
The Hypochondriacal Life of Juan Ramón Jiménez
Andrés Trapiello
The life of Juan Ramón Jiménez can be split into two halves, according to whether it is examined before or after the war, the period he lived in Spain and that he lived and suffered during a long exile. Yet both parts of his life were plagued by the constant presentiment of his death. Perhaps the most extraordinary achievement of his poetic works was the fact that they were written without his personal circumstances, the acute hyperchondria that conditioned his whole life, getting in the way, albeit one of the reasons behind their extreme constant refinement.