Myths of time: exiles and returns in the poetry of Luis Cernuda

Abstract

This essay studies the experience of time in the poetry that Luis Cernuda composed after his exile during the Spanish Civil War. The poet imagines in his work temporal myths that attempts to create a new temporality, different from chronological or historical time. This search is not a mere intellectual exercise; on the contrary, it emerges from a personal need of the poet: that of overcoming the traumatic experience of the exile. Therefore, we will see that Cernuda’s frequent and worried reflections on time look for an answer or a solution to this fact of his biography, discovering that the time consciousness lies in the heart of the poet’s concerns.