Pedro Henríquez Ureña facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Pedro Henríquez Ureña
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| Born | 29 June 1884 |
| Died | 11 May 1946 (aged 61) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Parent(s) | Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal (father) Salomé Ureña (mother) |
| Relatives | Francisco Henríquez Ureña (brother) Max Henríquez Ureña (brother) |
Pedro Henríquez Ureña (born June 29, 1884 – died May 11, 1946) was an important writer, thinker, and expert on language and literature from the Dominican Republic. He was known for his essays, his ideas about humanity, and his studies of language and books.
Contents
About Pedro Henríquez Ureña
His Early Life and Studies
Pedro Henríquez Ureña was born in Santo Domingo. He was the third of four children in his family. His father, Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal, was a doctor and politician. He was also a smart thinker who kept in touch with important writers of his time. Pedro's father even became president of the Dominican Republic for a short time in 1916. This was just before the United States occupied the country.
Pedro's mother was the famous poet Salomé Ureña. Both his parents were very important in his education. His brother, Max, and sister, Camila, also became writers.
In 1906, young Pedro traveled to Mexico, where he lived until 1913. During these years, he wrote about his studies and thoughts. He also wrote about philosophy, especially how important serious thinking was. He was one of the first people in Latin America to criticize a way of thinking called positivism. He wrote about this in his articles "El positivismo de Comte" and "El positivismo independiente."
In 1914, while in Cuba, Pedro explained what he thought a good critic should be. He believed a critic should be flexible and able to understand different points of view. Most importantly, a critic needed to understand the spirit of the time and country they were studying. He felt that critics are always influenced by their society's values, and sometimes they need to challenge those values.
His Adult Life and Work
From 1915 to 1916, Henríquez Ureña worked as a journalist in the United States. He lived in Washington and New York. In 1916, he started teaching at the University of Minnesota, where he stayed until 1921.
His travels greatly influenced his work and ideas. He strongly believed in humanism, which means valuing human dignity and culture. He also believed in "Americanism," which was his strong support for the cultural values of Latin America. Because of this, he gave a speech at the University of Minnesota about the United States' "interventionist policy" in the Caribbean. This was important to him because his own country had been invaded in 1916.
In 1921, he went back to Mexico. There, his ideas about "Americanism" became even stronger. Inspired by the lively cultural atmosphere, he wrote his famous article "The Utopia of America."
In 1923, he married Isabel Lombardo Toledano. She was the sister of a well-known union leader named Vicente Lombardo Toledano. They had a daughter named Natacha the following year.
Pedro later moved to La Plata in Argentina to continue his study of literature. He wanted to explain what he called la expresión americana (the American expression). He aimed to find a way to understand the American continent through its language. For Henríquez Ureña, America was like a book that needed to be understood. He believed the best way to understand it was by studying its language. Language, he thought, is how we understand and organize the world around us. So, studying the differences in American Spanish helped him understand not just sounds, but also the different regions and their cultures.
In 1930, he moved to Buenos Aires and became the Secretary of the Institute of Philology. There, he focused more directly on linguistics, which is the study of language.
He was the first Spanish-speaking person invited to give the important Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1940–1941. From these lectures, he wrote and published "Literary Currents in Hispanic America" in 1945.
Pedro Henríquez Ureña believed that linguistics was a scientific way to look at the power of American words. He studied their richness and how they changed over time. He felt that language was one of the main tools that would lead to big social changes in the America of the future.
He passed away in 1946. He suffered a heart attack while traveling from Buenos Aires to La Plata, where he was going to grade students' work.
Major Works
- Ensayos críticos (La Habana: Imprenta Esteban Fernández, 1905)
- Horas de estudio (París: Ollendorf, 1910)
- Nacimiento de Dionisios (Nueva York: Las Novedades, 1916)
- La versificación irregular en la poesía castellana (Madrid: Centro de Altos Estudios, 1920)
- En la orilla. Mi España. (Editorial México Moderno, 1922)
- La utopía de América (Buenos Aires: La Estudiantina, 1925)
- Seis ensayos en busca de nuestra expresión (Buenos Aires: Editorial Babel, 1928)
- La cultura y las letras coloniales en Santo Domingo (Buenos Aires:Facultad de Filología y Letras. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Filología, 1936)
- Sobre el problema del andalucismo dialectal de América (Buenos Aires:Facultad de Filología y Letras. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Filología, 1937)
- El español en Santo Domingo (Buenos Aires:Facultad de Filología y Letras. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Filología, 1940)
- Plenitud de España (Buenos Aires:Editorial Losada, 1940)
- Literary currents in Hispanic America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1945)
- Historia de la cultura en la América Hispana (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1947)
- Las corrientes literarias en la América Hispánica. Traducción de Joaquín Díez-Canedo. (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1949)
- Obras Completas, 14 tomos.Edición de Miguel D. Mena (Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura de la República Dominiana, 2014–2015).
Legacy
The Biblioteca Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña (which means Pedro Henríquez Ureña National Library in English) is the national library of the Dominican Republic. It opened on February 28, 1971.
See also
In Spanish: Pedro Henríquez Ureña para niños
