We explain who Jorge Isaacs was, what his main literary works were and what his role was in 19th century Colombian politics.
Jorge Isaacs lived during the period of consolidation of the Republic of Colombia.
Who was Jorge Isaacs?
Jorge Isaacs He was a Colombian writer, politician and journalist of the 19th century.His only novel, entitled Mariawas one of the most outstanding works of Colombian and Latin American romanticism.
Also the author of poems and some essays, Isaacs He had a brief but significant workinterrupted by his political activism and his participation in the Colombian civil war. In fact, he left several unfinished works, such as a long poem entitled Saulof which he wrote only the first canto.
Isaacs He was a friend and literary apprentice of José María Vergara y Vergara (1831-1872), in whose literary magazine The Mosaic (1858-1872) published his first poems. He spent his last years away from political and cultural life in Ibagué, in central-western Colombia, where he devoted himself to planning a great historical novel that he never got around to writing.
Birth and early years of Jorge Isaacs
Jorge Ricardo Isaacs Ferrer He was born on April 1, 1837 in the city of Santiago de Caliwhich at that time belonged to the Republic of New Granada (equivalent to present-day Colombia). He was the son of George Henry Isaacs, a prosperous English merchant of Sephardic Jewish origin who arrived in Colombia from Jamaica in 1821, and his Colombian wife Manuela Ferrer Scarpetta.
Born into a wealthy home, Jorge received a very good educationfirst in Cali and then in Popayán, and at the age of 11 he was sent to Bogotá to study at the Colegio del Espíritu Santo, run by the professor and politician Lorenzo María Lleras (1811-1868). He returned to Cali in 1853, with the intention of studying medicine. His family had plans to send him to study in London, but that project proved to be financially impossible.
When Jorge was 17 years old, the coup d’état of General José María Melo (1800-1860) took place and the young man He enlisted in the opposing army, where he reached the rank of second lieutenant.After seven months of rebellion, he returned to civilian life and unsuccessfully tried to start a business in Cali.
Two years later, in 1856, Jorge He met Felisa González Umaña and married her.They were both 19 years old. Over the years, they had seven children: Clementina, Daniel, David, Jorge, Julia, Lisímaco and Maria. They were together all their lives.
The civil war and the first poems
During his youth, Isaacs participated in two of the Colombian civil wars.
In 1860, Jorge Isaacs returned to the battle frontthis time to confront the coup d’état of General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera (1798-1878), who had allied himself with the Liberal Party. Enlisted in the conservative camp, the future writer fought in the battle of Manizales and, throughout the military campaign, He wrote his first poems, including the famous “Río Moro”.
The war ended in 1861. That same year, Isaacs returned to Cali, to deal with the death of his father and to inherit, according to the paternal will, control of the family estate. His poor management of finances and the state of indebtedness in which the family found itself forced him to put several of his estates up for auction. Finally, in 1863, He preferred to go to Bogotá and leave the control of the family assets in the hands of his brother Alcibíades..
In the capital, however, Isaacs had to face his creditors in court. So he hired the prestigious lawyers and writers José María Vergara y Vergara (1831-1872) and Aníbal Galindo (1834-1901) to defend him. Through them, met the literary group El Mosaico and the biweekly literary newspaper of the same name, in which they published their texts.
With the support of El Mosaico, young Isaacs gathered his poems and He was encouraged to publish a first volume in 1864: Poemsthe cost of which was covered by the literary group. This first book was received with enthusiasm by local critics, and won him the friendship of the poet José Asunción Silva (1865-1896).
At the end of that same year, Isaacs was hired to supervise the construction of the road between Cali and Buenaventura, and for this he lived for a year in the coastal jungles, where he contracted malaria. This disease would eventually cost him his life. During those months, Isaacs began writing his famous novel, Maria.
Mariaby Jorge Isaacs
Maria It was Isaacs’ main work and one of the most important of Latin American Romanticism.
Isaacs wrote the first chapters of Maria at the Viper campon the banks of the Dagua River, in the jungles of the Cauca Valley. He was already suffering from malaria and many of the harsh living conditions around him were incorporated into the story, which deals with the unhappy love of two Colombian teenagers: Efraín and María.
This love story, typical of literary romanticism and French sentimental novels, takes place in the bucolic Colombian environment of Cauca, specifically in the vicinity of the El Paraíso estate, the first of those lost by Isaacs’ family. Throughout 65 chapters, the story also includes short love stories, local and costumbrist micro-narratives.
