VICENTE HUIDOBRO: BIOGRAPHY, CREATIONISM, WORKS AND PHRASES - LITERATURE - 2025

Vicente García Huidobro Fernández (1893-1948) was a Chilean poet who, in addition to his lyrical work, developed creationism, an aesthetic trend within the avant-garde of the early twentieth century. He also promoted a new and innovative way of making poetry throughout Latin America.

Vicente Huidobro's creationism was characterized by focusing on the particular beauty of each word, and not what they might mean. At the same time he was in charge of creating new words, regardless of their meaning, truth or logic, completely discarding reality.

Vicente Huidobro. Source: See page for author, via Wikimedia Commons

As his poetic work was framed within the creationist movement, it was bold and extraordinary in terms of language, as well as in the use of metaphors. In general, his theme was free, like his verses, in this way he turned the poet into a "creator god."

Biography

Birth and family

Vicente was born in Santiago de Chile on January 10, 1893, in the nucleus of a wealthy family, with banking businesses and mixed with politics. His parents were Vicente García Huidobro, heir to the Marquisate of the Royal Mint of Chile, and María Luisa Fernández Bascuñán.

Huidobro Education

Being born into a wealthy family allowed Huidobro to receive a quality education. Although he lived his childhood years in some cities in Europe, in 1907 he began to study in Chile, at the Colegio San Ignacio, belonging to the Society of Jesus.

When he finished high school he began studying literature at the University of Chile. During that time, in 1911, he published a work entitled Echoes of the soul, of certain modernist features.

Huidobro possessed a broad cultural background, he also knew biology, psychology, physiology and alchemy, aspects that greatly influenced his work.

First marriage and opportunities in the literary world

In 1912, when he was nineteen years old, Vicente fell in love with the young Manuela Portales Bello, a descendant of Andrés Bello. That same year they were married. She showed her support for him to write, the couple had four children: Manuela, Vicente, Marie and Carmen.

In that year, Huidobro created the magazine Musa Joven, and on its pages he published a part of his book Songs in the Night, as well as his first calligram or poem with a visual image Harmonic Triangle. A year later, The Cave of Silence came to light, then he gave his famous lecture Non Serviam or I will not serve.

Stays in Argentina, France and Spain

In 1916 Huidobro decided to travel to some countries. He first came to Argentina, in the company of his wife and children, there he began to develop his creationism, and also edited the short poetic work The Mirror of Water; in that same year, he embarked for Europe.

He made a short stop in Madrid, and personally met the writer and poet Rafael Cansinos Assens, with whom he maintained communication by letters for two years, from 1914. Once in Paris, he published the work Adán, a year later he began to work at the magazine Nord-Sud.

Between Paris and Madrid

During his stay in Paris, the Chilean writer connected with the most important avant-garde intellectuals and artists of the time, such as André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró. At that time he published Horizon carré, then he went to the capital of Spain.

Harmonic triangle, Vicente Huidobro's first calligram. Source: KES47, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1918, when he was in Madrid, he attended the café gatherings, and also consolidated his friendship with Cansinos and Ramón Gómez de la Serna. In addition, he took the opportunity to publicize his creationism. At that time his titles Hallali, Tour Eiffel, Arctic Poems and Equatorial came to light.

Creationism sign

In 1921, in the city of Madrid, Huidobro's international intellectual and artistic magazine, Creation, was published. While in Paris the second number was published. It was in that same year that he held the conference La poesía, and also released his anthology Saisons Choisies.

In 1922 Huidobro presented his hypothesis on pure creation in Paris, and he did the same in Stockholm and Berlin. In that year his audacious creativity led him to exhibit poems painted in France, but the exhibition was closed because it broke with established standards.

An accusation and continuous creations

In 1923 Vicente Huidobro was accused by the Spanish writer Guillermo de Torre of having stolen the idea of ​​creationism from the Uruguayan poet Julio Herrera y Reissing. The controversy broke out after an article that Torre published in Alfar magazine.

However, such a complaint did not minimize Vicente's creative work. Around that time he wrote the script for the film Cagliostro. In addition, he published the third number of Creation in the French version, which included the response to Guillermo de Torre, with the writing My teacher is finally discovered.

Travel to your native country

In April 1925 Vicente traveled to Chile, four months after arriving he founded the political newspaper Acción, a newspaper that he considered national purification. The outlet was closed for its content, but Hudobrio created La Reforma. He also published Manifestes, Automne regulier and Tout à coup contrarias al surrealismo.

The following year a part of Altazor, his masterpiece, was published in Panorama. In 1926, he ended his marriage with Manuela, and began a relationship with Ximena Amunatégui, a high-society Chilean whose family was against the affair.

