Arts and Literature of Cuba

Cuba that was not only independent politically but also free

from the racial divisions that characterized the Spanish colony.

There needn’t be any racial hatred, he wrote, “because there

are no races. . . . The soul, equal and eternal, emanates from

bodies that are diverse in form and color.”

In early 1895, the war for independence that Martí had

tirelessly promoted began. Martí landed in eastern Cuba in

April to join the fighting. He served as an aide to the rebel gen-

eral Máximo Gómez. On May 19, Martí was killed charging the

Spanish lines at the Battle of Dos Ríos. He was 42 years old.

José Martí wrote just three volumes of poetry:

Ismaelillo

(1882),

Versos sencillos

(1891;

Simple Verses

), and

Versos libres

(

Free Verses

), published posthumously in 1913. The influence

of his work, though, was profound.

Martí helped usher in a Latin American literary movement

called

modernismo

. Poets of the

modernismo

movement sought

to reinvigorate Spanish-language poetry, which throughout

much of the 19th century had been dominated by romanticism.

Spanish romantic poets emphasized, above all, the unbridled

expression of human emotion. By contrast,

modernismo

stressed restraint and the perfection of poetic form. Often its

practitioners sought to imbue their verse with a musical quali-

ty, and they made abundant use of symbols. Though the move-

ment itself was largely over by 1920,

modernismo

would influ-

ence Latin American poetry throughout the 20th century.

José Martí’s poetic style was simple yet flowing. His poems

often contain vivid images, and common themes include

friendship, love, justice, freedom, and death. Cuba and its peo-

ple and plight were also frequent subjects of Martí’s poetry. He