Mariano Lorenzo Melgar Valdivieso; Arequipa,
1790 - Umachiri, 1815) Poeta peruano. Considerado como uno de los fundadores de
la literatura peruana contemporánea, es autor de poemas amorosos de imitación
indígena (yaravíes), precedente del nativismo romántico.
De gran precocidad intelectual, cursó filosofía y
teología y recibió las órdenes religiosas menores en 1810; pero abandonó la
carrera eclesiástica al enamorarse de una dama, María Santos Corrales, la que
aparece en sus poemas con el nombre de Silvia. Enseñó latín, retórica,
filosofía, física y matemáticas. En 1812 viajó a Lima para estudiar derecho en
los claustros de San Carlos, coincidiendo su estancia en la capital con las
manifestaciones en favor de la Independencia.
Melgar retornó a Arequipa en 1814; entretanto, su amada
Silvia cedió a la oposición de sus padres y rechazó al poeta; el dolor afectó
gravemente su salud. Probablemente a ello se debió la excelente traducción de
los Remedia amoris de Ovidio, que dejó inédita, y desde luego, la composición
Carta a Silvia. Melgar se incorporó poco después a la rebelión emancipadora de
Mateo Pumacahua, a quien sirvió como auditor de guerra; tras la batalla de
Umachiri fue apresado y sometido a consejo de guerra; el 12 de marzo de 1815
fue fusilado. Póstumamente, en 1878, se editó el volumen Poesías de don Mariano
Melgar.
A pesar de su formación neoclásica, la obra de Melgar
presenta rasgos prerrománticos: sentimentalismo, amor por la naturaleza, culto
a la libertad y fervor patriótico. También resulta prerromántico su interés por
las inquietudes del pueblo y su asimilación de una forma mestiza de canción muy
extendida en los Andes, el yaraví, en que el idioma es el español pero la
música y la temática resultan andinas. Los yaravíes de Melgar significaron el
triunfo de esa veta popular entre las capas urbanas y cultas, especialmente en
Arequipa, donde un yaraví melgariano es considerado como una especie de himno
de la "patria chica".
Los yaravíes son composiciones en metros cortos cuyo tema
más común es el lamento amoroso; se cantan con acompañamiento de guitarra o de
"quena" (flauta de caña de los indios peruanos). Desde el punto de
vista estrictamente literario, los "yaravíes" de Melgar son algo
ingenuos, y su versificación es a menudo defectuosa, pero alcanzan un singular
dramatismo con la música y con los acentos doloridos de los cantores.
Constituyen además una manifestación sumamente interesante del mestizaje
cultural en América.
En la forma del yaraví hay, desde luego, huellas de la
poesía española de la época (particularmente de Meléndez Valdés). Pero, en el
espíritu y en el nombre mismo, el yaraví proviene de los harauis de los incas,
canciones líricas de amor o de asuntos campestres, tristes o alegres, y
acompañadas por la flauta. Documentados por los cronistas, en los siglos XVI y
XVII se los menciona como cantos indígenas y populares, sin precisar bien su
carácter. Pero en el siglo XVIII, con la iniciación de la conciencia nacional y
los anuncios del Romanticismo, alcanzan nuevo impulso, sobre todo en el sur del
Perú, y ya con el carácter específico de poesía triste, de lamentación y
soledad.
Compuestos originalmente en lengua quechua, se
escribieron luego en español; rural en sus comienzos, el yaraví pasó a la
ciudad, y la "quena" se unió o se reemplazó con la guitarra. El
centro de esa transformación criolla fue Arequipa, y Melgar el poeta más
excelente y de más fuerza dramática. En la edición póstuma de las Poesías de
don Mariano Melgar (1878) aparecen sólo diez yaravíes, pero se le atribuyen muchos
más, porque su nombre se ha convertido en un símbolo del género. Su poder de
atracción es aún tan grande que sus yaravíes siguen cantándose y llorándose
noche tras noche en Arequipa.
Aparte de los yaravíes, en las inclinaciones líricas de
Mariano Melgar se aprecian diversas facetas: la de poeta erótico, influido
principalmente por las anacreónticas que había leído; la de autor de odas,
entre las que son dignas de especial mención las dedicadas a la libertad y al
mar, con algunas elegías, y la de fabulista, aspecto éste muy singular en las
letras peruanas. Cinco son solamente las fábulas que escribió (el cantero y el
asno, las abejas, las cotorras en un maizal, los gallos y los pavos y el asno
cornudo). Su formación clásica adquirida en sus tiempos del seminario, que no
dejó de influirle a lo largo de su breve carrera lírica, lo llevó a traducir
composiciones de Ovidio y Virgilio. En su traducción de Remedia amoris de
Ovidio modificó ingeniosamente su título por el de Arte de olvidar.
