León de Greiff

Infobox Writer
name = León de Greiff


imagesize = 150px
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pseudonym = Leo de Gris
birthdate = July 22, 1895
birthplace = Medellín, Colombia COL
deathdate = July 11, 1976
deathplace = Bogotá
occupation = Poet
nationality = Colombian
movement = Modernismo
notable works = Tergiversaciones
spouse =
influences =
influenced =

León de Greiff (1895 - 1976), was a Colombian poet of the 20th century. His full name was "Francisco de Asís León Bogislao de Greiff" and used several pseudonyms in his works. The most popular were "Leo de Gris" and "Gaspar de Nuit". He was one of the founders of "Los Panidas", a literary and artistic 1915 movement in Medellín that is considered the beginning of Modernismo in Colombia. In that movement were also the philosopher Fernando González Ochoa and the cartoonist Ricardo Rendón. The poetry of De Greiff is philosophical and sometimes difficult to understand, inspired in modernist authors, the same ones he read since he was young.

Life

León de Greiff was the son of the political leader Luis de Greiff and Amelia Haeusler, whose father was a German. The great-grand father of León was a Swedish engineer, Carlos Segismundo Von Greiff, who moved to Colombia in 1826. The other well-known Von Greiff in the South American nation was his youngest brother, the musician and poet Otto de Greiff.

Foundation of Los Panidas

De Greiff did his first studies in Liceo Antioqueño. In the University of Antioquia he started engineer, but the administration expelled him with other students in 1913 stating that "they were subversives." [ESCOBAR CALLE, Miguel, [http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/revistas/credencial/octubre1995/octubre3.htm "Los Panidas of Medellín", Chronics of the literary group and its magazine in 1915] , Credencial History Magazine (Spanish), No 70, Bogotá, October 1995, Luis Ángel Arango Virtual Library, link retrieved on June 19, 2008.] In that same year he was private secretary of the journalist and politician General Rafael Uribe Uribe, a personal friend of his father. The General was killed at the following year in Bogotá.

The name of León is also in the list of boys, followers of the Liberal Party, who fought in bloodless battle against the boys of the Conservative Party of the Spaniard Rev. Cayetano Sarmiento in Plazuela de San Ignacio in Medellín on May 11 1913. It was a fight of boys in the plaza in a time where the feeling among both parties were delicated after the Thousand Days War. The Police stopped the three hours battle and most of the Liberals were brought to the station. The main leader of the Liberals was León de Greiff. [ESCOBAR CALLE, Miguel, [http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/revistas/credencial/octubre1995/octubre3.htm "Los Panidas of Medellín", Chronics of the literary group and its magazine in 1915] , Credencial History Magazine (Spanish), No 70, Bogotá, October 1995, Luis Ángel Arango Virtual Library, link retrieved on June 19, 2008.]

On February 1915 Leon de Greiff was also the main head of the foundation of "Los Panidas", a group of 13 boys to publish a literary magazine with that same name. The first three editions had de Greiff as the director and the other seven numbers were under the Felix Mejía Arango name. In "Los Panidas Magazine" de Greiff published his first poem, "La Balada de los Búhos Locos" (The Ballad of the Mad Owls), and a work where he manifested his unusual vocabulary, his irony, humor and the intensive lyricism between archaism and modernism of his poetry.

The Antioquian poet defined like this the purpose of their literary movement:

But the life of the first literary and artistic modernist movement of Colombia endured only six months. In June 1915 they published the last number of the magazine and in that same month León de Greiff moved to the city of Bogotá.

"Los Nuevos"

In Bogotá, Leon de Greiff joined "Los Nuevos", another literary movement composed by personalities like Luis Vidales, Alberto Lleras Camargo, Rafael Maya and Germán Arciniegas. They published also their "Los Nuevos Magazine" that followed the most contemporary tendencies of Europe. Most of the members of that movement becama after journalist, and some of them remained poets, like de Greiff. [CHARRY LARA, Fernando: [http://www.poesiaeljabali.com.ar/2cont14_degreiff.htm León de Greiff, El Jabalí Magazine] , No. 14, link retrieved on June 20, 2008.] "Los Nuevos" attacked the remains of the Hispano-American literary romanticism and costumbrism and questioned the political systems of their time.

In 1925 he published his firts book of poetry, "Mamotreto", [The word "mamotreto" in Spanish refers to an extensive, dull and without interest book. De Greiff used this title in an ironically way.] a title that would become a mark of identity of his works (he would publish other "mamotretos" along the rest of his life). The second "Mamotreto" appeared in 1930.

Works and recognitions

De Greiff liked statistics and accounts and for this reason he worked in some officials, while he consolidated his name as an intelectual and bohemian in Colombia. He was professor of literature and redaction in the Faculty of Engineering of the National University between 1940 and 1945 and professor of history of the music in the Conservatory of the same university. After his death, the university gave his name to the Central Auditorium as a memorial.

The work of De Greiff was controversial because he looked all the time for originality, style and a rich vocabulary. All the elements of his work is condensated in what he called the "Mamotretos", big compilations of his poems. At the end of the 1950s he moved to Sweden as a consul of Colombia. In 1970 he received the National Prize of Poetry and he was a candidate to the Nobel Prize in Literature. [DE GREIFF, Claudia, [http://www.ciudadviva.gov.co/agosto06/magazine/5/index.php León De Greiff: exótico, utópico y quimérico] , Ciudad Viva, Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo, Bogotá, August 2006, link retrieved on June 23, 2008.]

Mamotretos

*First Mamotreto "Distortions" (1925)
*Second Mamotreto "Book of the Signs" (1930)
*Third Mamotreto "Variations around nothingness" (1936)
*Fourth Mamotreto "Prose of Gaspar" (1937)
*Fifth Mamotreto "Fárrago" (1954)
*Sixth Mamotreto "Bárbara Charanga" (1957)
*Seventh Mamotreto "Under the sign of Leo" (1957)
*Eight Mamotreto "Nova et vetera" (1973)

Other works

* Tergiversaciones (1925)
* Cuadernillo poético (1929)
* Libro de Signos (1930)
* Variaciones alrededor de nada (1936)
* Prosas de Gaspar (1937)
* Semblanzas y comentarios (1942)
* Fárrago (1954)
* Bárbara Charanga (1957)
* Bajo el signo de Leo (1957)
* Nova et vetera (1973)
* Libro de relatos (1975)

Recognitions

* Star of the North 1964.
* Boyacá Order, 1965.
* National Prize of Literature 1970.
* Homege of the National College of Journalists (offered by Gabrial García Márquez
* Jorge Zalamea Medall.
* .
* Star of Antioquia.
* General Santander Civil Medal, 1971
* Antioquia Prize, 1973.
* Honorific Member of Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1974.
* .
* San Carlos Order.
* Homege of the National Association of Finanze Institutes, 1975.
* Institution of the National Prize of Poetry "Leon de Greiff".

References

External links

* [http://songosmeltingpot.blogspot.com/2008/05/len-de-greiff-colombian-poet.html The Melting Pot: León de Greiff] , GUZMÁN, Jairo. Link retrieved on June 23, 2008.