Romanticism in Gustavo A. Bécquer and Edgar A. Poe. A Comparative Analysis

1 Romanticism in Gustavo A.Bécquer and Edgar A.Poe. A Comparative Analysis Tamara Martínez Pérez Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana Grado en Estudios Ingleses Tutora: Maria José Chivite de León 2014-2015, San Cristóbal de La Laguna 2 ABSTRACT Romanticism was a movement that emerged in the late 18th century in Europe, specifically in Germany and England but it soon after spread to America as well. Although it is very similar in Spain and in the Anglo-Saxon traditions, there are some differences that authors usually portray in their writings, such as setting, the vision of nature, love, the imaginative mind, the idea of the sublime or death, among others. While exploring this movement the concept of “imagination” has been a key element since it is what allows the poet to transcend, to destroy the limits and to perceive and to create. In this movement there are two important authors that wrote mainly poetry and represent very well the Romantic movement. They are Edgar Allan Poe and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Through the use of imagination they have perfectly created characters able to transcend and to create other realities by means of their “imaginative mind”. It is seen in their poems Annabel Lee by Poe and El rayo de luna by Bécquer. In these poems they present the poet who is a lover desperate to reach his woman. In the case of Annabel Lee the maiden is dead and the poet through his imagination is able to perceive her and to live his life with her even if she is immaterial and cold, in her tomb, she is spirit. Bécquer instead presents Manrique, who loves WOMAN as a category, he loves the soul, the anima, the femininity of women and when he is totally sure he has found “her” he realizes she is not what he though. The poets in these two poems show at the end different reactions towards life, towards reality. Key words: Romanticism, Annabel Lee, El rayo de luna, Poet, Imagination, Women 3 INDEX 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………...5 2. Historical Context. Romanticism in Edgar Allan Poe and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer…………….7 2.1. A Tentative Approach………………………………………………………….................7 2.2. Romanticism as a Cultural-Literary Phenomenon………………………………………...7 2.2.1. English and Spanish Romanticism…………………………………………................8 2.2.2. Nature………………………………………………………………………..............10 2.2.3. Imagination………………………………………………………………………….11 2.2.3.1. Symbol…………………………………………………………………………..11 2.2.3.2. The Idea of the Sublime……………………………………………….................12 2.2.3.3. Visions. Life as a Dream………………………………………………................13 2.3. Edgar Allan Poe……………………………………………………………….................14 2.3.1. Works. Style…………………………………………………………………………15 2.3.2. Annabel Lee………………………………………………………………………….15 2.4. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer………………………………………………………...............16 2.4.1. Works. Style…………………………………………………………………………17 2.4.2. El rayo de luna………………………………………………………………………17 3. A Comparative Analysis of Annabel Lee and El rayo de luna………………………………….18 3.1. Imagination and Nature………………………………………………………………….18 3.1.2. Setting……………………………………………………………………………..21 3.2. The Visionary and the Sensorial…………………………………………………………22 4 3.3. Women and the Feminine………………………………………………………………..23 3.4. Male Characters………………………………………………………………................25 3.5. Death and Madness……………………………………………………………………...26 4. Conclusions………………………………………………………………………….................29 5. References……………………………………………………………………………………...31 5 1.INTRODUCTION The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the relation between the Spanish and English Romanticisms through a comparative analysis of Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe and El rayo de luna by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer in both, content and style. Since there were no previous studies about this subject I made use of different English bibliographic sources together with the previous concepts we had studied in this degree. Apart from that, I read different Spanish bibliographies and I found accurate Lloréns’s book about Spanish Romanticism. English and Spanish Romanticisms are two different traditions but they share some aspects that make them be related with each other. For my project I have selected two stories belonging to the Spanish and English Romanticisms and this way it has been possible to synthetize the main aspects that related them both. Through this project I will refer to the different stories as poems because, despite being a short story and the other one a poem, in the short story El rayo de luna, we find a poetic narrator, he is an author, a genius, a poet, he is not a naturalist narrator and this makes the story be perceived as a poetic tale. Through the reading of different authors such as Jerry Phillips or J.R Watson I could learn a