Remarks by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“God, though invisible, always has a hand extended to lift one end of the burden that weighs upon the poor.”

Original: Dios, aunque invisible, tiene siempre una mano tendida para levantar por un extremo la carga que abruma al pobre. — The image expresses faith in unseen consolation and assistance amid poverty and hardship. · Letter VI, Cartas desde mi celda (Spanish)

“All I desire, for now, is to be an extra in the immense comedy of humanity; when my part is over, to slip backstage without being hissed or applauded.”

Original: He aquí hoy por hoy todo lo que ambiciono. Ser un comparsa en la inmensa comedia de la humanidad; y concluido mi papel de hacer bulto, meterme entre bastidores, sin que me silben ni me aplaudan, sin que nadie se aperciba siquiera de mi salida. — Bécquer imagines a quiet life without ambition for fame or public recognition. · Letter III, Cartas desde mi celda (Spanish)

“Surely I want to live, because life, taken as it is, without exaggeration or deception, is not as bad as some people say.”

Original: Seguramente que deseo vivir, porque la vida, tomándola tal como es, sin exageraciones ni engaños, no es tan mala como dicen algunos. — The remark expresses a modest, unsentimental affirmation of life as it actually is. · Letter III, Cartas desde mi celda (Spanish)

“The logic knows how to forge unassailable arguments which, nevertheless, do not convince. How easily precise conclusions are drawn from a false premise.”

Original: La lógica sabe fraguar razonamientos inatacables que, á pesar de todo, no convencen. ¡Con tanta facilidad se sacan deducciones precisas de una base falsa! — Bécquer warns that flawless reasoning cannot rescue a false starting point. · Letter IV, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“When a poet paints his love for you in magnificent verse, doubt him. When he reveals it to you in prose, and bad prose at that, believe him.”

Original: Cuando un poeta te pinta en magníficos versos su amor, duda. Cuando te lo dé á conocer en prosa, y mala, cree. — With characteristic irony, Bécquer suggests that spontaneous prose may reveal genuine feeling more honestly than polished verse. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“Everyone feels. Only some are given the gift of preserving, like a treasure, the living memory of what they have felt. I believe these are the poets.”

Original: Todo el mundo siente. Sólo á algunos seres les es dado el guardar, como un tesoro, la memoria viva de lo que han sentido. Yo creo que éstos son los poetas. — For Bécquer, the poet's distinctive gift is preserving the life of emotion in memory. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“When I feel, I do not write. I keep in my brain, as in a mysterious book, the impressions that have left their mark upon it.”

Original: Cuando siento no escribo. Guardo, sí, en mi cerebro escritas, como en un libro misterioso, las impresiones que han dejado en él su huella al pasar. — Bécquer describes creation as an act of recollection in which experience is allowed to settle before becoming art. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“There is a small, material, mechanical part in every work of man, which true, original inspiration scorns in its ardent moments of rapture.”

Original: Hay una parte mecánica, pequeña y material en todas las obras del hombre, que la primitiva, la verdadera inspiración desdeña en sus ardientes momentos de arrebato. — Bécquer distinguishes the mysterious impulse of inspiration from the later mechanical labour of making art. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“Before anything else, I have told you, I do not pretend to teach anyone or set myself up as an authority.”

Original: No importa. Yo no pretendo enseñar á nadie, ni erigirme en autoridad, ni hacer que mi libro se me declare de texto. — He resists turning personal literary convictions into rigid doctrine. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“You need only feel and think in order to understand me.”

Original: Como sólo de lo que he sentido y he pensado he de hablarte, te bastará sentir y pensar para comprenderme. — Understanding literature, in Bécquer's view, depends on shared human experience as much as intellectual analysis. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“I know nothing, I have studied nothing; I have read a little, felt quite a lot and thought a great deal, though I cannot say whether well or badly.”

Original: Yo nada sé, nada he estudiado; he leído un poco, he sentido bastante y he pensado mucho, aunque no acertaré á decir si bien ó mal. — His deliberately self-deprecating admission places lived experience and reflection above academic authority. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“If belief is enough to persuade, I feel what I write.”

