Rosalía de Castro was born in Spain on February 24, 1837 and died on July 15, 1885. She devoted herself to writing poems and novels, which she wrote in Galician and Spanish.
Writing in Galician during this time was not easy, especially for social and cultural reasons that greatly discredited this language. However, this did not stop the writer, who created works of art in Galician and was one of the great Spanish poets of the 19th century.
Poems of Rosalía de Castro in Galician
In fact, she is considered, together with Gustavo Bécquer, as the greatest exponents of modern Spanish poetry.
Rosalía was the biological daughter of a priest named José Martínez and a low-income woman, María Teresa de la Cruz Castro y Abadía. But she was baptized appearing as the daughter of unknown parents by the parish priest José Vicente Varela y Montero. Who took care of the girl was the faithful servant of her biological mother, Francisca Martínez.
However, until the age of eight, Castro would live under the guardianship of his aunt Teresa Martínez. During this time, he became aware of the experience in Galicia, its customs, beliefs and songs. This social triad greatly influenced his work entitled “Cantares Gallegos”.
Later, around the year 1850, Rosalía moved with her mother to Santiago de Compostela. There she studied and received basic knowledge of drawing and music, in addition to attending the cultural activities initiated by the “Liceo de la Juventud”. In 1858 she went to live in Madrid, where she married Manuel Murguía, one of the first people who supported her in her role as a writer.
The importance of the poems of Rosalía de Castro in literature
Castro’s poems did not depict her as a happy woman, and there was a certain skepticism about love. However, this was not the result of an apparent bad relationship with her husband, since he constantly encouraged her to carry out her literary work, and was responsible for the publication of “Cantares Gallegos”.
Rosalía’s talent and passion were remarkable, but they merged perfectly with the drive given by her husband. He never hesitated to give social, moral and intellectual support to his wife, at a time when women were despised.
This is how the “Galician Songs” were published, considered the first great masterpiece of contemporary Galician literature , which made Rosalía a symbol of her nation, and gave Galician part of its reputation for having been written in that language.
The three great works of Castro are: «Follas novas», «On the banks of the Sar» and the aforementioned «Cantares gallegos». The first is a rather profound poem, published in 1880 along with another group of poems that kept Rosalía at the top of poetic literature throughout that decade.
The second, written in Spanish, speaks of the tragic circumstances that he went through in the last journey of his life, and the third is a song that, in addition to its literary richness, served to tremendously continue the unusual trend of writing in Galician.