little more about this movement and I could support my ideas while comparing the two poems analyzed in this work. The main problems I found while doing my project were the little time I had to read and select the bibliography, for this reason I started reading some time before in order to devote the rest of the time to writing my project. Another problem was the amount of information I had to select since Romanticism is a very wellknown movement and there was a great deal of works from different authors. Thus I had to select the most accurate ones from my point of view while reading very carefully at the time I was trying to find out the similarities and differences between both traditions. Through this degree we have been exploring different literary movements and Romanticism appealed to me as I perceived it full of sentiment and mystery. I have always been interested in this movement since the beginning of this degree and this work was perfect for my purpose. I wanted to explore the concept of Romanticism, which I understand as a “tentative”, because it is impossible to give a definite 6 and clear definition of what it is. Romanticism is understood by every people in a different way and I wanted to approach it, to investigate and synthetize the main aspects that form this movement and to draw comparisons and similarities between the English and Spanish Romantic movements. What really caught my attention in this process of researching was the fact that this movement emerged spontaneously, with no purpose. It was a way of thinking, a different way to understand the world and some writings started to the published following different ideals emerged in the late 18th century. Apart from that, the way in which it spread all over the world was very curious because everywhere it shared those ideals but the movement adapted to the conditions of that time and acquired the characteristics of the place. It can be noticed while comparing Annabel Lee and El rayo de luna, that will be commented in the following pages. 7 2. HISTORICAL CONTEXT. ROMANTICISM IN EDGAR ALLAN POE AND GUSTAVO ADOLFO BECQUER 2.1. A Temptative Approach The term Romanticism can be defined as a new artistic and cultural movement that emerged in the late 18th century. This movement not only involves literature or the arts but it also had influences on philosophy or politics. Jerry Phillips states that Romanticism as asserted the power of the individual himself and it also marked an era in which the idealization of the individual prevailed: in the fields of arts, it marked a total fascination with the individual genius; as for politics it promoted social equality; and philosophically speaking, all truth became just a matter of human perception (4). Yet the term Romanticism was a term that was used time after the Romantics started to write. They were not an established group, they were just a group of individual authors who paid attention to the individual himself, aware of the possibilities of humankind. Vicente Lloréns has expressed a similar view with respect to Spain: “ Se admite que ha habido románticos; lo que se niega es que hayan tenido consciencia de grupo con unas intenciones, unos objetivos determinados y una estrategia para logarlos” (39) 1 . 2.2. Cultural-Literary Phenomenon This movement was conceived by many people as it is still today, as a reaction against the former values and traditions present at that time, against conventionalisms. It was totally opposed to the Neoclassic art of the previous century because Neoclassicism was based on the principles of the Enlightenment: everything was understood by reason, everything had its scientific side. Thus, this period marked a total break with the patterns and conventions of the previous generations. 1 My translation: “It is admitted that romantics have always existed, but never as a group with intentions, objectives and strategies to achieve them”. 8 Before Romanticism, literature was more realistic, it was somehow oriented to social, rational, and material issues. This idea has also been pointed out by Lloréns: “Es toda una actitud ante los problemas del hombre, de la sociedad, de la cultura” (37) 2 . This change in people’s mentality, and the growing confidence in progress and science, made people become critical bout the church and the established dogmas, yet more spiritual at the same time. This is the reason why some of these writers in the late 18th century, started to write in a different, Romantic way. Romantic writers trusted their feelings and the unlimited power of the human perception, as humans were able to see much more beyond. The objective perspective was somehow disregarded and the subjective perception of the world together with their experience was what shaped this movement. They could find beauty in the ugly, they could see truth in a simple element of nature, they perceive God in that beauty and it was a different reality only for those who looked