The man of letters
Early life
Ramón María del Valle-Inclán was born on October 28, 1866, in Vilanova de Arousa, Pontevedra, as Ramón José Simón del Valle Peña. He was the son of the Galician nationalist Ramón del Valle Bermúdez. He had seven siblings, being the second of the four sons of Dolores de la Peña Montenegro Cardecid y Saco Bolaño, his mother.
He lived in Vilanova until he was 24 years old, studying secondary education on his own in Pontevedra. In 1888, his father forced him to begin studying Law at the University of Santiago de Compostela. That was when he published his first story, Babel, in the Café con Gotas magazine. He gave up his university studies when his father died and travelled to Madrid in 1890, where he contributed to several publications such as El Globo or El Heraldo de Madrid.
In 1892 he travelled to Cuba and Mexico, where he wrote for El Universal and El Correo Español.
He soon returned to Pontevedra, where he wrote his first book, Femeninas, in Vilanova de Arousa, which was published in 1895. The following year he moved to Madrid and did translations to support himself financially.
Early life
Ramón María del Valle-Inclán was born on October 28, 1866, in Vilanova de Arousa, Pontevedra, as Ramón José Simón del Valle Peña. He was the son of the Galician nationalist Ramón del Valle Bermúdez. He had seven siblings, being the second of the four sons of Dolores de la Peña Montenegro Cardecid y Saco Bolaño, his mother.
He lived in Vilanova until he was 24 years old, studying secondary education on his own in Pontevedra. In 1888, his father forced him to begin studying Law at the University of Santiago de Compostela. That was when he published his first story, Babel, in the Café con Gotas magazine. He gave up his university studies when his father died and travelled to Madrid in 1890, where he contributed to several publications such as El Globo or El Heraldo de Madrid.
In 1892 he travelled to Cuba and Mexico, where he wrote for El Universal and El Correo Español.
He soon returned to Pontevedra, where he wrote his first book, Femeninas, in Vilanova de Arousa, which was published in 1895. The following year he moved to Madrid and did translations to support himself financially.
Madrid Literary Society
In Madrid he began to make a name for himself at literary gatherings and to attract attention due to his extravagant appearance.
As a result of an argument, which took place in the Café de la Montaña in 1899 with his friend, the writer Manuel Bueno, he suffered an unfortunate blow that embedded a cufflink in his left arm. He ignored the wound to the point where his arm became gangrenous and had to be amputated.
At the beginning of that same year he had met Rubén Darío, with whom he would become a close friend. This encounter brought him into contact with the Modernism trend, which influenced his initial output. A prolific literary period would then begin. He became friends with important figures of that time belonging to the generations of ’98 and ’27, such as Unamuno, Manuel and Antonio Machado, Alejandro Sawa, Ricardo Baroja, Federico García Lorca, Max Aub, Miguel Hernández, and many others.
Family and marriage life
In 1907 he married the actress Josefina Blanco y Tejerina, with whom he had six children: Concepción Luisa, Joaquín María, Carlos Luis, María de la Encarnación, Beatriz, Jaime Clemente and María Ana Antonia.
With Josefina he made two tours of South America with the María Guerrero theatre company. In the second, he gave several lectures.
In 1913 he returned to Galicia and took up residence in Cambados, but, after the death of his second son and after completing the Camino de Santiago to purge his sins, he left that fishing village and went to live in A Pobra do Caramiñal, where he rented the La Merced estate, trying to combining his literary work with farming, which that ends up consuming all his savings.
He became Professor of Aesthetics at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid, but within a year he resigned from the position.
Family and marriage life
In 1907 he married the actress Josefina Blanco y Tejerina, with whom he had six children: Concepción Luisa, Joaquín María, Carlos Luis, María de la Encarnación, Beatriz, Jaime Clemente and María Ana Antonia.
With Josefina he made two tours of South America with the María Guerrero theatre company. In the second, he gave several lectures.
