Ricardo Jaimes Freyre (1866-1933) was a prominent Bolivian-Argentine writer, essayist, historian, poet, diplomat, and playwright. He is considered one of the maximum representatives of the modernist movement in the American continent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries..
Freyre's literary work spanned various genres, including poetry, drama, and essays. His writings were characterized by the use of painstakingly elaborate and expressive language. In his poetry, the use of symbols and free verses was notorious, that is, he distanced himself from meter and rhyme.
Freyre had a large work, which was mostly poetic. Some of his most prominent publications were Castalia bárbara, Dreams are life, Jefthé's daughter Y Laws of Castilian versification. The author produced several historical works about the town of Tucumán in Argentina.
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Ricardo Jaimes Freyre was born on May 12, 1866 in the city of Tacna, in Peru, precisely in the facilities of the Bolivian consulate, hence he had the nationality of the latter country. The writer came from a cultured family linked to literature and diplomacy.
Ricardo Freyre's father was the writer and journalist Julio Lucas Jaimes and his mother was the poet and novelist Carolina Freyre Arias. His childhood and adolescence were spent in Tacna.
Freyre spent his first years of educational training in schools in the city where he was born. There is no knowledge of his admission to universities, but it is known that he inherited his talent and passion for literature and the arts from his parents. Possibly he was a self-taught intellectual.
Ricardo and his family moved to Sucre, Bolivia (his father's country of origin) in 1886 and there he met Felicidad Soruco, who would be his life partner. The young couple soon got married and the fruit of love, three children were born: Mario, Víctor and Yolanda. After a while they went to Argentina.
Freyre arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the end of the 19th century and quickly became part of the literary and cultural events of the city. In 1984 his knowledge of the modernist current led him to create the America Magazine, together with the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío.
The life of the magazine was short, but it paved the way for introducing literary innovations to Latin America. At that time, Jaimes Freyre worked for various print media, including The country Y The nation. Then the writer lived in Brazil for three years due to diplomatic work, between 1896 and 1899.
Although Freyre published in 1889 two plays entitled: The album Y Jefthé's daughter, its recognition came ten years later. The author managed to position himself as a poet in 1899 with Barbarian castalia, a book that was meticulous in terms of language, rhetoric and rhythm.
What most impacted the critics and the reading public was the way in which Jaimes Freyre developed the central theme. The book was a kind of debate between sin and Christian precepts and he conceived it during his stay in Brazil. The author incorporated mythological elements into the development of the work.
Freyre returned to Argentina after completing his diplomatic service and in 1901 he settled in the province of Tucumán, where he lived for twenty years. There he dedicated himself to writing, journalism and teaching. He taught history and literature classes at the National College and University.
The writer became a prominent personality in the city for his cultural contributions. He took care to keep the historical archive in order and between 1907 and 1916 he wrote five works of historiographic content, among them History of the Republic of Tucumán. In 1916 he received Argentine citizenship.
Ricardo Jaimes Freyre returned to Bolivia in 1921 to hold some public office during the presidency of Bautista Saavedra Mallea. He first served as Minister of Public Instruction, Agriculture and War. He was then appointed representative in the League of Nations.
Other posts that the writer held were ambassador to Chile and the United States (the country where his wife died). He also represented Bolivia in Mexico and Brazil, but in the mid-1920s he resigned due to differences with President Hernando Siles Reyes and returned to Argentina..
Freyre lived his last years in Argentina, his literary production was reduced and he subsisted on the money he received from his years as a professor at the National University of Tucumán. The last work of its writer was the play The conquerors. The Bolivian-Argentine author died on November 8, 1933 in Buenos Aires at the age of 67..
Ricardo Jaimes Freyre's literary style developed within the ranks of modernism, inspired in part by the influence of Rubén Dario. The writer used cultured and well-crafted language, laden with eloquence and detail. It was based on the use of symbolism to give greater depth to its fantastic and mythical themes..
- Barbarian castalia (1899).
- Dreams are life (1917).
- Dream country. Shadow country. Barbarian castalia (1918).
