Seville is not just another destination. There is something in Seville, something which is invisible, that enhances your poetic spirit. Therefore, it is not surprising that the city has been home to great poets. Why don’t you come and take stroll around those places which inspired world-renowned poems?
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer is the quintessence of the Romantic period. A poet whom, 150 years after his death, continues to perfectly reflect the different types of love (just like if he were reviving in time). Because love renews itself, new stories and sensations take place and Bécquer’s poetry is still read with the same passion and unease. In fact, Bécquer somehow still seems “modern” in his own style, in his vision of life and of the hereafter.
Bécquer square in Maria Luisa Park is the perfect place to sit down, reflect and reach special feelings. Here, next to a bust of the poet, you will find a representation of the three stages of love: “love of illusion”, “possessed love” and “lost love”.
Bécquer was born in the Sevillian neighborhood of San Lorenzo, in Conde de Barajas street, 28. If you stroll around this quiet neighborhood you will find Casa Bucarelli, where his lover lived. Bécquer dedicated the following lines to her:
“The dark swallows will return again
to hang their nests from your balcony,”
Your experience in Seville will be impressive, and those sensations will prevail over time. Antonio Machado transmits this purely; depicting his first years living in Casa de las Dueñas, where his father used to work as a housekeeper. Nowadays, you can enjoy a visit to this bucolic palace and admire the “bright orchard where a lemon tree grows..."
My childhood is memories of a patio in Seville…
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Luis Cernuda is one of the best known figures of the Generation of 1927, a literary movement without which poetry would not be the same nowadays. By the way, did you know that the baptism (a kind of initiation ritual) of the Generation of 1927 took place in the Ateneo of Seville?
Cernuda depicts the atmosphere of Seville like nobody else does; and those images acquire all their existential meaning in the distance, in memories. His birth house in Acetres street, its houses in Aire street or Judería street, where the famous magnolia tree from Ocnos was located, are places which will make you recall the quality of his work.
- The poet Vicente Aleixandre was born in the Palacio de Yanduri (Yanduri Palace) in Puerta Jerez, Seville. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1977.
- A few metres away, there is a fountain with a sculpture in honor of the poets who belonged to the Generation of 1927.
- In the nearby Jardines de Cristina (Cristina Gardens), you will be able to visit several busts of Sevillian poets belonging to the Generation of 1927.
- In addition, you can also wander through the little squares in Maria Luisa Park, dedicated to literary figures.
- The remains of Bécquer rest in the church Iglesia de la Anunciación, concretely in its Panteón de Sevillanos Ilustres, a mausoleum for important figures of Seville.
- A plaque in that very same place mentions the influence Bécquer had on Cernuda.