In 1913 he returned to Galicia and took up residence in Cambados, but, after the death of his second son and after completing the Camino de Santiago to purge his sins, he left that fishing village and went to live in A Pobra do Caramiñal, where he rented the La Merced estate, trying to combining his literary work with farming, which that ends up consuming all his savings.
He became Professor of Aesthetics at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid, but within a year he resigned from the position.
Time of wars
In the midst of World War I, he gave his support to the Allied army, visiting the war front on several occasions as a press correspondent for El Imparcial. Those visits to the battlefield gave rise to the book Midnight. Stellar vision of a moment of war.
At the beginning of the 1920s, he returned to Mexico, invited by the President of the Republic, his friend Álvaro Obregón. There he allowed himself to be subjugated by the spectacle of the Revolution, from which the idea of the grotesque arose, as well as the prolific period of Bohemia Lights.
He returned to Spain at the end of 1921 and began to write Tirano Banderas. In Madrid, still infected with the Mexican revolutionary spirit, his speeches and acts of protest against the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera cost him a brief stay in prison.
With the arrival of the Second Republic, he stood for election for Alejandro Lerroux’s Radical Party, but did not win the seat. It was at that time when they started operating on him.
Final years of life
In 1932, Josefina divorced him, and the young children were left in his care and that of his faithful maid Benita.
He was appointed director of the Museum of Aranjuez and President of Madrid’s Ateneo. The government of the Second Republic also appointed him Curator of the National Artistic Heritage, but his confrontation with the corresponding Ministry due to the abandonment of the palaces and museums that were under his care and supervision led to his resounding resignation. In 1933 he became Director of the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
However, in 1935, he decided to do something about his advanced cancer in Santiago de Compostela, where he was treated by his friend, Dr García Sabell.
He died on January 5, 1936, in Santiago de Compostela, at two in the afternoon and was buried the next day in Boisaca Cemetery, in the civil section. He said that he did not want religious displays at his funeral. The day dawned with wind, fog and a lot of rain. A dog accompanied the funeral. One of his followers, seeing the coffin in the ground, noticed a cross presiding over it. And faithful to his last wishes, he rushed to pull it off. The coffin broke and Don Ramón’s body was exposed. They finished the funeral in a hurry and the curtain of the grotesque came down for Valle-Inclán.
Final years of life
In 1932, Josefina divorced him, and the young children were left in his care and that of his faithful maid Benita.
He was appointed director of the Museum of Aranjuez and President of Madrid’s Ateneo. The government of the Second Republic also appointed him Curator of the National Artistic Heritage, but his confrontation with the corresponding Ministry due to the abandonment of the palaces and museums that were under his care and supervision led to his resounding resignation. In 1933 he became Director of the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
However, in 1935, he decided to do something about his advanced cancer in Santiago de Compostela, where he was treated by his friend, Dr García Sabell.
He died on January 5, 1936, in Santiago de Compostela, at two in the afternoon and was buried the next day in Boisaca Cemetery, in the civil section. He said that he did not want religious displays at his funeral. The day dawned with wind, fog and a lot of rain. A dog accompanied the funeral. One of his followers, seeing the coffin in the ground, noticed a cross presiding over it. And faithful to his last wishes, he rushed to pull it off. The coffin broke and Don Ramón’s body was exposed. They finished the funeral in a hurry and the curtain of the grotesque came down for Valle-Inclán.
Legacy
Ramón María del Valle-Inclán was the writer who really did ride the wave of creative fruitfulness that illuminated the literature renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century; but this is not surprising, since he was a man receptive to everything transcendental that happened in the world. With the help of his imagination, he created a world in which his life and that of his fellow human beings could have more meaning.
Valle-Inclán is a complex figure, who, as he was living through a turbulent time, became more aware that the artist inside him needed to fight to express the social reality around him in his works.
This outstanding playwright, novelist, poet and aesthetician of the Generation of ’98, who had such an influence on Spanish literature, still occupies one of the most prominent positions of our Letters, since he has turned out to be an artist of memorable proportions.
