author
José María Heredia
1803–1839
A pioneering voice of early Latin American Romanticism, this Cuban-born poet wrote with unusual force about liberty, exile, and the natural world. His famous poem on Niagara helped make him one of the best-known Spanish-language poets of the early 19th century.
1 Audiobook
Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain
by James Kennedy, Juan Bautista Arriaza, Manuel Bretón de los Herreros, José de Espronceda, Leandro Fernández de Moratín, José María Heredia, Tomás de Iriarte, Gaspar de Jovellanos, Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, Juan Meléndez Valdés, Manuel José Quintana, duque de Angel de Saavedra Rivas, José Zorrilla
About the author
Born in Santiago de Cuba on December 31, 1803, he is widely remembered as a foundational figure in Spanish-language Romantic poetry in the Americas. His life was shaped by constant movement through the Spanish Caribbean and Mexico, and that broad experience shows in work that combines political feeling, personal longing, and vivid landscape.
After studying law in Havana, he became caught up in anticolonial politics and was forced into exile while still very young. He spent important years in the United States and Mexico, where he continued writing poems and prose and built the reputation that would outlast his short life.
Readers still return to him for the emotional sweep of poems such as Niágara and En el Teocalli de Cholula. He died in Mexico City on May 7, 1839, but his writing remains central to the story of Cuban literature and to the rise of Romanticism in Latin America.