Mariano Lorenzo Melgar Valdivieso was born
in Arequipa, Peru, 10 of August of 1790 . died in Fist 12 of March of 1815 .
For many Romanticism is the initiator of in this part of the world. In him the
romanticism is not imitation than or became in the Iberian Peninsula or France,
but a deep and own feeling, we do not forget that she was a young person and
precocious poet who did not reach to mature because she surprised to the death
looking for it the free mother country. Mariano Melgar expresses racially mixed
an Andean feeling/, that nobody was had bold to expose until that then ones in
a so prejudiced and hispanicized society that it worsened by the Limean
centralism. Sight from this angle, Melgar is the initiator of the truly
Peruvian poetry, without going to the European styles to try that they consider
poet. participated in the war by the independence of Peru against Spain. Melgar
is one of first romantic of Peru in Century XIX, more known to include in its
creation the feeling of Yaravíes 'indigenous (sentimental songs mainly of the
Andean South zone).
Mariano Melgar was gift son Don Juan de God
Melgar Sanabria and Do6na Galician Andrea Valdivieso. was baptized two days
after its birth in Cathedral of Arequipa . It grew in its native earth, to the
three years already it knew to read and to write. His brother Jose Fabio Melgar
affirmed that to the eight years already he handled the Latin, and other
authors indicate that in addition Melgar before turning the ten years got to
dominate English and the French. He studies early in the Convent of San
Francisco. Before the eight years informed and worthy Chavez bishop of the Rose
conferred the prime tonsura to him and he dressed the clerical habit to him.
This meant in the long run a litigation that would finish when fulfilling Melgar
its 23 years, consisted of the obtaining of a chaplaincy in a vine in the
valley of Majes.
One is due to mention that he was the father of the poet who
was interested in that Mariano obtained this chaplaincy, and that their plans
were affected before the decision of the Melgar young person to leave the
habits. It is during this stage of his life that Melgar had had access to one
nourished library, the library of the Council Seminary of San Jerónimo, that at
that time had reached reputation under the direction of Pedro bishop Jose
Chavez of the Rose that always had as well shown to special interest in the new
concepts and brought theories of the old world; for that reason the library of
the Seminary and San Jerónimo was well-known like one of most complete of the
city (if not more complete it), besides owning between its volumes many of
which they were prohibited in the virreynato by his revolutionary character (it
knows that many of the most outstanding personages of the first Republican
years formed in this Seminary and had access to these books).
He was masterful
of Latinidad and Retórica, Philosophy and later figure also like professor of
Physics and Matematica. It is shortly after to have received you order minors
in the Seminary San Jerónimo and by " Melissa" (whose true name was
Manuelita Walls) that Melgar decides to leave the habits having twenty years.
It is led towards Literature where emphasizes his Poetry . After his first
deception (that is made notice in his " Soneto to the Mujer") Maria
Holy Corrals, better fell in love with well-known like Silvia, to that he would
romantically mention in his famous yaravíes (he forms poetic lyrical cradle in
the feeling in which the great singer arequipeño expresses its bitterness and
its sadness). All their loving drama and biography can be considered likely
being taken from its well-known " Letter to Silvia", in that the
express poet in 522 verses how he knew the love and the pain, until the
appearance and loss of young loved his. Outside the loving subject, Melgar also
had begun to show interest in the political subjects, is thus, that impelled by
its ideals, Mariano persuades its parents to go to study laws to Lima . The
desire of independence in Lima was as high as the fields of History, Geography,
Mathematical Philosophy and .
Time later, decided to return to Arequipa, to
only find Silvia, that had been persuaded by its father to leave any idea to be
united with Melgar (says to the tradition and legend of Melgar that this
opposition had to that the Holy family of Maria Corrals blamed to the poet by
the death of the mother of the Young person " Silvia"). Although it
turned it to the legend into the eternal lover of " Silvia", those
are in fact as much their love as their patriotic feeling that impelled of complementary
way (" to him; By Silvia master Mother country with care, and by my mother
country loved Silvia quiero"). It is after the rejection undergone on the
part of Maria Holy Corrals, that Melgar decides mudar to the valley of Majes.