through Romantic eyes. Phillips rightly points out this idea: Romanticism celebrated the divinity of the individual. It assumed that individuals might have an immediate relationship to God, insofar as they placed themselves within Nature. The Romantics believed that human nature was made in “likeness to God”. They felt that communion with Nature would reveal the divinity of human beings as a higher, intuitive truth (10). Thus, our mind is free and unique, and what shapes us as individuals is our capacity to transform ideas and reality into something new. The Romantic poet is capable of seeing and transforming and he works through his imagination and the inspiration of the moment. It is by means of his work that he asserts the power and uniqueness of the individual himself. A powerful imagination can even transform the world (Watson, 23). 2.2.1. English and Spanish Romanticism Spanish Romanticism was somehow influenced by the English Romanticism that had emerged long time before it came to Spain. Spanish Romanticism was highly influenced by Europe -Germany and Englandand also the French revolution left a deep imprint: the fostering of equality, liberty and fraternity were sources of inspiration to the Romantics. As Lloréns has indicated: 2 My translation: “It is an attitude to the troubles of man, society and culture.” 9 Los románticos españoles prefirieron para expresar su visión del mundo unos cuantos temas que coinciden básicamente en su fondo y su enfoque con los del romanticismo europeo. Ello es una prueba más de que deseaban enlazar con este, no con épocas literarias del pasado (50) 3 . As a consequence, Classic readings or Neoclassic conventions of the previous centuries were totally left aside in this period in favor of “darker” or non-mainstream motifs. But it is important to notice that Medieval times were present in Spanish culture and traditions and this has been pointed out by Lloréns too: “La literatura romántica era en gran parte histórica” (50) 4 . He also asserts, “Decididamente privó la historia nacional sobre la extranjera. Y la época preferida fue la Edad Media” (51) 5 . Romanticism also reached America, the ideals that Romanticism promoted were very important in the American artistic consciousness and politics. At that time people started to be against Calvinism which predicated that every human being was predetermined and Transcendentalism appeared as a philosophical and religious movement in the 19th century, leaving aside all those religious beliefs. Calvinists perceived nature as a symbol to interpret God, since for Calvinists our life was a repetition of something already created by God for us. Instead, Transcendentalism “was truly a matter of going a little beyond. Transcendentalists assumed that the ultimate truth of spiritual nature of the universe was readily at hand-natural and accessible to every human being” (Phillips, 34). Transcendentalism tried to break with the narrative and spiritual excess and to go back to nature, with a more deistic perception of God. Phillips points out that Transcendentalism: Went a little beyond European Romanticism, causing many to define the transcendental movement as American Romanticism. Like European Romanticism, Transcendentalism shares many of the same characteristic attitudes: a deep appreciation of nature; a preference of emotion over reason; a belief in the self and the potential of the individual; a predilection for the artist in particular and the creative spirit in general; and a distrust of classical forms and traditions (34). American Romanticism, which is strongly related to English Romanticism, was this mixture of Transcendentalist and Romantic ideals. There are two ideas than can be highlighted: the importance of nature on one side, and the individual’s freedom on the other side. 3 My translation: “In order to express their vision of the world, the Spanish Romantics preferred some topics that coincided in terms of approach and background with the most recurrent topics in European Romanticism.” 4 My translation: “Romantic literature was to a great extent historical.” 5 My translation: “National history prevailed over the foreign one and the preferred epoch was medieval times.” 