Spanish poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956. Jiménez made his birthplace of Moguer, in Southern Spain, famous with his series of prose poems about a young writer and his donkey, PLATERO Y YO (1914, Platero and I), one of the classics of modern Spanish literature.

Jiménez was born as the son of Victor Jiménez, a banker, and Purificación Mantecón y Lopez Parejo. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Moguer, an area of exceptional beauty. Later Jiménez celebrated its people and landscape in his works. Jimenez attended a Jesuit Academy in Cadiz and began to write at the age of 15. He studied law at the University of Seville, showing an interest in painting. However, Jiménez soon abandoned his studies, and stopped painting, to devote him entirely to writing.

In 1900 the poets Francisco Villaespesa and Rubén Darío, who had seen his verses in Vida nueva, a Madrid review, invited Jiménez to Madrid. He became a member of the modernist literary circles and founded two literary reviews, Helios (1902) and Renacimiento (1906).

When Jimémez's father died in 1900, he fell into depression and returned to Moguer. His preoccupation with death lasted the rest of his life. To recover from his first bout with mental illness, Jiménez was sent to a sanatorium in France. Between the ages 24 and 31 he published nine volumes of poetry. Among the early collections were ALMAS DE VIOLETA, NINFEAS, both from 1900, RIMAS (1902), ARIAS TRISTES (1903), JARDINES LEJANOS (1904), and PASTORALES (1905). The lyrical works are full of delicate metaphors, and reveal the poet's ability to capture impressionistic images of nature, fill the text with musicality and mystery.

From 1905 to 1911 Jiménez lived in Moguer and wrote several collections of poetry. In ELEGÍAS PURAS (1908) and BALADAS DE PRIMAVERA (1910) Jiménez continued to experiment with different meters, and contemplated the countryside with vague nostalgia. He moved to Madrid in 1912, and translated with the American Zenobia Camprubí the work of the Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore, and wrote the popular Platero and I. In 1916 he sailed after Zanobia Camprubi to New York, and married her. This trip also led to publication of DIARIO DE UNA POETA RECIÉNCASADO (1918), in which he used free verse and intense concentration of form. ETERNIDADES meant a new turn in Jiménez's literary production. He decided to return to the simplicity of his earlier poetry, and continued to ponder the writer's relationship to beauty in BELLEZA (1923).

From 1910, and for the next twenty years, Jimenez worked as a critic and editor for various literary journals in Spain. His influence was seen among others in the early works of Vicente Aleixandre; in the 1920s Jiménez also met in Madrid the young Federico García Lorca, who studied law at the university. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the Republican government appointed him honorary cultural attaché to the United States. He remained abroad from 1939, when Franco's forces won the control of Spain. In 1951 Jiménez settled with his wife in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he lectured and gave classes at the university. In 1956, the same year he won the Nobel Prize, his wife died. Jiménez never recovered and died in San Juan on May 29, 1958.

Jiménez's poetic output was immense. His better-known works include SONETOS ESPIRITUALES 1914-1915 (1916), PIEDRA Y CIELO (1919), POESÍA, EN VERSO, 1917-1923 (1923), POESÍA EN PROSA Y VERSO (1932), VOCES DE MI COPLA (1945), ANIMAL DE FONDO (1947).

Jiménez's last book was DIOS DESENDO Y DISEANTE (1949, God Desired and Desiring), in which the author created a god, who is fully attuned to the beauty of the universe. This testament of the poet was a song of metaphysical union, a pantheistic call for all people of all faiths. As a Platonist, Jiménez believed in a universal consciousness that existed apart from individual consciousness.

