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Characters from Greek myth appear alongside figures from the plays of Shakespeare. The world takes on the fluidness of dreams. Young men labor and die while poor poets sing of the money they never make. In these experimental poems and stories, Darío captures the strange encounters made possible for the artist of modern life. Azul… is a book by Rubén Darío.
About the author
Rubén Darío (1867-1916) was a Nicaraguan poet. Following his parents' separation, he was raised in the city of León by Félix and Bernarda Ramirez, his maternal aunt and uncle. In 1879, after years of hardship following the death of Félix, Darío was sent to a Jesuit school, where he began writing poetry. He found publication in
El Termómetro and
El Ensayo, a popular daily and a local literary magazine, and was recognized as a promising young writer. Darío soon gained a reputation for his liberal politics and was denied an opportunity to study in Europe due to his opposition of the Catholic Church. In 1882, he travelled to El Salvador, where he studied French poetry with Francisco Gavidia and sharpened his sense of traditional poetic forms. Back in Nicaragua, he suffered from financial hardship and poor health while attempting to broaden his style through experimentation with new poetic forms. In 1886, he traveled to Chile, where he published his masterpiece
Azul... (1888), a groundbreaking blend of poetry and prose that helped define and distinguish Hispanic Modernism. The success of
Azul... enabled Darío to find work as a correspondent for
La Nación, a popular periodical based in Buenos Aires. He travelled widely throughout his career, working as a journalist and ambassador in Argentina, France, and Spain. Darío continued to write and publish poetry, courting controversy with a series of poems written on Theodore Roosevelt and the United States which displayed his inconsistent political position on the impact of American imperialism on Latin America. Towards the end of his life, suffering from advanced alcoholism, Darío returned to his native city of León, where he was buried after a lengthy funeral at the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary.