16 The fact that her body is underground is no reason either to stop being together, he worships and admires her. He spends nights in her tomb, with her. While reading the poem we can perceive a child who is lamenting her death but at the same time he is proud of being in love with her still. It is clear when he comments that the Angels and Demons envied their love (L.30-31). He is not able to rationalize that death is a natural fact in life that should be assumed. He prefers living with the idea that she is still there because death is not an end, it is another transit that ensures eternity. He thinks it was the wind which killed her, demons, angels, supernatural elements of nature itself, etc. It is important to notice the ambivalence of these three elements already commented: Wind, Angels and Demons. They can be seen in the poem as evil, those who separated Annabel Lee in a physical level from the poet, but at the same time they can be seen as good elements since they made Annabel Lee reach eternity. While reading the poem we can see a child’s mind despite the fact that the poet had already grown up physically, but probably not psychologically. He is able to find beauty in death, for him she is still beautiful, and there is not horror in death. It is connected with the idea of the Sublime that makes him perceive this process of death (coldness and the decomposing corpse) as something beautiful, since beauty is not in the material but in the spiritual. Through this he is able to reach the Platonic world. He is able to sleep besides her tomb and to spend his whole life living on his memories. He can be perceived as an innocent person who is somehow mad because of love, he sees beyond the material. For him this girl is his reason, the only thing he needs. Woman is represented as something perfect beyond death. It is important to notice that they were kids so it is normal to think that she was pure and innocent, and that’s the reason why this love seems even stronger. 2.4. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (Sevilla, 1836-Madrid, 1870) makes a most prototypical portrait of a Romantic character: he suffered from tuberculosis since young age and presumably from syphilis as he had many different relationships with women much after the Byronic hero. He used women as inspiration in his writings. According to Lloréns, Bécquer could be considered Post-Romantic but his “intimismo amoroso” 9 , turns him into Romantic (37). 9 My translation: “Loving intimacy” 17 2.4.1. Works. Style His most important work is Rimas y Leyendas (1º edition 1871). Becquer’s prose and poetry are simple and at the same time easy to understand. “Leyendas” follows Poe’s style, and also recreates fantastic, dark and mysterious settings (Spanish Books). It is important to notice that Bécquer was influenced by the Anglo-Saxon tradition, as it is seen in his rhyme “Tu pupila es azul”, frequently subtitled as “Imitation of Byron”. He was highly influenced by Lord Byron, he probably read Byron’s poetry in order to be in contact with the English Romantic tradition. Some authors have also noticed the relation between Bécquer and Byron. It is important to comment that Byron loved sea storms and it can also be seen in Becquer’s poem “Olas Gigantes” since the lyric shows the same admiration for big waves. Furthermore, as Byron, Bécquer loved the escaping offered by the sea (Farnsworth, 250). 2.4.2. El rayo de luna In this tale which dates from 1862 (compiled in Rimas y Leyendas, 1871), Bécquer presents the story of Manrique, a Spanish Romantic man that is described as solitary and different. He has weird likings according to the people that surround him and he enjoys nature and silence. The story recreates the night in which Manrique becomes obsessed with a woman. He thinks he has heard and seen her and follows her through long paths despite the people’s gossips who say there is no woman there. He idealizes her, he thinks of her as a tall, beautiful woman with blue eyes and a long white dress, a woman that is able to love in the same way he does. He wants her and this feeling is so strong that he visualizes her until the moment he realizes that all his fantasies were product of a simple moon beam in the middle of the dark night. This seems to take Manrique back to the real world and this creates disappointment on him, he then thinks everything in life is a lie, and that nothing is worth living. 18 3.COMPARISON AND ANALYSIS OF ANNABEL LEE AND EL RAYO DE LUNA 3.1.Imagination and Nature One thing that should be kept in mind while reading these poems is that imagination is the link connecting everything in different levels (reality or fantasy, death or life, sleeping or awake, etc). In Annabel Lee, the poet is able to visualize a defunct woman. Manrique in El rayo de luna is able to visualize a woman that has never existed. The poetic voice in Annabel Lee starts by telling children’s stories about a place close to the sea. The poet refers to it as a “kingdom by the sea” which can be interpreted metaphorically since he was able to adore this girl as a queen and they lived just loving each other. At first glance the first person narrative voice in the poem is seen as a man who is telling a past story about his childhood, “I was a child and she was a child”. In Romanticism we can observe a special appetite for childhood, freer and more imaginative. As pointed out by Watson, Romantic poets are interested in the experience of childhood. Dreams, according to Freud, involve ‘primary process of thinking’, the kind of mental activity that can be found in babies since babies are not sure where their own selves end and the external world begins (64). The