Eduardo Pondal
Eduardo María González-Pondal Abente (
Bergantiños,
February 8 1835 –
A Coruña 1917) was a
Galician language poet.
Eduardo González-Pondal Abente (
1835–
1917) was born in Ponteceso (a little town on Bergantiños, which is in
Galicia,
Spain). Being from a rich family, he could study Latin grammar from a priest relative of his.
In 1848, he moved to
Santiago de Compostela to study Philosophy and, afterwards, Medicine at University.
As a student, he was a usual at
Liceo de Santo Agostiño, a place where literary debates were usual. There, he was discovered as a poet during the
banquet of Conxo. It was mainly a banquet organized by liberal students in
1856 to honor "the third state", and where students intimated with laborers. The cheers are retrospectively considered to have and important political meaning.
On
1860, Pondal ends his studies and begans working as a doctor for the Spanish Army at
Ferrol. He also published
A Campana de Anllóns, his first poem in Galician language.
On
1861, he opted for an official job working for the Crown. He got the job in
Asturias, but he left it, and his career as a doctor.
He would soon retire and come back to the house of his family, where he lived with usual trips to
Santiago de Compostela and
A Coruña (Corunna), where he visited a library called
a Cova Céltica, debating with
Martínez Salazar,
Manuel Murguía,
Florencio Vaamonde,
Martelo Paumán,
Urbano Lugris and others. Through Murguía, Pondal would know
James Macpherson's poetry, and decided to become the "bardo" (
bard) of the Galician country, becoming the guide and interpreter of the route it would follow.
He published
Rumores de los pinos in
1877, a compilation of 21 poems in Galician and Spanish, which would become a basis for
Queixumes dos pinos (
1886). One of the poems in Galician, "
Os pinos" (literally "The Pines") would become the lyrics for the Galician
national anthem, with music by
Pascual Veiga.
Pondal considered himself a "poet of freedom", wanting to raise his people. He imagined a past of freedom and independence, which he tried to recover with his poetry, renewing History. Unfortunately, Galician-Celtic mythology was almost completely lost in those days, so Pondal had to guess and re-invent it, based on Ossian's poetry, quotations from the
Leabhar Gabala and Murguia's analysis. Pondal created a fragmentary mythology, using as his archetypes
o Heroe (the
hero) and
o Bardo (the bard). He invented historic characters, like Ourens (trying to create a hero whose name would become the basis for the city of
Ourense). Due to the poetic nature of his epic, Pondal's mythology would never become as complete or exhaustive as
J.R.R. Tolkien's.
Pondal tried to restore the Galician language in a time in which it lacked social status. Nature and women are the keys of his production. From a
Linguistic perspective, Pondal tried to mix the populistic style of the Galician of his time, with different scholarly terms in the lexicon and syntax.
He tried to write a long epic poem,
Os Eoas, based on the descovery of
America, but he was never satisfied with his work and only published a first draft on
1858.
Pondal died in Corunna (
A Coruña) in
1917. His remains lie in the local graveyard,
Cementerio de San Amaro.
The
Día das Letras Galegas ("Galician Literature Day") was dedicated to Pondal on its third year,
1965.
In the
Galician language:
* Poesía galega completa I.
Queixumes dos pinos* Poesía galega completa II. Poemas impresos
* Poesía galega completa III. Poemas Manuscritos
* Os Eoas: unha aproximación
* Queixumes dos pinos