Las mil torres el mundo, contra un ocaso de oro,
levantan su hermosura frente a mi pensamiento.
Un éstatis de piedra de mil arquitecturas,
en undeslumbramiento, me lleva, mudo y ciego.
(from Retorno)

For further reading: Encyclopaedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999, vol. 2); Self and Image in Juan Ramón Jiménez by J.C. Wilcox (1986); Word and Work in the Poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez by M. Coke-Enguidanos (1982); Vida y obra de Juan Ramón Jiménez by G. Palau de Nemes (1974, 2 vols.); Juan Ramón Jiménez by H.T. Young (1967); Circle of Time by P. Olson (1967); La obra en prosa de Juan Ramón Jiménez by M.P. Predmore (1966); Estudios sobre Juan Ramón Jiménez by R. Gullón (1969)

• ALMAS DE VIOLETA, 1900
• NINFEAS, 1900
• RIMAS, 1902
• ARIAS TRISTES, 1903
• JARDINES LEJOS, 1904
• PASTORALES, 1905
• ELEJÍAS PURAS, 1908
• ELEGÍAS INTERMEDIAS, 1909
• OLVIDANZAS, 1909
• BALADAS DE PRIMAVERA, 1910
• LA SOLEDAD SONERA, 1911
• POEMAS MÁGICOS DOLIENTES, 1911
• MELANCOLÍA, 1912
• LABERINTO, 1913
• PLATERO Y YO, 1914
• ESTÍO, 1915
• SONETOS ESPRITUALES 1914-1915, 1916
• DIARIO DE UN POETA RECIÉNCASADO, 1917
• POESÍAS ESCOGIDAS (1899-1917), 1917
• ETERNIDADES, 1918
• PIEDRA Y CIELO, 1919
• SEGUNDA ANTOLOGÍA POÉTICA (1899-1918), 1922
• POESÍA, EN VERSO, 1917-1923, 1923
• BELLEZA, 1923
• UNIDAD, 1925
• OBRA EN MARCHA, 1929
• SUCESIÓN, 1932
• POESÍA EN PROSA Y VERSO, 1932
• PRESENTE, 1934
• I (HOJAS NUEVAS, PROSA Y VERSO), 1935
• CANSIÓN, 1936
• LA ESTACIÓN TOTAL CON CANCIONES DE NUEVA LUZ, 1936
• POLÍTICA POÉTICA, 1936
• VERSO Y PROSA PARA NIÑOS, 1937
• CIEGO ANTE CIEGOS, 1938
• ESPAÑOLES DE TRES MUNDOS, 1942
• ANTOLOGÍA POÉTICA, 1944
• VOCES DE MI COPLA, 1945
• LA ESTACIÓN TOTAL CON LAS CONCIONES DE LA NUEVA LUX, 1946
• ANIMAL DE FUNDO, 1947
• DIARIO DE POETA Y MAR, 1948 (new version of Diario de un poeta reciéncasado)
• ROMANCES DE CORAL GABLES (1939.1942), 1948
• DIOS DESENDO Y DISEANTE, 1949 - God Desired and Desiring
• FIFTY SPANISH POEMS, 1950
• TERCERA ANTOLOJÍA POÉTICA, 1957
• EL ZARATÁN, 1957
• SELECTED WRITINGS, 1957
• LA CORRIENTE INFINITA 1903-1954, 1961
• POR EL CRITISAL AMARILLO 1902-1954, 1961
• EL TRABAJO GUSTOSO 1948-1954, 1961
• THREE HUNDRED POEMS, 1903-1953, 1962
• EL MODERNISMO: 1962
• CARTAS 1898-1958, 1962
• PRIMERAS PROSAS 1890-1954, 1962
• LA COLINA DE LOS CHOPOS 1913-1928, 1965
• FORTY POEMS, 1967
• LORCA AND JIMENEZ: Selected Poems, 1973
• ISLA DE LA SIMPATÍA, 1981
• TIEMPO Y ESPACIO, 1982 - Time and Space
• LA REALIDAD INVISIBLE (1917-1920, 1924), 1983 - Invisible Reality
• GUERRA EN ESPAÑA, 1936-953, 1985
• STORIES OF LIFE AND DEATH, 1986
• SPACE AND TIME: A POETIC AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1987
• LIGHT AND SHADOWS, 1987
• THE COMPLETE PERFECTIONIST, 1997