following paragraphs reveal that he is still innocent since he attributes the loss of his beloved girl to the highborn kinsman (L.17) whose identity is not clear in the poem but it may symbolize members of her family. It is important to notice that the time in which Poe wrote this poem was The Victorian Era, thus women were supposed to be innocent, obedient and submissive not only to their husband but to male members to their family. The poet also attributes the death of Annabel Lee to the Angels. The Angels are winged creatures, a symbol of both death and resurrection connected to the Platonic 10 . When referring to Angels we can see the image of wings, as in Plato’s myth, the idea of flying to the natural and original place in which there is an ideal state we lose when we come down to the material world. The Platonic defies the natural and supernatural, since the supernatural is no longer spooky, the Romantic poet starts to find 10 According to the Platonic myth that we find in Symposium, the soul is divine, immortal and aspires to freedom, while the body holds it in fetters as a prisoner. Death dissolves this compact, but only to re-imprison the liberated soul after a short time: for the wheel of birth revolves inexorably. Thus the soul continues its journey, alternating between a separate unrestrained existence and fresh reincarnation, round the wide circle of necessity, as the companion of many bodies of men and animals. 19 beauty in the supernatural. We can connect the winged creatures of the poem with flies, which are born from a chrysalis and are always under a process of transformation. Also winged creatures are related to death, as flies who are in contact with corpses. In this case the Angels are those ones who are in contact with Annabel Lee, they are death itself, and then they leave the dead body, returning to the world of eternal truths, the world of ideas. They somehow resurrect. Thus, for the poet the only way to evade is by means of death. It is much related with Romanticism. Our perceptions are transformed through our imagination. This way Romantic poets maintain their innocence and the purity of their spirit. It is important to see the image of the Romantic poet as the Byronic hero, the poet is challenging all those people, Angels and Demons. He is strong and he asserts that no one will separate him from the soul of Annabel Lee (L.32). The poet’s imagination here is the link that allows him to travel to the times in which they were together, it is what keeps him alive, and it is what makes him enjoy his idealized woman that was not only the symbol of embodiment of the feminine, but soul and spirit. She is The Anima, she has become those winged creatures and she is returning to the world of ideas, returning to innocence and true vision. Imagination at the same time is a link between the poet and nature since he is able to perceive nature in a different way through his imaginative mind. Nature plays an important role in this poem since the wind is described as a strong natural force able to take life away. The sea is also mentioned as a source of life. The kingdom was by the sea, by a sounding sea. It represents life and purity, tranquility and continuity as waves are always moving to and fro. Natural elements can be perceived with a human quality. Stars are looking eyes, the bright eyes of Annabel Lee. The moon is protective, powerful, a higher force, which makes him imagine and dream about her. The moon can be seen as perfection itself since spheres have usually been considered elements that represent the perfection and the moon has this spherical form. The sea, the stars and the moon, the natural elements mentioned in this poem, relate Anabel Lee with the concept of eternity: she is now one with nature, and she will be there but merged with nature. For this reason the poet spends nights outside, by her side. 20 In El rayo de luna, the author presents Manrique whose imagination makes him unable to distinguish between what is real and fantasy. There are different levels of reality and the dislocation of these levels makes our more creative capacities prevail. Romantics want this moment of dislocation to prevail, to enjoy the imaginative moment since it will not last forever and after realizing the reality they will be disappointed. Manrique is not able to know what has happened or whether what happened was a reverie, “dadas mis condiciones de imaginación” he claims. It is very common in Romantic writers. In contrast with Annabel Lee, in which the poet seems to be totally sane and doesn’t know any other reality than the one he creates, here Manrique shows his doubts: “Yo no sé si esto es una historia que parece cuento o un cuento que parece historia”. As in the case of Annabel Lee, his imagination is a link between the author and nature and nature acquires human qualities as well. His imagination presents plants as obstacles between him and his beloved woman: “Se