Carlos Bousoño facts for kids

{{Infobox person | honorific-prefix = The Most Excellent | image = | caption = | birth_name = Carlos Bousoño Prieto | birth_date = (1923-05-09)9 May 1923 | birth_place = Boal, Spain | death_date = 24 October 2015(2015-10-24) (aged 92) | death_place = Madrid, Spain

| module =

Carlos Bousoño Prieto (born May 9, 1923 – died October 24, 2015) was a famous Spanish poet and a literary critic. A literary critic is someone who studies and writes about books and poems. His writings are often linked to a group of writers who came after the Spanish Civil War.

Carlos Bousoño won important awards like the National Prize for Spanish Literature and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. These awards celebrate great achievements in writing.

Contents

• Biography
• Poetry
• Academic Career
• Recognition
• Awards
• See also

Biography

Carlos Bousoño was born in a town called Boal, in Asturias, Spain, in 1923.

When he was two years old, his family moved to Oviedo. There, he started studying Philosophy and Arts at university. At 19, he moved to Madrid and finished his degree at the Central University (now called Complutense University). He even won a special prize for his excellent work in 1946.

In 1949, he earned his master's degree. He was the first person to write a master's thesis about a living writer, Vicente Aleixandre. By 1950, his book La poesía de Vicente Aleixandre (The poetry of Vicente Aleixandre) became very well-known. It is still considered one of the best books about Aleixandre's poetry.

From 1946 to 1948, Bousoño traveled to Mexico and the United States. He taught literature at Wellesley College in Massachusetts before returning to Spain. He passed away on October 24, 2015, when he was 92 years old.

Poetry

Carlos Bousoño published his very first book of poems, called Subida al amor, in 1945.

Academic Career

Carlos Bousoño loved poetry and was very smart and curious. This helped him become a leader in the field of literary theory. Literary theory is about understanding how literature works and what makes it special.

In 1952, he published Teoría de la expresión poética (Theory of poetic expression). In this book, he explored the deep secrets of poetry. He became a respected expert on Spanish literature and a very important literary critic.

Bousoño taught Spanish literature at several American universities. These included Wellesley, Smith, Vanderbilt, Middlebury, and New York University. Later, he became a lecturer of Stylistics at the Complutense University of Madrid. Stylistics is the study of how language is used in writing. He remained a professor there even after retiring, known as a professor emeritus. One of his students, the Puerto Rican poet Giannina Braschi, said his teachings greatly influenced her writing.

In his book Épocas literarias y evolución (Literary times and evolution), Bousoño looked at how different literary periods and styles have changed over time. He also studied how metaphors have developed. Metaphors are figures of speech that compare two unlike things. For example, a simple metaphor is "your hand is like the snow." He also studied more complex ones, like "swords like lips," from a famous book by Vicente Aleixandre.

In 1979, Carlos Bousoño became a member of the Royal Spanish Academy. This is a very important group that looks after the Spanish language. He held a special seat, called 'M', in the Academy until he passed away in 2015.

Recognition

Many people admired Carlos Bousoño's work. René Wellek, another famous theorist, said that Bousoño was his favorite theorist in all of Europe.

Spanish author and critic Luis Antonio de Villena called Bousoño "one of the most outstanding poets of the postwar generations." He also said Bousoño was "an outstanding poetry theorist." Villena explained that Bousoño believed the "magic of the irrational" in poetry could be understood.

A German-born poet named Scharlie Meeuws even wrote a poem called 'Elegy on the Death of Carlos Bousoño' to honor him.

Awards

Carlos Bousoño received many important awards for his writing and studies:

• 1968 – Critics Prize for Spanish Poetry (for his book Oda en la ceniza)
• 1974 – Critics Prize for Spanish Poetry (for his book Las monedas sobre la losa)
• 1978 – National Prize for Essays (for El irracionalismo poético (El símbolo))
• 1990 – National Prize for Poetry (for Metáfora del desafuero)
• 1993 – National Prize for Spanish Literature
• 1995 – Prince of Asturias Award for Literature

See also

In Spanish: Carlos Bousoño para niños