José Moreno Villa


José Moreno Villa was a Spanish poet and member of the Generation of '27. He was a man of many talents: narrator, essayist, literary critic, artist, painter, columnist, researcher, archivist, librarian and archaeologist. He also taught at universities in the United States and México.

Biography

Moreno Villa was born into a comfortable middle-class family in Málaga. His father, José Moreno Castañeda, was a conservative politician and his grandfather, Miguel Moreno Mazón, had been a conservative mayor of Málaga. After finishing high school when he was 17 years old, his parents sent him to Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany to read chemistry. He didn't complete his studies.
He returned to Málaga in 1910 and decided to settle in Madrid. There he became familiar with personalities such as Ortega y Gasset, Enrique de Mesa, Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Enrique Díez Canedo, Juan Ramón Jiménez and Pío Baroja, among others. He was employed by the Editorial Calleja from 1916-1921, on the recommendation of Juan Ramón Jiménez. He wrote for magazines such as España, Revista de Occidente and El Sol.
He lived at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid for nearly 20 years, during which he benefitted both intellectually and socially. With the emergence of the Spanish Republic, Moreno Villa was appointed Director of the Archives of the National Palace.
In 1927, he published a series of essays titled Pruebas de Nueva York , inspired by his stay in New York City with his then fiancée, Florence Louchheim, whom he had met in Madrid at the Residencia. Florence became the protagonist of a book of poetry that Moreno Villa would also publish upon his return from the United States, called Jacinta la pelirroja .
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he moved to Valencia for a short time until he was exiled to the United States, where he was employed in various cultural and educational posts at Princeton University. Shortly afterwards he moved to Mexico, where he married, had a son, and developed much of his work.

Works

Poetry