precipitó en su busca, separando con las manos las redes de hiedra que se extendían como un tapiz de unos en otros álamos”. Here we can see plants as obstacles in his relation to that woman that impede him going faster to reach her. Plants are rooted to the world, to the material world, instead the “woman” flies, plants impede him to reach her in this chase after the woman plants are the link connecting him to the material world and he cannot reach her, that floating moon beam. Also the wind is very important. In Annabel Lee the wind is the one which chilled and killed the girl (L.26) But in El rayo de luna the wind is the one that confuses him, that makes he think she exists: “El viento que suspira entre las ramas; las hojas, que parece que rezan en voz baja, me han impedido oír lo que ha dicho”. Therefore, in Poe’s poem, the wind makes the girl disappear, and in Bécquer’s story the wind recreates the woman. The moon is also present in this narrative poem since the moon creates the beam he follows, the moon is seen as a personification of what he wants. But it is important to know that he doesn’t want a woman herself, he needs freedom, imagination. He loves the feminine but not in a sexual context, he wants to find his other half, the figure of woman as purity, the feminine or imaginative will lead him to freedom. Imagination implies solitude in both poems, in El rayo de luna Manrique “Amaba la soledad, porque en su seno, dando rienda suelta a la imaginación…”. In the case of Annabel Lee, the poet loves being alone and enjoys the company of his defunct wife, that way he can use his imagination in order to revive the 21 memories and feelings when they were together. He is able to live his own life away from the real world but that for him is more real than the real one. Manrique loves escaping from the world and those ones who can consider him crazy. He enjoys his own presence. 3.1.2. Setting In Spanish Romanticism and English Romanticism there is predilection for night settings as we can observe in these two poems. The moon reveals it is a night setting but also Manrique comments in El rayo de luna that it was a summer night. It is related to the cognitive, to his perception. This summer night brings him images of this “woman”. It is the perfect night for imagination: darkness, warmth, silence with the occasional sound of wind, etc. Lloréns has drawn attention to the fact that “De las horas y las estaciones hay predilección por la noche, la primavera y el otoño. Ellos es debido a que los románticos gustan de asociar lo natural y los sentimientos” (58) 11 .Thus, it is clear that this emphasis on the use of nature is linked with the feelings the Romantic writer is trying to show. In some Romantic English writings nature is used as principal setting, whereas in Spanish Romanticism there is a predilection for traditional cities, although natural landscapes are also used. This idea comes from Lloréns who also says: “En cuanto a las ciudades existe una revalorización de lo sencillo y humilde, por un lado, y del arte medieval, árabe o gótico, por otro. Se escogen ciudades artísticas, cargadas de historia y tradición” (58) 12 . In El rayo de luna, we can get an image of a traditional city as the poem refers to monasteries, gothic chimneys, convents, bridges and also mentions “murallas de Soria.” The setting in Annabel Lee can be interpreted as a natural landscape close to the sea, in the middle of the night when the moon rises, stars begin to shine and where the tomb is placed. There is a strong connection among the sea, the moon and the tomb in this poem. The sea is full of significance since it is deep, unknown, mysterious and sublime. The moon is night, and is full of light, a special light that 11 My translation: “Regarding time and seasons there is a predilection for night, spring and autumn. It is because Romantics like to associate the natural with feelings.” 12 My translation:” Regarding cities, there is a revalorization of the simple and humble and also of the medieval art, Arab or gothic.” 22 confuses, it is suggestive for Romantics in contrast with the sunshine. The tomb instead is coldness, the mortal, the cadaverous. But this mysterious symbolism represents for Romantics an opportunity to reach the world of ideas, beauty, truth and the eternal. Thus this setting is not anything scary, contrary to what one could expect from this place. Instead the night and the tomb by the sea are represented as a beautiful place where they can enjoy the presence of each other at ease. In El rayo de luna the author presents a Spanish medieval city but there are some elements that can remind us of Annabel Lee. Apart from the moon and stars present as well in this story, tombs are also mentioned. He seems very interested in approaching death, while sitting on the tombs. We can see in both poems, poets who are not afraid of death and spend their time there. They are not afraid since death for Romantic poets represents a new opportunity, the beginning of something new that will lead them to eternity. In the case of Manrique he was “sentado al borde de una tumba, prestando oído a ver si sorprende alguna palabra de la conversación de los muertos.” 