Julián del Casal

Who was Julián del Casal?

José Julián Herculano del Casal y de la Lastra was a Cuban poet.

He took his influence from the French poetic styles of the day and, later, Rubén Darío and Modernismo. Like Manuel González Prada and José Martí, Casal was an important forebearer of modernistic expression in Latin America. Casal seemed almost obsessed with comparing natural vs. "man-made" perspectives.

Major Works

Casal published only two poetry collections during his lifetime, Hojas al viento and Nieve. His last collection, Bustos y rimas, appeared in 1893 shortly after his death and was completed with the help of Casal's friend, Hernández Miyares. It differs from his earlier works because it contains both prose and poetry. Hojas includes forty-nine poems and is considered an example of Casal's early writing style. The poems in this collection are topical in nature and often refer to contemporary events. A few of them were even characterized as "imitations" and show the influence of other writers. The work was well received by his contemporaries as an early offering by a poet with much promise.