Back to Europe and second marriage

In 1927 the poet left Chile for New York, where he met some celebrities, including Charles Chaplin. Then he went back to Europe, and began to develop the novel Mío Cid Campeador; in 1929 Altazor was still writing.

It was also in 1929 when he married for the second time, he married Ximena, amid criticism because she secretly left Chile to be with him. According to scholars, the ceremony was held within the cult of Muhammad.

Back to chile

In 1931 Vicente Huidobro published his famous work Altazor. The following year, for financial reasons, he decided to return to Chile. Once established, he began to get involved in politics, and proposed by means of a manifesto to unite Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and his country into a single nation.

In 1934 he became a father for the fifth time, after the birth of Vladimir, as a result of his marriage to Ximena Amunatégui. On that date, he published several books, including The Next. Story that happened in one more time, Papá or El diario de Alicia Mir and En la luna.

Last years and death

Huidobro remained active in his literary activity. In 1942 the second impressions of Mío Cid Campeador, Temblor de cielo and Cagliostro were published. Then, in 1944, he created Actual magazine. The writer separated from Ximena in 1945, after having been a war correspondent in Paris.

In 1945 he began a relationship with Raquel Señoret Guevara, and returned with her to Chile. Two years later she suffered a cerebrovascular accident, she died on January 2, 1948 at her home located in Cartagena, Valparaíso. According to his last will, his body was buried in front of the sea.

Huidobro's creationism

Huidobro's creationism was developed within the avant-garde currents of the 20th century. The idea of ​​the poet was to expose the words as they were from their beauty, regardless of their meaning. He also tried to put aside the truth of the facts, in order to create new things.

One of the main characteristics of creationism was the freedom of the poet to create images through non-existent words. The idea was to make a new language, full of games and metaphors that would enrich the imagination.

Creationism established its own nature of things, where each artist or writer was capable of becoming the "god" maker of their own literary world. All this regardless of whether the content was irrational, without logic or without any order.

Characteristics of his works

Vicente Huidobro's works were developed within his creationism movement. In other words, they were characterized by having an unusual language, full of new and invented words, which many times constituted astonishing metaphors.

Altazor, Huidobro's masterpiece. Source: Madrid: Ibero Americana de Publicaciones, 1931, via Wikimedia Commons

At the same time, Vicente Huidobro put aside narrative sequences, as well as the logical use of punctuation marks. He used irrationality, the absurd, always focused on the lyrical context of the songs he developed, without paying attention to the meter or the rhythm.

Plays

- Echoes of the soul (1911).

- The route of silence (1913).

- Songs in the night (1913).

- Passing and passing (1914).

- The hidden pagodas (1914).

- Adam (1916).

- The water mirror (1916).

- Horizon Carré (1916).

- Arctic poems (1918).

- Equatorial (1918).

- Tour Eiffel (1918).

- Hallali (1918).

- Saisons choisies (1921).

- Finnis Britannia (1923).

- Automne régulier (1925).

- Tout à coup (1925).

- Manifestes (1925).

- Contrary winds (1926).

- Mío Cid Campeador (1929).

- Tremor of the sky (1931).

- Altazor or The parachute trip (1931).

- Tremblement (1932).

- Root Gilles (1932).

- The next one (1934).

- Dad or The Diary of Alicia Mir (1934).

- Cagliostro (1934).

- On the moon (1934).

- Three immense novels (1935).

Huidobro as a war correspondent. Source: See page for author, via Wikimedia Commons

- Satyr or The Power of Words (1939).

- See and feel (1941).

- The citizen of oblivion (1941).

- Last poems (1948).

Brief description of the most significant works

Shaking of the sky

It was a work within the lines of creationism, with an innovative lyrical language. The text begins with a tone of disappointment and hopelessness, but then it becomes a new beginning. The author played with the creativity of the reader, through the story between Isolde and Tristán.

The essential themes that Huidobro developed in the work were how ephemeral existence could be and how little certainty of what was to come. He also exhibited on love, religion and eroticism through a metaphorical set.

Fragment

“The Eternal Father is fabricating darkness in his laboratory and works to make the blind deaf. He has one eye in his hand and he doesn't know who to put it on. And in a mouth it has an ear in copulation with another eye.

We are far away, in the end of the ends, where a man, hanging by the feet of a star, balances in space with his head down. The wind that bends the trees, gently shakes the hair… ”.

On the moon

It was a play in which Vicente, through the comic, parodied the political situation of his native Chile in 1934. The writer, with puppets as characters, showed sarcasm and illogical situations the circumstances of that time.