3.2. The visionary and the Sensorial Senses are very important in Romantic poems because Romantics are able to perceive but what is interesting is how perceptions lead them to visions. The poem Annabel Lee shows the sounding sea which evokes feelings of continuity and repetition especially in the sound of waves, and at the same time it represents something that is constantly repeating in the poet’s mind. The love he feels is somehow related to the waves he is hearing from the sounding sea. It evokes the same story, the story of them being together and loving one another while waves sound and time passes. Tides are seen as an imaginative tour because they wash the shores and return to their origin. They have rhythm, they come and go. It has very Romantic potentials, it is the return to pure love, to eternity, to the Platonic. The poet envisions her through dreams also while contemplating the moon and stars which make him remember her bright eyes. Sight becomes a Romantic sense since it is an excuse to see the visual appearances as illusions, sight is tricky. In the case of Manrique, in El rayo de luna, the sensorial is represented through smells and what he hears. He tells that the night was “llena de perfumes y de rumores apacibles, y con una luna blanca y 23 serena, en mitad de un cielo azul, luminoso y transparente”. This creates his vision of the woman, he envisions the perfection through his senses, and therefore this quote represents what he thinks of a woman, it is the femininity principle, the soul, the Anima. “Perfumes” represent the sweet smelling of a woman; “white moon and serene” a chaste woman; “in the middle of the blue sky” since his perfect woman has blue eyes and is as “lightening and transparent” as pure and sincere. 3.3. Women and the Feminine Something that is clearly related in both Spanish and American Romanticisms is the figure of the woman, which acquires different qualities and roles. In this respect Lloréns makes clear that “es usual verla como ‘un ángel de amor’, inocente, hermosa, fuente de ilusiones para el corazón del hombre a quien lleva a cimas de felicidad y virtud” (53). Yet woman is also associated to death. Death is the one which liberates man from chaos, and woman is the figure that brings him happiness in life. It is clear while comparing Annabel Lee and El rayo de luna. Both women are persecuted by a man because they are the ones who will bring peace to the man’s soul. Women are innocent, pure, virtuous. It is perceived in Poe’s writings the vision of death that is linked to beauty, especially in Annabel Lee since death is something ambivalent: it is the cadaverous, it represents the mortal but at the same time it becomes the poet’s key to transcend death. Annabel Lee is a corpse but it simply reinforces his love for her. According to Phillips, in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition’’ Poe observed that the death of a beautiful woman was “the most poetical topic in the world” (65). Woman as a symbol is present in both poems. In Annabel Lee, the poet seems to be a child still in love with his maiden, still pure and innocent, and the only one he loves. However, Manrique in El rayo de luna, loves the figure of women, women’s sensuality and essence, the feminine. In El rayo de luna we can read “Amaba a todas las mujeres un instante: a ésta porque era rubia, a aquélla porque tenía los labios rojos, a la otra porque se cimbreaba al andar como un junco”. In the case of Annabel Lee, the poet doesn’t want anyone else, he just loves Annabel Lee, he stays besides his dead wife in order to have a life together even if it isn’t real. Thus, while Annabel Lee can be seen as a maiden that is somehow protecting her man and in love with him, the woman in El rayo de luna could be identified as the goddess Diana. As stated by Carrasco, Diana was: 24 Diosa de los bosques y de la caza: Diana deriva su nombre por abreviación del céltico di a nox, esto es, día noche, porque la luna, la misma que Diana aparece en esas dos épocas, o porque este planeta que difunde solo más luz que todas las estrellas juntas, produce en la noche el efecto del día (515). If we relate the woman in El rayo de luna with Diana, we can see that in the poem she is being placed in the middle of nature, among trees, in the middle of the night but still she is a moon beam. She shines and excels among the other different elements in that setting, she is unreachable and suggestive, and she is bringing up imaginative encounters. Somehow she is producing the effect of day, she shines and attracts Manrique. Diana was pure, chaste, she was a hunter. But there is ambivalence while referring to the “hunter” because although there is a moment