Some Interpretations of the Poetry of Antonio Fernández Morales

Abstract

Antonio Fernández Morales (1817-1896), the poet from the Bierzo, wrote his works in Spanish and in the Bierzo dialect of Galician language. His poems show some of the characteristics of late nineteenth century poetry (persistence of Romanticism, civic poetry with grandiloquent expression, occasional verse). He treated in his poems topics like local events, family, intimacy, love, religion, as well as civic and patriotic themes. The foremost importance of Fernández Morales lies, however, in the fact that he was at the very root of the Galician literary revival, the Rexurdimento, with his book Ensayos poéticos en dialecto berciano (1861), which was published two years before Cantares gallegos (1863) by Rosalía de Castro.