ANTONIO OLIVER: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE AND WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

Antonio Oliver (1903-1968) was a Spanish poet, also noted as a literary critic, historian of Spanish art, essayist and biographer. He was also the founder and teacher of the first Popular University of Cartagena.

The influence of his family of intellectuals brought him closer to reading Rubén Darío and Juan Ramón Jiménez. Thanks to this, his first verses emerged, inspired by the landscape of his summer resort on the Murcian coast, starting his collaborations with the Literary Page of La Verdad, in Murcia.

Image source: regmurcia.com

He belonged to the Generation of 27, and throughout his work he maintained a style attached to modernism, inspired, fundamentally, by the work of Rubén Darío, from whom he rescued his archive and published it in 1968. Under that literary trend, the writer, despite the countercurrents born in the postwar period.

In his youth he was forced to combine his literary streak with other activities, due to the precarious economic situation of his family. For this reason, he took public examinations and obtained a position in the Communications Agency in 1922, where he worked until 1939, working in the telegraphy area during the Civil War.

In 1938 they detected a heart disease that accompanied him the rest of his life; rheumatic endocarditis. His physical condition marked him emotionally, making him a taciturn being, coupled with the separation from his wife during and after the war, due to having been imprisoned for military rebellion.

Biography

Birth and family

From the marriage of Francisco de Paula Oliver Rolandi and Encarnación Belmás Jiménez was born, on January 29, 1903, in Cartagena, Antonio Oliver Belmás. The writer was the fifth son of the family. His father died in 1915, plunging the family into a precarious situation that changed the course of Antonio Oliver's life.

Studies

Oliver studied high school at the General Technical Institute of Cartagena, which ended in 1918. It was then that he made the opposition to the Telegraph Corps, with the intention of cleaning up the family's economic situation after the death of his father.

In 1927 he began studying philosophy and letters at the University of Murcia, which he had to interrupt due to the closure of the university.

Family life

In 1927, Oliver met Carmen Conde, with whom he married in December 1928. Together they formed a couple devoted to literary work, whose first labor fruit was the founding of the Popular University of Cartagena. In it they carried out a wide cultural task and gave workshops and conferences with notable figures of the Spanish intelligentsia.

However, in the most intimate sphere, marriage did not have the same relevance. The only daughter conceived was born still. On the other hand, the fact that the war took Oliver to such different destinations geographically separated the couple in different periods of time.

Sculpture in honor of Carmen Conde, wife of Antonio Oliver, in Cartagena. Source: GlimmerPhoenix, via Wikimedia Commons

Finally, Carmen Conde struck up a special friendship with Amanda Junquera Butler, wife of the university professor Cayetano Alcázar. This relationship broke the intimacy of the marriage, although Conde and Oliver remained united until the death of the writer.

The spanish civil war

During the Spanish Civil War, Oliver decided to join the republican army, and was assigned to the Southern Front of Andalusia as a first officer of the Telegraph Corps. There he took care of the Radio Frente Popular No. 2 station. From there he was transferred to Jaén, and later to Úbeda and Baeza, his last destination being the city of Baza.

Anonymously, he took refuge in his sister's house, in Murcia, in 1939, and at the end of the war he was charged with the crime of military rebellion. He was forced into forced confinement by the Franco regime, and after obtaining the benefit of attenuated prison at home, he began to write under the pseudonym Andrés Caballero.

Already in the post-war period, and under this pseudonym, in 1944 he published three works: El Escultor Salzillo, De Cervantes a la Poesía and Garcilaso (captain and poet). The first two were published thanks to his wife's performance as a literary consultant at Editorial Alhambra.

Return to Madrid and continue his studies

After obtaining definitive freedom in 1947, Oliver returned to Madrid. It took 20 years to formally complete his studies, and it was in that year, at last, that he managed to graduate with a degree in philosophy and letters at the capital university.

It is worth highlighting the fact that, as soon as he graduated, he began to teach at the Cervantes Institute and at the University of Madrid, from where he had graduated. After graduation, seven years later, he managed to do a doctorate in the same branch at said study campus, in 1954, obtaining the grade of extraordinary in his grades.

While in the Spanish capital, Oliver began his research on Rubén Darío and managed to visit the Nicaraguan poet's last companion, getting her to transfer Rubén Darío's file to the Ministry of National Education.

In 1956, the writer received a grant from the March Foundation to carry out the biography of Rubén Darío, which he published under the title Este otro Rubén Darío. At that time, he also did extensive work as a critic for the magazine La Verdad. Additionally, Oliver did work on the Golden Age, and these stood out.

Last years and death of the writer

The heart condition that affected Oliver from a young age did not leave him alone. In his old age the condition became more noticeable, however, the writer did not stop working profusely. As a result of his efforts, the Complete Works by Rubén Darío emerged.

Rubén Darío, one of the authors to whom Antonio Oliver devoted the most time to study. Source: Here, via Wikimedia Commons

However, in 1968, at 65 years of age, death surprised Antonio Oliver in Madrid, as a result of the aforementioned heart disease complication.

Style

With his first verses collected in the book Mast, in 1925, he was located in the lyrical line of the Generation of 27. He had a simple and naive poetry, loaded with neopopularism, with a constant use of metaphor. Already in his second book, Tiempo Zenital, he subscribed, without a doubt, to the vanguard of creationism.

From his Zenith Time onwards, we can observe how he kept perfection in rhyme and neatness in language, from which he sought the greatest expressiveness and renewal.

He emphasized visual effects and avoided anecdotes and descriptions, his poetry being an instrument that turns the poet into a divinity of absolute creation.

Although important figures such as Leopoldo de Luis wanted to frame it in the ultraist style, the reading of Oliver's work allows us to verify with the aforementioned elements his belonging to creationism with slight lyrical overtones.

Plays

Poetry

- Mast (1923-1925).

- Zenith Time (1932).

- Elegy to Gabriel Miró (1935).

- Funeral Song by Manolete (1947).

- Book of praise (1947).

- Architectural Loas (1951).

- Sick song in praise of guinea pig, Separata de Folia Humanística (1967).

Essays and biographies

- From Cervantes to poetry (1944).

- Spanish poetic panorama (1948).

- Antonio Machado: critical essay on time in his poetry (1950).

- José Planes. Study (1954).

- This other Rubén Darío (1960).

- Life and work of Lope de Vega (1963).

- Garcilaso de la Vega (1965).

- José Gálvez and modernism (1974, posthumous).

- Last time with Rubén Darío. Hispano-American and Spanish Literature (1978, posthumous).

References

1. Antonio Oliver. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.com.
2. Antonio Oliver. (S. f.). Spain: Region of Murcia Digital. Recovered from: regmurcia.com.
3. Antonio Oliver Belmás. (S. f.). Cuba: EcuRed. Recovered from: ecured.cu.
4. Antonio Oliver, unknown poet. (S. f.). Spain: The Truth. Recovered from: laverdad.es.
5. Abraham López, José Luis. (S. f.). Antonio Oliver Belmás, an unknown friend of Rubén Darío. Spain: Dialnet. Recovered from: dialnet.unirioja.net.