in the poem in which Manrique is following her, trying to catch her, she is the one trying to lead him into her trap, she is attracting him to the point he realizes she has never existed. After a moment of greatness and elevation of spirit, he falls, returns to reality and observes that she is just a moon beam. It is important to see the relation between Diana as the moon itself and the woman in Becquer’s text on a physical level. Since in El rayo de luna she appears as having a white long dress, she is easily identified with Diana. In El rayo de luna we can read: El eco de sus pisadas o una sola palabra suya que vuelva a oír, un extremo de su traje, un solo extremo que vuelva a ver, me bastarán para conseguirlo. Noche y día estoy mirando flotar delante de mis ojos aquellos pliegues de una tela diáfana y blanquísima; noche y día me están sonando aquí dentro, dentro de la cabeza, el crujido de su traje, el confuso rumor de sus ininteligibles palabras. As B.G.P states: “cuando se toma a Diana por la Luna, tiene adornada la cabeza con una media luna, y esta ordinariamente vestida con una túnica larga y flotante que llega hasta sus talones: tiene en sus manos un velo ligero, al cual hace dar vueltas alrededor de su cabeza’’ (444) .Hence, in these two direct quotes we perceive similarities between both and this image is what misleads Manrique into thinking it was a woman instead of a moon beam shining in the middle of the dark night. On the other hand, the woman-wife in Annabel Lee is perfect for the poet and there are no physical descriptions, it just mentions that she was beautiful. Unlike El rayo de luna, he has a clear image of how his perfect woman should be, he has idealized her and he imagines her tall and with blue eyes. He needs her to be that way, he is sure she is, his obsession to find her is so strong he is able to believe he has really seen her since she is real despite she is dead. All this is real beyond death, and it is created through the poet’s imagination. In Annabel Lee he says that they both love each other and that it was the only purpose they had, loving each other, to become one. In the case of El rayo de luna this motif is also present, he seems to want a 25 woman that is a reflection of himself, a part of him. It is like he is looking for someone that has been made for him, his complement, and his other half to feel whole, complete and replenished. He is desperate to find this. It is a part of himself he needs to find, his anima, soul, instilling life through imagination, beyond material death. 3.4. Male Characters In these two poems we have two male characters: the poet in Annabel Lee, and Manrique in El rayo de luna. The figure of men in these two poems is that of lonely males, able to enjoy their own presence in a landscape that helps them dream imaginatively. They both approach love in the same way, they love strongly even if this love is a fantasy or immaterial. But while Annabel Lee is the only one loved and eternally, Manrique tends to love every single woman or WOMAN as category and he stops loving “her” when he realizes it was a reverie. In Annabel Lee, the man in love never realizes that it is a fantasy created by his mind because to him she is real and he is able to perceive this through his imaginative love. The poet, who is and will be eternally in love with Annabel Lee, doesn’t show feelings of sorrow, pain or sadness. Instead he is resented with those who made her die. But at the same time he is joyful because he has created a world by himself, it is his own world, created by his imagination and leaves the reader with a feeling of hope at the end. He is still with her. Angels and Demons envy him. He is stronger than them, he is superior, and he can be seen as a superior force that is able to transcend sorrow, loss and death and is at the same time able to create this world of his own in which they remain together. He creates the moon, he creates the stars, the sounding sea. He can be seen as a Demiurge according to Platonic views, he can be perceived as a higher element in the universe able to create, like a painter on an empty canvas. At the same time he is a Demiurge defying death, he is stronger than death, he is able to transcend it. Little by little he reconstructs the world he would like to have lived in and is able to remain there, over and over. It is not the case of Manrique in El rayo de luna, a Prometheus parallel who is “The Greek god who defied Zeus to steal fire for humankind” (Dougherty, 3), and Prometheus was continually punished. Prometheus represents the suffering, but he is also considered to be humankind’s creator so it can be perceived the same characteristics in both lovers, the poet in Annabel Lee and Manrique. First of all the role of creation, how they manage to create their own conception of how a person should and will be, and at the same time in Annabel Lee we can see that the poet as God, is envied. On the contrary,