And in November of 1814 that Melgar decides to enlist itself in the army of
Pumacahua and travels towards Chuquibamba leaving its retirement in Majes,
being united to a column of patriotic that would leave later to the city of
Arequipa. After an intense fight, Melgar dies streamlining having 24 year and a
half, in Umachiri, the 12 of March of 1815.
Melgar in its loving sadness, goes away to
Majes (to the west of Arequipa). Possibly, it makes contact with the enemy with
other independentistas revolutionaries of the time. In 1814, the revolution of
Mateo Pumacahua took place in Cusco, which infuriated the apparent tranquility
of virreinato Spanish in Peru and urged Melgar to be united to the
independentista cause. After gaining Combate de Apacheta in Arequipa, the army
marched towards Fist in Batalla de Umachiri . After the defeat of the
independentistas troops these were made prisoners, including the Melgar young
person. Spanish general Ramirez, after maintaining captive to Melgar by a time,
ordered his officials to shoot it. Melgar died in the morning of 12 of March of
1815, shortly before fulfilling the age of twenty-five years.
In message before its death, Melgar wrote to
the Spanish officials: " They cover its eyes, since you are the one who
will need mercy because America will be free in less than ten years! " .
Nine years later, 9 of December of 1824, Batalla of Ayacucho would take place
in Pampas from the Quinua, to few kilometers of distance of Ayacucho, close to
the town of Quinua . This battle - between realists (Spanish) and nationalists
(republican) - sealed to the independence of Peru and South America before
Spain.
2 of July of 1964, in recognition by its
bravery in the first predecesoras battles to independence, the government of
Peru recognized Mariano Melgar like the one of the first patriotic and soldiers
of the country for the revolution by officially Independence of Peru .
Poetry
Melgar, as poet and with Jose jointly Holy
Chocano and Caesar Vallejo reaches to conform, which in many publications, the
understood ones considers - talvez unifying the three works of bards for being
of the same country like a true poetic trilogy Peruvian immortal. sonetos,
Yaravíes and Metric of Melgar world-wide have been recognized; then in many
occasions, their poems have been selected and comprise of many poetic
anthologies printed as much as outside their native country inside, inclusively
having translated in much languages, since also it has been the case of works
of his companions of this mentioned classic " literary Triangle ".
Melgar and its fables
Very little it has been written and studied
about this special melgariana production, nevertheless the Ataucuri brothers
Garci'a emphasize in estracto of their book dedicated to this subject: "
Melgar thought firmly that Literature was a useful tool to change to the
society; for that reason it wrote his fables, small jewels where the writer
with the patriotic one is amalgamated perfectly.
The thematic one of their fables, very
opportune for the so crucial historical moment that it was lived in that stage,
reaffirms their commitment with the independentista cause. In addition, they
have the unusual characteristic of to be written for a very specific conjuncture:
the stage of the emancipation, with its social conflicts, ideological
confrontations, political, moral, governmental anarchy, etc.; particularitity
that is rare in classic fables where the atemporalidad of the subjects stands
out.
In 1813, the newspaper the Investigator of
Lima, publishes the fable " the ruiseñor and the caleche driver "
where Melgar criticism the subordination of the tastes from the town to the
foreign whims of people owner of the political and economic power. This would
be the unique fable that Melgar sees published, because the other come to the
light several years after their death.
Later, in 1827, is the newspaper the
Republican of Arequipa that is in charge to present other fables more. In
successive form " publishes seven; fables políticas" according to
writing note in which one heightens the qualities of the ill-fated Melgar
countryman. " the bat " and " the cats " the 16 of June of
1827 are printed; " the stonecutter and the ass " and " the bees
" 23 and 30 of the same month; " the cornudo ass ", the 7 of
1827 July. Later, the 27 of November of 1830, publish " you cotoast and
the fox ", concluding with " the domestic birds ", the 6 of
August of 1831.
Years later, specifically the 13 of November
of 1891, the newspaper arequipeño Stock-market publishes, taking like source
the manuscripts from Martin Ureta, the fables " the Sun " and "
the ruiseñor and the caleche driver ", that already had been published in
1813. The last fable that has managed to know itself is " the whale and
the wolf ", open pie within an original manuscript of Mariano Melgar and
that is kept in the Library of Lilly of the University of Indiana, institution
acquired that it next to legajo of historical documents of Latin America. In
this way, the melgarianas fables are ten altogether, although others add "
the blind person, the deaf person and dumb ", but by their thematic and
style still doubts exist that are of Melgar".
