Rafael Alberti

RAFAEL ALBERTI (El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, 1902 - 1999).
"Of the poplars and willows", 1st edition, 1940.
Publisher: Hoja de Hiedra.
Print run of 420 copies on paper.
With two vignettes by Eduardo F. Catalano. Paperback binding with vegetable paper covers.
Restored hardcover with gilt lettering on the spine on red background. Excellent state of preservation.
Measurements: 25.5 x 18 x 1 cm.
Rafael Alberti published De los álamos y los sauces in 1940, in a careful edition of the publishing house Hoja de Hiedra, with a limited edition of 420 copies on special paper. The work belongs to the first years of the poet's exile after the Spanish Civil War, a circumstance that profoundly marked both his life and his literary production.
In contrast to the combative and political tone of some of his immediately preceding books, De los álamos y los sauces recovers a more intimate, lyrical and evocative voice. The volume revolves around nature as a space of memory and reflection, using two trees with a strong symbolic tradition in Spanish literature, the poplar and the willow, as images associated with memory, melancholy, the passage of time and absence.
In these poems, Alberti projects the experience of exile and nostalgia for the lost homeland through a language of great musicality and expressive delicacy. Natural landscapes become emotional scenarios where personal memory, longing for Spain and the search for consolation in the face of the uncertainty of exile converge. The apparent simplicity of the verses encloses a deep sentimental charge, characteristic of the best of Alberti's poetry.
Considered a representative work of the initial stage of his exile, De los álamos y los sauces reveals a more meditative facet of the author and constitutes a poetic testimony of loss and hope. In it, nature acts as a vehicle for universal emotions, confirming Alberti's ability to transform biographical experience into a lyrical expression of universal scope.