaga, Centro Cultural de la Generación del 27, 1997.
• Epistolario (1927-1995) (2007). Correspondencia con Carmen Conde. Edición a cargo de Rosa Fernández Urtasun. ISBN 978-84-9740-235-4.
• Poesía esencial (2008). Fundación Banco Santander. Colección Obra Fundamental. ISBN 978-84-89913-90-5.
• Al fin de la tarde

Sources

• Bleiberg, Germán (1993-01-01). Dictionary of the Literature of the Iberian Peninsula. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-28731-2. Retrieved 2015-08-26. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wilcox, John Chapman (1 January 1997). Women Poets of Spain, 1860-1990: Toward a Gynocentric Vision. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06559-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Fernández-Medina, Nicolás. "From Earthly Passions to Spiritual Transcendence: Ernestina de Champourcin's Symbolic Poetry, 1926-1936," 2005.

Archive

The personal archive of Ernestina de Champourcín is stored in the Archivo General of the University of Navarra and is open access.

Further reading

• Acillona, Mercedes, “Poesía mística y oracional en Ernestina de Champourcin”, Letras de Deusto, 48 (1991).
• Arizmendi, Milagros, ed. y prólogo, Ernestina de Champourcin, Poemas de exilio, de soledad y de oración. Encuentro ediciones y Universidad de Navarra. 2004. ISBN 84-7490-742-X
• Ascunce, José Ángel, ed. y prólogo, Ernestina de Champourcin, Poesía a través del tiempo, Barcelona: Anthropos, Memoria Rota. Exilios y Heterodoxias, (1991).
• Checa, Edith, “Entrevista. Ernestina de Champourcin olvidada entre los equívocos linderos de la Generación del 27”, Espéculo, 9 (1998).
• Ciplijauskaite, Birute, “Escribir entre dos exilios: las voces femeninas de la Generación del 27”, en Homenaje al Profesor Antonio Vilanova, II, eds. A. Sotelo Vázquez y M. C.
• Comella, Beatriz, Ernestina de Champourcin, del exilio a Dios, Rialp, Madrid (2002), ISBN 84-321-3422-8
• Cuesta Tudela, Dolores, “Una lectura de la obra poética de Ernestina de Champourcin en el exilio: de Presencia a oscuras a Poemas del ser y del estar”, en L’exili cultural de 1939, II, Valencia (2001).
• Fernández Urtasun, Rosa y Ascunce, José Ángel (eds.), Ernestina de Champourcin: mujer y cultura en el siglo XX, Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid (2006), ISBN 84-9742-601-0
• Jiménez Faro, Luzmaría, “Ernestina de Champourcin: un camino hacia la luz”, Ínsula 557.
• Lacarra Lanz, Eukene, Estrategias discursivas y el yo agenérico en la poesía religiosa de Ernestina de Champourcin, Universidad del País Vasco.
• Landeira, Joy. "Ernestina de Champourcin: Vida y literatura." El Ferrol: Sociedad de cultura Valle-Inclan, 2005.
• Landeira, Joy. "Una rosa para Ernestina: Ensayos en conmemoración del centenario de Ernestina de Champourcin." El Ferrol: Sociedad de cultura Valle-Inclan, 2006.
• Mabrey, María Cristina C., Ernestina de Champourcin, poeta de la Generación del 27 en la oculta senda de la tradición poética femenina, Ediciones Torremozas, 413 pp., Madrid (2007), ISBN 978-84-7839-396-1
• Milán Malo, Gabriela, “Ernestina de Champourcin, poetisa de la Generación del 27”, Istmo (1999), México D.F.
• Miró, Emilio, “Carmen Conde y Ernestina de Champourcin”, Insula 390 (1979).
• Mujeres del 27, Madrid, Ínsula, 557, 1993.
• Perlado, José Julio, “Entrevista a Ernestina de Champourcin en 1986”, Espéculo, 8, Madrid, 1998.
• Sanz Hermida, Rosa, El silencio creador de Ernestina de Champourcin, Tesis doctoral, Universidad de Oviedo, 1991.
• Siles, Jaime, "Ernestina de Champourcin casi desdibujada", en Poesía esencial, Madrid, Fundación BSCH, 2008, pp. LXIV. Madrid (2008), ISBN 978-84-89913-90-5.
• Villar, Arturo del, “Ernestina de Champourcin”, La Estafeta Literaria, 556 (1975).
• Jeanne Marie, Los caminos del alma / Les Chemins de l’âme - memoria viva de los poetas del 27’ mémoire vive des poètes de la Génération de 1927, éditions Paradigme Orléans