ROSALÍA DE CASTRO PUBLISHES 'CANTARES GALLEGOS'

Today, The Grandma has been reading some poems written by one of her favourite poets, Rosalía de Castro, the dame of the Galician literature, who wrote her unforgettable work Cantares gallegos on a day like today in 1863.

María Rosalía Rita de Castro (24 February 1837-15 July 1885), was a Galician poet, strongly identified with her native Galicia and the celebration of the Galician language. Writing in Galician, after the period known as the Séculos Escuros, she became an important figure of the Galician Romantic movement, known today as the Rexurdimento, along with Manuel Curros Enríquez and Eduardo Pondal.

Her poetry is marked by saudade, an almost ineffable combination of nostalgia, longing and melancholy.

She married Manuel Murguía, a member of the important literary group known as the Royal Galician Academy, historian, journalist and editor of Rosalía's books. The couple had seven children.

Rosalía published her first collection of poetry in Galician, Cantares gallegos, on 17 May 1863.

This date, 17 May, is now known as the Día das Letras Galegas, and commemorates Rosalía's achievement by dedicating, every year, this special day to a different writer, who must also write in the Galician language, since 1963.

Día das Letras Galegas is an official holiday in Galicia.

Relative poverty and sadness marked Rosalía's life, in spite of this, she had a strong sense of commitment to the poor and to the defenceless. She was a strong opponent of abuse of authority and an ardent defender of women's rights. 

Rosalía suffered from uterine cancer and died in Padrón, province of A Coruña, on 15 July 1885.

She is buried in the Panteón de Galegos Ilustres, a mausoleum in the Convent of San Domingos de Bonaval in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia.

Rosalía de Castro is today one of the unquestionable poets laureate of Galicia.

Highly educated, expected to speak and write in Spanish and Galician, she took the bold, unconventional step of writing her early poems in the Galician language.

Her defiance earned her the contempt and spite of many that deemed Galician as a Spanish dialect fit only for the illiterate and the churlish. However, Rosalía's defiant gesture won her the love and admiration of the common folk, who spoke Galician at home or on a daily basis.

More information: When I was a child in Ferrol

Cantarte hei, Galicia,
na lengua gallega,
consolo dos males,
alivio das penas.

Cantarte hei, Galicia,
in the Galician language,
with only the evils,
relief of the sorrows.

Rosalía de Castro