Original: Si para persuadir basta creer, yo siento lo que escribo. — For Bécquer, genuine conviction gives writing its persuasive force. · Letter IV, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“Religion is love, and because it is love, it is poetry.”

Original: La religión es amor, y, porque es amor, es poesía. — The statement completes Bécquer's imaginative equation between spiritual devotion, love and poetry. · Letter IV, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“In contrast, inner conviction often persuades, even when the method of reasoning is in the greatest disorder. The accent of faith is so irresistible.”

Original: En cambio, la convicción íntima suele persuadir aunque en el método del raciocinio reine el mayor desorden. ¡Tan irresistible es el acento de la fe! — Bécquer contrasts rational coherence with the persuasive force of deeply felt conviction. · Letter IV, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“Love is poetry; religion is love. Two things resembling a third are equal to each other.”

Original: El amor es poesía; la religión es amor. Dos cosas semejantes á una tercera son iguales entre sí. — Bécquer builds an intentionally playful chain linking love, religion and poetry. · Letter IV, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“Poetry is the sudden joy that illuminates your features with a gentle smile, whose hidden cause you do not know.”

Original: Poesía, el gozo improviso que ilumina tus facciones con una sonrisa suave, y cuya oculta causa ignoras donde está. — Poetry can be an involuntary moment of happiness whose source remains mysterious even to the person experiencing it. · Letter III, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“Poetry is that melancholy, vague longing that stirs your spirit with the desire for an impossible perfection.”

Original: Que poesía es, y no otra cosa, esa aspiración melancólica y vaga que agita tu espíritu con el deseo de una perfección imposible. — Bécquer links poetry with longing for an ideal that can never be completely attained. · Letter III, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“The poetry is you because that vague aspiration towards beauty which characterises it, and which in man is a faculty of intelligence, might in you be called an instinct.”

Original: La poesía eres tú, porque esa vaga aspiración á lo bello que la caracteriza, y que es una facultad de la inteligencia en el hombre, en tí pudiera decirse que es un instinto. — Beauty is presented as an instinctive impulse as much as an intellectual one. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“There are notes in the poet's intelligence that belong to that of woman, and these are the ones that express tenderness, passion and feeling.”

Original: En la escala de la inteligencia del poeta hay notas que pertenecen á la de la mujer, y éstas son las que expresan la ternura, la pasión y el sentimiento. — He places tenderness and emotional sensitivity at the heart of poetic intelligence. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“The true genius has certain extraordinary attributes which Balzac calls feminine, and which indeed they are.”

Original: El genio verdadero tiene algunos atributos extraordinarios, que Balzac llama femeninos, y que, efectivamente, lo son. — Bécquer associates creative genius with qualities traditionally regarded as feminine, particularly sensitivity. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“If we are mistaken, we are mistaken together; which, incidentally, for us is equivalent to being right.”

Original: Si nos equivocamos, nos equivocamos los dos; lo cual, dicho sea de paso, para nosotros equivale á acertar. — Shared uncertainty becomes a form of companionship and discovery rather than failure. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“Dissection may reveal the mechanism of the human body; but the phenomena of the soul, the secret of life, how can they be studied in a corpse?”

Original: La disección podrá revelar el mecanismo del cuerpo humano; pero los fenómenos del alma, el secreto de la vida, ¿cómo se estudian en un cadáver? — Bécquer challenges purely analytical approaches to art and the human soul. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“The one who feels seizes an idea, clothes it in a form, casts it into the realm of knowledge, and passes on.”

Original: El que la siente se apodera de una idea, la envuelve en una forma, la arroja en el estadio del saber y pasa. — The poet transforms an inward perception into artistic form without claiming to explain it completely. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

“The poetry is you, I told you, because poetry is feeling, and feeling is woman.”

Original: La poesía eres tú, te he dicho, porque la poesía es el sentimiento, y el sentimiento es la mujer. — Bécquer identifies poetry with feeling rather than with literary technique or formal rules. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

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