sevilla: infancia, juventud y comienzos literarios (1902-1928)

Luis Cernuda Bidón was born in central Seville, on Tójar St., (today Acetres), September 21, 1902. He was the third child of Amparo Cuéllar Bidón and Bernardo Bauzá Cernuda, a military officer. His sisters, Amparo and Ana, were his playmates in a family environment marked by poor emotional interaction, and the strict discipline imposed by their severe father.

Cernuda studied with Piarist monks in Seville, first in San Ramón school, and from 1915 in the Calasancio Hispalense where his teacher of rhetoric, Father Antonio López, encouraged him to write his first poems. In the fall of 1919, he enrolled in law school at the University of Seville, where he attended classes in the literature taught by poet Pedro Salinas.

Together with fellow students Higinio Capote, Joaquín Romero Murube and José de Montes, Cernuda went the literary tertulias organized by Salinas, who directed the young poet to read the Spanish classics and the most prominent French writers of modern literature.

In March 1920, Don Bernardo Cernuda died. His death left the family on the brink of bankruptcy and they moved to a more modest house on Conde Benomar St., also known as Air St. The young student graduated in law in 1925, a profession that he did not practice. In December 1925, he collaborated with Revista de Occidente (Madrid) and, since 1926, with La Verdad (Murcia), Mediodía (Seville), Litoral (Malaga), Papel de Aleluyas (Huelva-Sevilla), Verso y Prosa (Murcia ) and Carmen (Santander-Gijón).