- Complete poems (posthumous edition, 1944).
- Complete poems (posthumous edition, 1957).
- Poems Laws of Castilian versification (posthumous edition, 1974).
- The album (1889).
- Jefthé's daughter. Drama in two acts and prose (1889).
- The conquerors. Historical drama in three acts and in verse (1928).
- Laws of Castilian versification (1905).
- The correct and expressive reading: pronunciation, syllabification, stress, intonation and inflections of the voice, pauses, breathing, reading of verses, advice to teachers (1908).
- "The Captive" (1882).
- "Imitation of Victor Hugo" (1883).
- "A revenge" (1883).
- "Canto a Bolívar" (1883).
- "Wait" (1884).
- "Faith is life" (1884).
- "Troy burns!" (1884).
- "Becquerismo" (1884).
- "Hullabaloo" (1884).
- "In my sister's album" (1884).
- "Carnival mishaps" (1884).
- "From my album" (1884).
- "A good truth in a bad sonnet" (1884).
- "Political-philosophical Epistle to Moisés Ascarrunz" (1884).
- "The glory" (1886).
- "Sucre" (1889).
- "To Maria" (1899).
- "Party night" (1913).
- "A ray of sunshine" (1920).
- "To you Rubén Darío and to you Prodencio Plaza, salut" (posthumous edition, 1953).
- "Ángel Polibio Chávez" (posthumous edition, 1953).
- "The priest Samamé" (1953).
- "The hometown" (1953).
- "Happy is he who has never seen" (1953).
- "Madrigals of yesteryear" (1953).
- Tucumán in 1810 (1907).
- History of the Republic of Tucumán (1911).
- The Tucumán of the 16th century: under the government of Juan Ramírez de Velasco (1914).
- Colonial Tucuman (1915).
- History of the discovery of Tucumán (1916).
It was Jaimes Freyre's first poetic work and one of the most astonishing in terms of content. The writer developed the theme of love and sin through a language loaded with symbols and rhythm. The argument of the poems was based on the values of faith and the debauchery of non-believers, having an important mythological component.
It was Freyre's second poetic publication to which he gave a less fanciful concept. In this work the author focused more on feelings and the natural and was more reflective. He maintained the use of rhetorical language and continued with the sonority of the verses.
“Frizzy waves adhering to the manes
of the rough steeds of the winds;
lit by reddish glows,
when on anvil of mountains his hammer beats the thunder.
Crispy waves that shelter the loves
of the hideous monsters in her bosom,
when the great voice of the storms sings
his wild epithalamus, like a gigantic hymn.
The waves that are thrown onto the beaches crinkle
crowned by huge locker rooms,
where they disturb with convulsive sobs
the indifferent silence of the night of the ice ".
“… Fly over the lonely rock
that bathes the glacial sea of sorrows;
there is, at your weight, a beam of brilliance,
on the grim lonely rock ...
Fly over the lonely rock
pilgrim pigeon, snow wing
like a divine host, such a slight wing ...
Like a snowflake; divine wing,
snowflake, lily, host, haze,
pilgrim imaginary dove ... ".
“Son, I am of my race; runs in my veins
blood of the proud conquerors.
My grandparents raised towers and battlements;
the troubadours celebrated his glory.
In that blood there are red and blue waves;
my shield is luster and decorum from a solar.
Instead of sinople, girdle of gules
engoled with fierce gold dredgers ... ".
- “I called the vision once and it came. And she was pale and sad, and her pupils burned, like fires of martyrdom. ".
- "The people with the despot's plant on the nape of their neck, bite the slave earth with their rabid teeth ...".
- “A mysterious and strange god visits the jungle. He is a silent god who has open arms ".
- "The trembling rose detached itself from the stem, and the breeze carried it over the murky waters of the swamp ...".
- "You are the ideal rose that was the pink princess, in the love affair of a Provençal craftsman ...".
- “Pilgrim imaginary dove that inflames the last loves; soul of light, music and flowers, pilgrim imaginary dove ".
- "You do not know how much I suffer! You who have put my darkness in my night, and deeper bitterness in my pain! ".
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