Carlos Bousoño

Carlos Bousoño Prieto ( Boal, 9 may, 1923) is a spanish poet and a literary critic. His work is frequently related with the postwar literary group. ( for further, Spanish Civil War)

Although he was born in Boal, ( Asturias) in 1923, he moved two years laters to Oviedo, where he spent his childhood and his adolescence too. He studied the first two years of Filosophy and Arts degree in Oviedo, and, he moved to Madrid when he was 19; graduating in the Central University ( at the present time, Complutense) with the Extraordinary Prize in 1946. He masteres his degree in 1949 in the same people, being the first to do his master about a still-alive writer. ( Vicente Aleixandre) Soon, in 1950, he's work ( "La poesía de Vicente Aleixandre") become successful, recognised, still now, as one of the best and deepest works about Vicente Aleixandre's poetry.

His passion for poetry, together with his intelligence made possible his early raid inside the world of literary theory. In 1952, he wrote " Teoría de la expresión poética", in which he studies in deep the secrets of the poetic mystery. Soon, he became a banner of spanish literature and of literary critic.

Thanks to the worlwide acknowledgement he received after all this work, he got offers from some north americans universities, where he became teacher of Spanish Literature. ( Wellesley, Smith, Vanderbilt, Middlesbury, New York University...) After that, he accepted work in the University of Madrid, ( Complutense) where had already studied; there, he became lecturer of Stylist. He's still Honorific Lecturer. ( Profesor Emérito)

All his theoretical books are really innovative; it could explain why René Wellek said of him that Bousoño was the teoric expert that he prefered in all the entire Europe. His theories are, in this century, still vanguardistic. Another essential book is " Épocas literarias y evolución". ( in this book he analyzes the history of literary ages and his corresponding movements, and also, the way they evolved) He also studies the evolution of the metaphoric expression, from the classical sample " Your hand is like the snow", to the more complex subrealistic metaphor, which could be, for example: " Swords like lips". ( in reference to one of the most known of Aleixandre's books, " Espadas como labios")