Gil de Biedma, Jaime

b. 1929, Barcelona; d. 1990, Barcelona

   Writer

   Gil de Biedma is one of the best-known members of the "Generation of the 1950s", also referred to as the "children of the Civil War". Born into a wealthy Catalan family, he was a precocious child who witnessed the onset of the war, but, unlike others of his generation, he was whisked off to the family estate in Segovia where he would not suffer its ravages. As a young man he studied law in Barcelona, but became far more interested in literature, especially after a stay at Oxford in 1953. There he discovered the poets T.S.Eliot and W.H. Auden who would greatly influence his literary style.

   In the same year, Gil de Biedma published his first book of poetry, Según sentencia del tiempo (According to Time's Verdict). In 1955 the poet began his life-long career as an executive in the General Company of Filipino Tobacco and also published a translation of Eliot's The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism; but a bout of tuberculosis was to take him to the family's country estate in 1956, where he kept a diary that was published in 1974. Entitled Diario del artista seriamente enfermo (Diary of a Seriously Ill Artist), it describes the artist's journey towards the mastery of his poetic style. Most of the poetry written during his convalescence can be found in the first section of his book Compañeros de viaje (Fellow Travellers), published in 1959. In the book he emphasizes his commitment to protest poetry. The political and literary activities he shared with his "fellow travellers" are retold in his 1966 Moralidades (Moralities), where he also reveals himself to be an erotic poet. Two years later, in Poemas póstumos (Posthumous Poems), the poet reflects the disillusionment he grappled with because of the loss of youth and love. Most of his poetry was published in 1969 under the title Colección particular (Private Collection), but it was banned by the state censorship. A new edition entitled Las personas del verbo (The Personae of the Word) did not appear on bookshelves until the death of Franco in 1975.

   In spite of Gil de Biedma's small body of work, by the time he died of AIDS in 1990, he had become something of a cult figure among young Spanish poets. His interest in literary criticism and English literature, in both erotic and social themes, his ironic, self-deprecating, guilty tone, in addition to his intellectual stature and sophisticated life style, set him apart from his contemporaries and distinguished him as a wordly poet whom the younger generations wished to emulate.

   See also: gay culture; gay writing; poetry

   Further reading

   - Mangini González, S. (1980) Gil de Biedma, Madrid: Júcar (the first anthology and critical study of Gil de Biedma's poetry).

   - Rovira, P. (1986) La poesía de Jaime Gil de Biedma, Barcelona: Mall (an essential study for understanding the poet's work).

   SHIRLEY MANGINI