Rosalía Castro de Murguía, better known as Rosalía de Castro (Santiago de Compostela, 24 February 1837 – 15 July 1885), was a Galician romanticist writer and poet.

Writing in the Galician language, after the Séculos Escuros (Dark Centuries), she became an important figure of the Galician romantic movement, known today as the Rexurdimento ("renaissance"), along with Manuel Curros Enríquez and Eduardo Pondal. Her poetry is marked by 'saudade', an almost ineffable combination of nostalgia, longing and melancholy.
She married Manuel Murguía, member of the Galician Academy, historian, journalist and editor of Rosalía's books. The couple had seven children: Alexandra (1859-1937, unmarried), Aura (1868-1942), twins Gala (1871-1964) and Ovidio (1871-1900, without having married nor descendants), Amara (1873-1921), Adriano (1875-1876) and Valentina (stillborn, 1877). Though Aura married in 1897 and Gala in 1922, they left no children and thus today there are no living descendants of Rosalía de Castro and her husband. Her son Ovidio was a good painter, but his early death cut his career short.

The date she published her first collection of poetry in Galician, Cantares gallegos ("Galician Songs"), May 17 1863, is commemorated every year as the Día das Letras Galegas ("Galician Literature Day"), an official holiday of the Autonomous Community of Galicia, and dedicated to an important writer in the Galician language since 1963.

Relative poverty and sadness marked her life, although she had a strong sense of commitment to the poor and to the defenseless. She was a strong opponent of abuse of authority and defender of women's rights. She suffered from cancer of the womb and died of this illness. Her contemporary was Emily Dickinson, an American, who also wrote poetry. Her image appeared on the 500 peseta Spanish banknote.

Dichotomy of response in Galician society

Rosalía de Castro is today the unquestioned Poet Laureate of Galicia (Spain). Highly educated, expected to speak and write Spanish only, she took the bold, unconventional step of writing her early poems in the Galician language. Her defiance earned her the contempt and spite of that segment of the population for whom Galician was a dialect fit only for the illiterate and the churlish; but Rosalía's gallant gesture won her the love and admiration of the rest. Schools in Galicia, in Spain and abroad, libraries at home, in Spain and abroad, cultural associations at home, in Spain and abroad, prizes at home, in Spain and abroad, parks, folklore groups, choirs, albums, Amancio Prada, 1998. compositions of her poems, a Galician polka, sports teams, monuments at home and abroad, a theater, restaurants, a label of white wine, hotels,, rural lodgings, a money bill formerly in circulation, a postage stamp, a FS98 Iberia Airbus A340, a sea-rescue plane, and streets in Galicia, in Spain and abroad have all taken her name.

International Reputation

Although she remains relatively unknown outside Spain, her first volume of poetry was translated into Japanese by Takekazu Asaka in 2009 and is available from DTP Publishing (Tokyo). In the nineteen-nineties Katsuyo Ohata wrote two articles in the journal "The Review of Inquiry and Research" of Kansai Gaidai University (Osaka, Japan) on the Galician poet: "El inconsciente creativo de Rosalía de Castro" and "En las orillas del Sar: El mundo íntimo de Rosalía de Castro." In 2007 Shearsman Books published a paperback of selected poems translated by Michael Smith. In 2003 Folle Avoine published a French anthology of Galician poems translated by José Carlos Gonzalez. In 1991 the State University of New York Press published an English anthology edited and translated by Anna-Marie Aldaz, Barbara N. Gantt and Anne C. Bromley.

Works

In Galician

Poetry

• Cantares gallegos (1863)

• Follas novas (1880)

Prose

• Contos da miña terra I (1864)

In Spanish

Poetry

• La Flor (1857)

• A mi madre (1863)

• En las orillas del Sar (1884)

Prose

• La hija del mar (1859)

• Flavio (1861)

• El cadiceño (1863)

• Ruinas (1866)

• Las literatas (1866)

• El caballero de las botas azules (1867)

• El primer loco (1881)

• El domingo de Ramos (1881)

• Padrón y las inundaciones (1881)

Sample of poetry from Cantares Gallegos: Adiós ríos, adios fontes

Theme
The poem recounts the drama of the farmer forced to leave his homestead by the crisis of 1850-1860.
Historical background
Apparently due to unusually cold winters throughout the decade of 1850-1860 and due to the prevalence of subsistence agriculture many family farms of Galicia went bankrupt.

The weather of the decade is sometimes likened to a mini Ice-Age. In January 1850 there was notable snowfall over much of Spain and by February a large number of wolves roamed the countryside. In February 1853 the Galician port cities of Ferrol and A Coruña reported heavy snowfall, a highly unusual event. February 1854 was again very cold—on the fourteenth Madrid registered a nighttime temperature of -8°C. January 1855 was again very cold and snowy over Northern Spain.

