Top 12 quotes by the poet Rafael Alberti

Famous quotes from one of the greatest representatives of the Generation of '27.

Rafael Alberti (Cadiz, 1902 - 1999) was one of the greatest Spanish writers, representative of the Generation of '27.

This writer from Cadiz was a member of the Communist Party of Spain and had to go into exile after the uprising that brought the dictator Francisco Franco to power. Years before, in 1920, Rafael Alberti began to write verses after the death of his father. From then on, Alberti would emerge as one of the most prolific Spanish authors of the 20th century.

Rafael Alberti's famous quotes and quotations

Shortly after that disastrous episode, Alberti returned to Madrid and there he met writers of the stature of Federico García Lorca, Pedro Salinas, Víctor Alexandre or Gerardo Diego, names that would later be considered the benchmarks of the glorious era of Castilian literature.

In today's article we are going to know a little more about this famous literary character, through his most famousthrough his most famous phrases and reflections.

I don't want to die on the ground: it gives me a terrible panic. I, who love to fly in an airplane and watch the clouds go by, would like that one day the plane I'm flying in would get lost and never come back. And that the angels would make me an epitaph. Or the wind...

In this sentence, Rafael Alberti poetically explains how he would prefer to spend his last moments.

2. Words open doors over the sea

A metaphor of great poetic value.

I left with my fist clenched... I return with my hand open

This famous phrase by Alberti has been interpreted in different ways, for example, as an allusion to his time in exile.

4. Freedom is not for those who are not thirsty for it.

To find freedom, one must fight and resist.

5. You will not go, my love, and if you were to go, even if you were to leave, my love, you would never leave.

An excerpt from one of his most acclaimed poems: "Tú no te irás (o Ven, mi amor, en la tarde...)".

6. Full of softness and carmine,

dreamy beacon, vague and flying,

She flew to the highest vantage points.

Look at her, cherub of cherubs!

from the orchard of pulsating airs.

Alberti's pensive among the flowers!

An excerpt from the poem he dedicated to his wife, Rosa de Alberti.

I will never be of stone, I will cry when necessary, I will shout when necessary, I will laugh when necessary, I will sing when necessary.

A declaration of intentions full of vitality and optimism.

8. You have to be blind, to have scrapes of glass, quicklime, boiling sand in your eyes, not to see the light that leaps in our actions, that illuminates our language, our daily words, from within.

An ode to language in this memorable phrase by Rafael Alberti.

9. I saw you floating, flower of agony, floating on your own spirit. (Someone had sworn that the sea would save you from sleep.) It was when I saw that walls are broken with sighs and that there are doors to the sea that open with words and that there are doors to the sea that open with words.

Another excerpt from "Angel of the cellars", one of his most surprising verses in which he talks about wine.

10. And the sea went and gave a name, and a surname to the wind, and the clouds a body, and a soul the fire. The earth, nothing

The elements and the landscape were concepts very worked in Alberti's work.

11. Life is like a lemon, to be thrown into the sea squeezed and dry

A sentence for free interpretation.

12. Through the centuries, through the nothingness of the world, I, dreamless, searching for you.

About lost loves and the longing to return to happier times.