Rafael Landivar (1731-1793) was a Guatemalan priest who belonged to the Order of the Society of Jesus, and who also stood out as a writer and poet. He was endowed with great intelligence, showed ability for letters and knew how to be at the service of others.
Landívar's work was not abundant. However, it was recognized for its depth. His most important writing was Mexican rustic, poem based on the nature of the Mexican territory during the Spanish conquest. He also wrote several verses in Spanish and Latin, in addition to a considerable number of sermons.
The priestly life of the Jesuit was marked by his expulsion from New Spain after the order of the monarch Carlos III, who did not sympathize with the Society of Jesus. So Rafael Landívar spent the last years of his life in Italy, specifically in the city of Bologna..
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Rafael Landívar was born on October 27, 1731 in Guatemala at the time of the rule of the Spanish empire in America. The poet came from a well-off family. It is known that his father was Pedro Landívar, businessman in the gunpowder business, and that he was also a relative of the conqueror Bernal Díaz.
Landívar's years of academic training began in 1742. When he was eleven years old, he entered the Colegio Mayor Universitario de San Borja de Guatemala. Two years later he began studying philosophy at the Royal and Pontifical University of San Carlos Borromeo.
Later, in 1746 he obtained a bachelor's degree in philosophy. The following year, and with only sixteen years of age, he obtained a doctorate. Then he made the decision to be part of the Order of the Society of Jesus, so in 1749 he went to Mexico to enter the seminary. He became a priest in 1755.
The Jesuit priest returned to Guatemala shortly after being ordained. There he served as director of the Colegio San Borja, where he also taught philosophy and carried out his work with care and dedication. At that time he had already begun to write some of his poems.
In 1759 Carlos III came to the Spanish throne with the determination to remove the Jesuits from all the territory of New Spain. That decision was made influenced by his mother Isabel de Farnesio, who did not sympathize with them and distrusted the religious organization..
The expulsion order was carried out on April 2, 1767, so a total of five thousand two hundred and seventy-one Jesuits had to leave both Spain and the Indies. Those who occupied Guatemala lost their belongings and properties; They went first to Mexico, and then to Italy.
Both Landívar and his companions from the Company who lived in Guatemala had to part with their families and friends, whom many could never see again. In the case of his monastery, it was ceded to the friars of the Dominican Order..
For his part, the poet had to abandon the theology and philosophy classes that he taught at the San Borja institute, which was under the administration of the parish priest of the main church of the city. Their lands were sold. In short, they only took sadness and the pain of leaving their homeland.
Landívar's arrival in Italy was never to return to his native land, as happened with most of his companions. Although he was well received by the noble Albergati, for whom he worked as a teacher, he never ceased to miss and feel nostalgic for Guatemala and America in general..
At that time, melancholy led him to develop his best-known work: Mexican rustic. The poet and priest had the opportunity to see it published. The first edition was made in 1781, while the second came to light in 1782 with some corrections and more extensive.
Landívar spent the last years of his life dedicated to writing, prayer and contemplation. Although the cause of his death is unknown, it is known that it occurred on September 27, 1793 when he was sixty-two years old, in the city that welcomed him for more than two decades: Bologna..
At first the remains of the priest Landívar were buried in the crypt of the Santa María delle Muratelle church. Then, more than half a century later, in 1950, his grave was found, and the Guatemalan authorities managed to repatriate his body. Currently his remains rest in Antigua Guatemala.
In the 19th century, Rafael Landívar's work had lost its renown in Guatemala. That was because the number of editions that were had were few and difficult to understand. So the historian Ramón Salazar asked the Guatemalan diplomat in Venice to go to Bologna for an investigation..
After the negotiations, two texts of his work were sent to the hometown of the Jesuit Rustic, which were translated from Latin to Spanish on different dates. A century later, in 1961, the Rafael Landívar University was created in honor of the poet and Jesuit priest.
The little literary work of Rafael Landívar included several poems in Castilian, Latin and some sermons. It was characterized by being expressive and by having a high lyrical charge. The following were the best known writings of the author:
- Funebri declamate pro iustis (1766). It was a funeral prayer on the occasion of the death of the priest Francisco Figueredo y Victoria.
- Mexican rustic or Rusticatio mexicana, seu rariora quaedam ex agris mexicanis decerpta (1781).
It was the most important and well-known work of Landívar, which he wrote motivated by melancholy during his years in exile. The poetic text referred to the peasant way of life and the nature of the territory of New Spain. The author was compared to the poet Virgilio for the way he structured the verses.
The two editions published by the Jesuit, in 1781 and 1782, were written in Latin and formed in hexameters. He joined them in a greeting to Guatemala, fifteen songs and a kind of sermon. The second edition was corrected in terms of form, and the author also made some extensions to it.
Mainly, Landívar's work was an act of affection for his country, a recognition of its natural riches, the beauty of the fauna and flora, as well as the tenacity of the country man. The exhibition of American geography transports the reader on a journey of natural beauty.
Some scholars have considered that the content of the writing was a totally realistic historical documentation of the situation of the peasant population in colonial times. The positives and negatives broadened the Old World view of America.
The work of the Guatemalan priest has been the subject of positive comparisons with texts by more contemporary authors. Such was the case with Silva to the agriculture of the torrid zone by Andrés Bello, or Mexican greatness by Bernardo de Balbuena.
The comparisons were perhaps given because the description of the natural environments was a reflection of the American settings. Sensitivity, humanization and creativity managed to create a bridge of respect, autonomy and freedom for the riches of the New world with the reader.
The following fragment, although it was annexed to the work already described, was developed by the author in 1765, inspired by the earthquake that struck his land fourteen years earlier:
"Cheers, cheers or sweet
Guatemala,
origin and delight of my life!
Let, beautiful, bring
the memory
the gifts, the offerings that you invite:
your sources, pleasant, your markets,
your temples, your homes and your climate.
What would it be, if I remembered luxury
of golden damasks and curtains,
already of showy silks, already of wool
with the scarlet tyria well dyed?
… Recover the city quickly
of its own destruction
our life,
maybe happier, heaven love him!
What other phoenix
of immortal ash.
Enjoy yourself, risen mother!
Capital of that kingdom the richest!
Free lives from now on forever
of tremors and ruins;
and I will make the stars resound,
the tender echo of live songs ... ".
"Oh hail, country, for me dear,
my sweet home, oh hail Guatemala!
You the charm and the origin of my life.
How much, blessed land, is given
the mood evoking your ground
all garments, by natura gala!
I remember your weather and your sky,
to your sources I look out, and it walks
through your bloated streets, oh! my longing…
Often the pleasant image
arises in my mind, from your many rivers
that fleeing they are in a fast race
around the gloomy margins;
or the inside of your homes
see I imagine myself full of attire ...
… Oh! the city that yesterday was splendid
alcazar and queen the lady,
admiration and amazement of the people;
A collection of stones is only now ... !
house, temples and streets… they don't fit;
and still from the mountain to the protective summit
There is no way to go, let them be forbidden
the buildings that in such fatal ruin
from their heights to the dust they roll.
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