The winter of 1856-57 was especially hard,

Official reports in the official bulletin of the Spanish government La Gaceta de Madrid highlighted the frostiness of the winter. From Puigcerdá (Girona), "For more than a month the countryside has been snow-covered." From Biscay, "As a consequence of the copious snows that have fallen over our region during the past days, especially on the peaks of the Valley of Carranza, there has appeared down in the valley a strong pack of wolves that is inflicting great losses on herds of sheep and cattle." Announcements of planned wolf culls were numerous during those cold days of 1857…The snow fell over all of northern Spain from Galicia to Catalonia…On February 4 the province of Santander had spent three months without links with the interior, completely snowed in. "Noone remembers such a prolonged spell of bad weather."

To compound the problem the main domestic industry also went into crisis.

From the second half of the nineteenth century onward Galicia's textile industry suffered a severe crisis brought on by the legal importation and the smuggling in of foreign fabrics, and many families endured hardship because there was no alternate source of employment. To make matters worse, the agricultural sector went into crisis between the years 1850-1860, destabilizing the rural economy. The composite crisis forced the population to look for a better life overseas.

The economic downturn accelerated already-existing rates of emigration.

There is evidence of a strong current of emigration from the year 1810 to 1853 that is difficult to quantify because the Spanish government did not condone emigration officially. Consequently some authors refer to this obscure period as the period of clandestine emigration.

But from 1836 onward Spain began to grant official recognition to her newly independent colonies. Mexico was the first former colony to be recognized in 1836 and Uruguay, Chile and Argentina followed soon thereafter. As a result emigration intensified…In December of 1836 there appeared the first commercial advertisement offering transatlantic passage—aboard the [slave-ship] General Laborde—from A Coruña to Montevideo, Buenos Aires and other destinations in Mar del Plata. The offer of transatlantic crossings increased progressively. The majority of the crossings was made on sailing ships. In 1850 the brigantine Juan departed from Carril advertised as a first-class steamer. Relatively reliable data suggest that 93,040 Galicians left between the years 1836 and 1860.

The Spanish government legalized emigration in 1853, and this made the count reliable: 122,875 people left Galicia between the years 1860-1880.

The proportion of people leaving was staggering. The census of 1857 gave a count of 1,776,879 inhabitants for the region. Therefore, according to all these figures, over 12% of the population left Galicia during the period 1836-1880.

The drama of emigration continued well into the twentieth century, and although noted Galician writer and politician Alfonso Castelao (b. 1886, d. 1950)—himself an expatriate twice, during his childhood and after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936—chose to see in emigration both an economic imperative and the affirmation of a dauntless spirit, the reality of leaving one's homeland was unpleasant for most, whether in the nineteenth or twentieth century, as the photographs of Manuel Ferrol attest.
Musical adaptation
Troubadour and songwriter Amancio Prada (b. 1949) recorded a solo adaptation of this poem in 1975, and twenty-two years later he re-recorded it accompanied by the Galicia Symphony Orchestra.

Adiós ríos, adios fontes (Cantares Gallegos, 1863)

Adiós, ríos; adios, fontes; adios, regatos pequenos; adios, vista dos meus ollos: non sei cando nos veremos. Miña terra, miña terra, terra donde me eu criei, hortiña que quero tanto, figueiriñas que prantei, prados, ríos, arboredas, pinares que move o vento, paxariños piadores, casiña do meu contento, muíño dos castañares, noites craras de luar, campaniñas trimbadoras, da igrexiña do lugar, amoriñas das silveiras que eu lle daba ó meu amor, camiñiños antre o millo, ¡adios, para sempre adios! ¡Adios groria! ¡Adios contento! ¡Deixo a casa onde nacín, deixo a aldea que conozo por un mundo que non vin! Deixo amigos por estraños, deixo a veiga polo mar, deixo, en fin, canto ben quero... ¡Quen pudera non deixar!... Mais son probe e, ¡mal pecado!, a miña terra n'é miña, que hastra lle dan de prestado a beira por que camiña ó que naceu desdichado. Téñovos, pois, que deixar, hortiña que tanto amei, fogueiriña do meu lar, arboriños que prantei, fontiña do cabañar. Adios, adios, que me vou, herbiñas do camposanto, donde meu pai se enterrou, herbiñas que biquei tanto, terriña que nos criou. Adios Virxe da Asunción, branca como un serafín; lévovos no corazón: Pedídelle a Dios por min, miña Virxe da Asunción. Xa se oien lonxe, moi lonxe, as campanas do Pomar; para min, ¡ai!, coitadiño, nunca máis han de tocar. Xa se oien lonxe, máis lonxe Cada balada é un dolor; voume soio, sin arrimo... ¡Miña terra, ¡adios!, ¡adios! ¡Adios tamén, queridiña!... ¡Adios por sempre quizais!... Dígoche este adios chorando desde a beiriña do mar. Non me olvides, queridiña, si morro de soidás... tantas légoas mar adentro... ¡Miña casiña!,¡meu lar!

