Mario Benedetti.
Mario Benedetti's poems have marked a milestone in the literary history of the American continent and beyond its borders. This Uruguayan He was one of the most prolific and universal writers of the Spanish language, with more than 80 published titles covering all genres and literary styles. His writings transcended to reach his readers crowned with simplicity, but loaded with a unique emotion.
Regarding his contribution to the literary world, Remedios Mataix, PhD in Hispanic Philology at the University of Alicante, stated: “Benedetti's work defies any attempt to classify the author, and he has enriched each genre he practices with the experience gained in others".
Childhood, youth and inspiration
Mario Benedetti He was born on September 14, 1920, in Paso de los Toros, Tacuarembó, Oriental Republic of Uruguay. Shortly before turning 4 years old, his family moved to Montevideo, where the poet spent most of his life. In the Uruguayan capital he wrote his first poems and stories while he studied primary school at the German School.
It was a difficult time for his family group from an economic point of view. He could barely study a year at the Liceo Miranda, because once he was fourteen he was forced to work eight hours a day in an auto parts store. Secondary studies had to be completed as a free student.
However, young Mario took advantage of the circumstances to get to know in detail the gray world of the Montevideo offices, reflected in several of his later stories. In general, citizen literature is the medium most used by the Uruguayan author to transmit his concepts to Spanish-speaking readers and - due to his translations - around the world.
Influences on Benedetti's work
It is not surprising then that many of the fictional characters and spaces of their narratives correspond to Montevideo references. His early insertion in the labor market did not prevent him from continuing to read and write. Among those early authors who influenced and inspired him are Maupassant, Horacio Quiroga, and Chejov.
Later in his teens he continued as an avid "book eater”Read greats like Faulkner, Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Henry James Proust, Joyce and Italo Svevo. Then he ventured into Latin American literature and political content together with the Peruvian César Vallejo and the Argentine Baldomero Fernández Moreno as the most prominent influences.
Life in Buenos Aires
Between 1938 and 1941 he lived most of the time in Buenos Aires. In the Argentine capital he worked as a stenographer in a publishing house. Benedetti himself recounted in an interview conducted in 1984 that Plaza San Martín was the place where he decided to be a writer.
In 1945 he joined the editorial team of Marcha, a very famous weekly at the time until its closure in 1974 for political reasons. That same year he began to train as a journalist with Carlos Quijano and also wrote his first book of poems called La víspera indelible, published in 1945.
Fragment of one of Mario Benedetti's poems - Saudaderadio.com.
Marriage
Mario Benedetti He married Luz López Alegre in 1946, her life partner and "eternal muse" until her death on April 13, 2006, a victim of Alzheimer's disease. The love of this long relationship was reflected in his poem "Boda de Perlas", extracted from La casa y el brick (1977).
Characteristics of his work
Among the distinctive style traits of Mario Benedetti can be mentioned: personification, hyperbole, and dramatization were frequent literary figures. The experiences and elements of everyday life appear in their themes in an obvious way, or else, implied, with explicit or tacit protagonists.
Equally, the use of colloquial language (the I vouse, for example) is abundant to generate identification with the reader. It presents comic situations as opposed to anxiety, in which humor is linked to the pathetic. Likewise, Benedetti uses so-called suspicious poetry to keep the reader's attention in later works.
Of course, almost always adds some touches of surrealist visions, unique to "poetry"benedettiana". His message has generated great adhesion among readers of all ages for his unquestionable display of ethical and political commitment.
But focusing only on that aspect of the Uruguayan author is a way of analyzing him in a very biased way, since the structure of his writings (especially his poetry) demonstrate a philosophical-existential depth, with great dilemmas from the social, spiritual, psychological and religious point of view.
Analysis of some of the most outstanding Mario Benedetti poems
Hobby
When we were kids
the old ones were like thirty
a puddle was an ocean
death plain and simple
did not exist
later when guys
the old men were people of forty
a pond was ocean
death only
a word
when we get married
the elders were in fifty
a lake was an ocean
death was death
of the others
now veterans
we already caught up with the truth
the ocean is finally the ocean
but death begins to be
ours.
Hobby is a poem composed of four stanzas, each with five verses. Its meter is irregular, however, the free verses transmit a certain rhythm. Each stanza is linked to a stage in the life cycle of human beings (childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age).
En Hobby, Mario Benedetti immerses himself in an existential theme about the psychological and perceptual evolution of the human being as the years go by, from childhood to old age and finally death. The lyrical style is embodied —apparently— by a middle-aged adult who has already left behind the naivety of young times in a tone of certain sadness.
Wake up, love
Bonjour buon giorno guten morgen,
wake up love and take note,
only in the third world
forty thousand children die a day,
in the placid clear sky
bombers and vultures float,
four million have AIDS
greed waxes the Amazon.
Good morning good morning wake up,
on grandma un's computers
no more corpses from Rwanda
fundamentalists slaughter
foreign
the pope preaches against condoms,
Havelange strangles Maradona
Bonjour Monsieur le Maire
forza italy good morning
Guten Morgen Ernst Junger
opus dei good morning.
Wake up, love it is a fantastic work that exhibits multiple literary resources to reflect the atrocities of modern society: wars, pandemics, ecological disasters, and the absurdity of religious radicalism.
In this poem Benedetti tries to shake the reader by speaking to him in the first person while ironizing with international diplomacy and sport as a distraction tool.
Image of the writer Mario Benedetti.
Mario Benedetti's poems: a legacy for history
Benedetti's poetics is a clear example of an excellent command of letters and a better observation of the environment. If we add to that the fact that the writer read every good book he came across and spiced up his style with the thought and vision of the best writers, then the perspective that can be had of the poet increases. Not in vain his poetic anthology is among the best poetry books in history.
The truth is that you can't talk about Latin American poetry without mentioning its name, and that he will be present in the history of letters, in each Day of poetry, until no more is written; that's how great his legacy is.