Beginning

Four Poets Loyal to the Republic

The last days of Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca, and Miguel Hernández

Ian Gibson 02/11/2007

An Irish writer (born in Dublin in 1939), Ian Gibson obtained Spanish nationality in 1984. In 1975 he decided to become a resident of Spain, the country to which he has devoted most of his historical and literary research.

Since 1958, the remains of the poet, who refused to step foot in Franco’s Spain, rest along side Zenobia in the Moguer cemetery, immortalized in his ‘Platero and I’.

Lorca became the ultimate symbol of the sacrifices of the Spanish people, an innocent victim of fascist rage. A writer had never before been so mourned.

The reformatory director allowed the prisoners to be marched in front of the poet.

[Machado[’s]] body was wrapped in a sheet because that’s how José wanted it based on his interpretation of something Antonio said when speaking of the unnecessary pomp of some funerals.