Farewell, you rivers; farewell you fountains; Good-bye, little rills; Good-bye, sight of my eyes: Don't know when we'll see us again. Sod of mine, sod of mine, Sod where I was raised, Little orchard I so love, Dear fig trees that I planted, Meadows, streams, groves, Stands of pine waved by the wind, Chirping little songbirds, Darling cottage of my joy, Mill in the chestnut wood, Clear nights of brilliant moonlight, Sweet chiming bells Of the local church, Blackberries in the brambles That I used to give my love, Little footpaths through the cornfields, Good-bye, for ever good-bye! Good-bye, heaven! Good-bye, happiness! I leave the house of my birth, I leave the hamlet that I know For a world I haven't seen! I leave friends for strangers, I leave the lowland for the sea, I leave, in short, what I well love... Would I didn't have to go! But I'm poor and—base sin!— My sod is not my own, For even the shoulder of the road Is loaned out to the wayfarer Who was born forlorn. I must therefore leave you, Little orchard I loved so, Dear fireplace of home, Beloved trees that I planted, Little spring for the livestock. Good-bye, good-bye, I'm leaving, Hallowed blades of the churchyard Where my father lies buried, Sainted blades I kissed so much, Dear land that brought us up. Good-bye Virxe da Asunción, White as a seraph; I carry you in my heart: Plead with God on my behalf, Virxe da Asunción of mine. Afar, very far away, hear The churchbells of Pomar; For hapless me—alas— They will never toll again. Hear them afar, farther away; Every peal deals out pain; I part alone, without a friend... Land of mine, good-bye, good-bye! Farewell to you too, little darling!... Farewell, forever perhaps!... I send you this farewell sobbing From the precious coastline. Don't forget me, little darling, If I should die of loneliness... So many leagues offshore... My dear house! My home!"."

Sample of poetry from Follas Novas: Negra Sombra

Theme
The poem reflects Rosalía's apprehension at the recurrence of sudden misfortune in her life.
Historical background
"Negra Sombra" was probably written shortly after the death of two of her babies, twenty-month-old Adrian who died from a fall in November of 1876 and Valentina who was stillborn three months later.
Musical adaptation
The Provincial Museum of Lugo holds the score of the musical adaptation of "Negra Sombra"; the sheet of music dates from 1890-1892. Its author was Juan Montes Capón (b. 1840, d. 1899) who composed twenty other pieces, among them another adaptation of a Rosalian poem, Doce Sono.

This poem, "Negra Sombra," became one of the most emblematic Galician ballads ever when composer Xoán Montés Capón (b. 1840, d. 1899) fused it with an alalá written down in Cruz do Incio (Lugo). The musical arrangement had its debut in Havana's Grand Theatre in 1892. The ballad is arguably one of the most beautiful and principal in the Galician repertoire; its lyrics so blend with the melody that it is no longer possible to conceive them apart.

Classic choral renditions of "Negra Sombra" are particularly moving. Other outstanding interpretations include those of Luz Casal and Carlos Nuñez and of Amancio Prada and the Galicia Symphony Orchestra.

Negra Sombra (Follas Novas, 1880)

Cando penso que te fuches, negra sombra que me asombras, ó pé dos meus cabezales tornas facéndome mofa. Cando maxino que es ida, no mesmo sol te me amostras, i eres a estrela que brila, i eres o vento que zoa. Si cantan, es ti que cantas, si choran, es ti que choras, i es o marmurio do río i es a noite i es a aurora. En todo estás e ti es todo, pra min i en min mesma moras, nin me abandonarás nunca, sombra que sempre me asombras.

When I think that you departed, Black shadow that overshades me, To the hem of my head pillows You return poking fun at me. When I fancy that you've gone, From the very sun you taunt me, And you are the star that shines, And you are the wind that moans. If there's singing it's you who sings, If there's weeping it's you who weeps, And you are the river's rumour, And the night—and the dawn. Everywhere you are in every thing, For and within me you live, Nor will you ever leave me, Shadow that always shades me.