Fragment

Worker: –I am the hope… I am the worker, I am the new man, the man that you have kept on the sidelines of life and he also has his word to say… with you to battle… to create a society of men, of builders, of creators…

Wattio: –I am a poet, and the poet is a prophet (he approaches the worker and embraces him, then turning to the audience and as if inspired) I see the great dawn and the joy of men…

El Mío Cid Campeador

This work by Vicente told the story of the Laínez-Álvarez marriage, who had a son named Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, whom his mother called “the next savior of Spain”. The youth of the young man passed between exercises and love affairs.

Huidobro's desk in his Cartagena House Museum. Source: Rodrigo Fernández, via Wikimedia Commons

Rodrigo's athletic ability earned him recognition through heroic deeds. He fought the Moors who attacked Spain, and he won. Some time later he had to face the stepfather of his beloved Jimena, which brings conflict, and the story continued between disputes and battles.

Fragment

“Those double hugs and kisses were given by the mother:

«Go with God, he said, my daughters and may the Creator be worth to you, the love of your parents and mine accompany you…

It seems to me, my daughters, that I have you well married «.

His father and mother both hands kissed, El Cid and his wife give them their blessing and grace.

Don Rodrigo and his people were already beginning to ride, they wear very rich dresses, many horses and weapons… ”.

Altazor or The parachute ride

It was the most important and recognized work of Vicente Huidobro, it saw the light in Madrid in 1931. It was developed within the characteristics of creationism, therefore, its publication meant the breakdown of the classic and traditional aspects that existed within poetry.

The poetic work of the Chilean writer was divided into songs, which constantly underwent transformations until the date of publication. One of the longest songs was the first, consisting of approximately seven hundred verses. The content is about nature and its principles.

The second song is directed at women, while the following songs, that is, the third and the fourth, are word games where the language does not keep a specific order, while expressive and creative freedom is not limited.

Fragment

"It's me Altazor

Altazor

locked in the cage of his destiny

in vain I cling to the bars of evasion

possible

a flower closes the way

and they rise like the statue of flames.

… I am Altazor twice myself

the one who looks at work and laughs at the other in front of

front

the one who fell from the heights of his star

and traveled twenty-five years

hung from the parachute of his own prejudices

I am Altazor the one with infinite longing… ”.

The citizen of oblivion

This is one of the last works published by Huidobro, after what is considered a period of poetic drought after Altazor. Many scholars report that this occurred because the success of Altazor made the poet demand more in innovation, both to excel, and not to resemble the predecessor manuscript.

This manuscript is also framed within creationism, and although it did not have the scope that Huidobro wanted, it contributed interesting lyrical variants within the writer's literary universe.

Fragment

"You sing and you sing you speak and you speak

and wheels through time

and cry like a lily unleashed

and you sigh between long agonizing that no

They know what to say…

You sing and you sing and you talk and you talk

and you dream that the species

he will forget darkness… ”.

Editions after his death

- Complete works (1964).

- Complete works (1976).

- Letter between Huidobrio and his mother (1997).

- Poetic work (2003).

- Poetry and creation (2013).

- Altazor and other poems (2013).

Phrases

- "My joy is hearing the noise of the wind in your hair."

- "Let the verse be like a key that opens a thousand doors."

- "The sky grows higher in your presence, the earth stretches from pink to pink and the air stretches from dove to dove."

- "Only you save the crying and from a dark beggar you make him king crowned by your hand."

- “Can you believe it? The grave has more power than the eyes of the beloved.

- "Inventing consists of making things that are parallel in space meet in time or vice versa, and that when joined show a new fact."

- "If I didn't do at least one crazy thing per year, I would go crazy."

- “A poem is only such when it exists in the usual. From the moment a poem becomes something habitual, it does not excite, it does not amaze, it does not worry any more, and therefore ceases to be a poem, since disturbing, marveling, moving our roots is the very thing of poetry ”.

- "If I didn't do at least one crazy thing per year, I would go crazy."

- "Life is a parachute trip and not what you want to believe."

References

1. Tamaro, E. (2004-2019). Vicente Huidobro. (N / a): Biographies and Lives. Recovered from: biografiasyvidas.com.
2. Vicente Huidobro. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: wikipedia.org.
3. Literary creationism, main characteristics and most prominent authors. (2018). Spain: Notimérica. Recovered from: notimerica.com.
4. Guerrero, C., Torres, E. and Ramírez, F. (Sf). Vicente Huidobro: 1893-1948. Chile: Biography of Chile. Recovered from: biografiadechile.cl.
5. Vásquez, M. (2012). Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948). Venezuela: The Letters We Want Today. Recovered from: mireyavasquez.blogspot.com.