The first edition of Maria It was published in 1867, after Isaacs returned to Cali and Bogotá in 1865. The novel’s success was consolidated over time, even after the author’s death.It was translated into more than thirty languages and had numerous editions and film, theatrical and illustrated versions. In 1903, an opera with music by Gonzalo Vidal Pacheco (1863-1946) was even premiered.
Among the film versions of MariaAmong the dozen or so films, the 1922 Colombian film stands out, directed by Máximo Calvo Olmedo (1886-1973) and considered the first feature film in the history of Colombian cinema.
The political life of Jorge Isaacs
Isaacs’ political life began in 1866.when he was elected by the Conservative Party as a deputy to the Congress of the Republic of Colombia. At that time, the writer had opened a warehouse of imported goods in Bogotá, and that year he was put in charge of the management of the conservative newspaper The Republic.
His fiery speeches in Congress soon earned him numerous political rivals, especially when he became Clerk of the House of Representatives in 1868. The following year, however, there was a radical change in his political outlook and He began to be active in the Liberal Party wing.
After 1870, Isaacs became the Colombian consul in Chile, a post he held for two years. His stay in Santiago was not particularly happy or productive in literary terms. Determined to restore the family fortune, He started an agricultural production company with a Chilean partner and returned to Colombia in May 1873.They took out loans and bought a property in the town of Palmira, in the Cauca Valley.
After a year and a half, The project was a resounding failure. When his partner returned to Chile, Isaacs tried to sell the property in Palmira and recover some money, but ended up declaring bankruptcy. He obtained a job as a school supervisor in Cali and then as superintendent of Public Instruction in Popayán, where he started a plan for artisanal and night schools for adults, and taught classes at the Escuela Normal Superior.
During his days in Popayán, He also directed the liberal newspapers The Schoolboy and The Liberal Programuntil the conservative rebellion broke out in Colombia in 1876, leading to a new civil war, known as the “War of the Schools.” For almost a year, the ruling Liberal Party and the opposition Conservative Party fought for control of education in the country.
Isaacs He fought in the battle of Los Chancos and became Chief of Staff of the Third Division of the Southern Army. After the end of the conflict, he returned to his educational post, but lost it the following year, due to his complaints about the miserable living conditions of the indigenous peoples of the region.
In 1879, Isaacs traveled to the state of Antioquia, where the following year a military coup overthrew the regional authorities and proclaimed General Ricardo Gaitán Obeso (1851-1886) as the highest authority in the State. Isaacs then declared himself in rebellion and, at the head of an army of followers, He took the city of Medellin and usurped the presidency of the State.
Isaacs’ regional government did not last long: He failed to legitimize his authority in front of the then president Rafael Núñez (1825-1894) and had to lay down his arms after a month of resistance. Isaacs was then expelled from Congress and wrote a new essay to try to defend his position: The radical revolution in Antioquia: 1880.
In 1881, Isaacs decided to retire from politics forever and he left with his family to Ibagué.
The wandering years of Jorge Isaacs
Isaacs left politics in 1881.
In 1881, having retired from politics, Isaacs published the first canto of a long poem entitled SaulThe poem, dedicated to the Argentine general Julio Argentino Roca (1843-1914), was printed in Buenos Aires on luxury materials. However, he never wrote the rest of the work or any other literary piece of importance. For this reason, José Asunción Silva, a friend of Isaacs, openly regretted that, having such a talent, he also abandoned literature.
Around 1883, Isaacs was entrusted with a scientific mission to explore the territories of La Guajira and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, to which he dedicated himself for eleven months. This experience fueled his essay The indigenous tribes of the state of Magdalenawritten in 1884 and published three years later.
Between 1884 and 1885, a new civil war broke out in Colombia, in which the Liberal Party rose up against the government of the moderate Rafael Núñez. Isaacs He openly supported the insurgents and, after the government’s victory, went into exile in Fusagasugá.in Cundinamarca, fearing political reprisals. There he devoted himself to the exploration of the Sumapaz Mountains, part of the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, where he believed he had discovered fossils and missing links of humanity.
Isaacs returned to Ibagué in 1886. That year the government granted him permission to exploit the coal deposits discovered during his exploratory mission in 1883, so the poet spent the following years looking for foreign investors and trying to begin coal and coal extraction. Luck, however, was never on his side.
Although he received an extension of the government permit, Isaacs’ health began to show signs of rapid deterioration. Malaria fevers took their toll after almost twenty-two years.
Death and legacy of Jorge Isaacs
Isaacs died in Ibagué and his remains were transferred to Medellín.
The last…