José Fornaris Luque

José Fornaris was born in Bayamo, former province of Oriente, currently province of Granma. He was the son of Don José Bueno de Jesús Fornaris y Fontaine and Doña María Gertrudis Luque.

He completed his primary education at the Seminario de San Basilio el Magno in Santiago de Cuba starting in 1835. He studied in La Habana beginning in 1840, at the Colegio de San Fernando and later at the University, where he graduated with a degree in Laws (1844) and a licentiate in Laws (1852).

Between these two dates he took office in Bayamo, a position inherited from his father, as Regidor of the City Council. He published his first literary essays in La Prensa and participated in the conspiracy of 1851. In 1852 he was imprisoned in Palma Soriano for five months with Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Lucas del Castillo.

Receiving his law degree in Puerto Príncipe (1853), he returned to Bayamo to practice. Starting in 1854 he alternates his life between Bayamo and La Habana. In 1855 he published his Cantos del siboney, compiled in Poesías de José Fornaris, with which he gave great impetus to Siboneyism.

In 1859 he compiled with Joaquín Lorenzo Luaces Cuba poética; a selected collection of verse compositions by Cuban poets from Zequeira to that moment. He was codirector of Floresta Cubana (1855-1856), La Piragua (1856), and Cuba Literaria (1861-1862).

When his friend Céspedes, at whose request he wrote the verses of La Bayamesa, a piece considered the first of a patriotic character in Cuban musical work, initiated the Ten Years' War, Fornaris did not want to compromise himself and remained in La Habana. In 1870 he traveled through Spain, France, and Italy.

In the long list of collaborations with magazines and cultural publications appear: La Abeja, El Colibrí, El Almendares, Revista de La Habana, Civilización, El Siglo, La Prensa, Correo de la tarde, Álbum Cubano de lo Bueno y lo Bello, Aguinaldo Habanero, Camafeos, Revista Habanera, El País, Ateneo, La Aurora, and Revista de Cuba. He devoted his final years to teaching and, as always, to letters.

On September 19, 1890, José Fornaris died in La Habana, who was the most popular singer of the life of the indigenous peoples. His verses achieved notoriety and many of them were set to music. He achieved great popularity not only for his quality as a versifier, but essentially for being a spokesman for the patriotic feelings of the Creoles. In his verses he described the life and customs of the primitive inhabitants of Cuba, of which only very indirect references were had, since the Antillean aborigines disappeared almost completely during the sixteenth century, due to the cruel exploitation to which they were subjected by Spanish colonizers.

Assessments

José Fornaris, creator of Siboneyism, of defiant poetics, arrives in his exaltation for everything Cuban, in his necessary patriotic fixation, at driving himself into the depths of the sky of the Island. Samuel Feijóo

Incorrect down to the doggerel and frequent prosaicism, Fornaris's Siboneyist poems describe an ideal primitive society, of pure Romantic ancestry. José Antonio Portuondo.

Fornaris was an affluent and superficial poet. His most sympathetic trait, which sometimes disarms us, is the delirious and obsessive love for Cuba (...) His relative successes are in the white tone, gently voluptuous and paradisiacal, of some passages of the Cantos del Siboney. Cintio Vitier

Poetic Work

José Fornaris wrote a large volume of poetry, among which the following can be mentioned:

La Bayamesa
Adoración
Al Bayamo
Al General cubano Francisco Vicente Aguilera al dejar Paris
Las Cubanas
Mi Patria
Mi vuelta a Cuba

Of these works, the best known is La Bayamesa, composed jointly with Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Francisco del Castillo, and premiered by tenor Carlos Pérez. This valuable work was extensively versioned from its very creation to the present day, evidence of which is the version sung during the war of 1868, La Bayamesa de Perucho –which became the National Anthem–, Mujer Bayamesa by Sindo Garay, among others.

La Bayamesa.
By José Fornaris and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes

Do you not remember, gentle Bayamesa
That you were my shining sun,
And smiling on your languid brow
I impressed a tender kiss with ardor?
Do you not remember that in happier times
I was enraptured by your pure beauty,
And in your bosom I bowed my head
Dying of joy and love?
Come, and appear at your window smiling;
Come, and listen to my loving song;
Come, do not sleep, heed my weeping;
Bring relief to my hard pain.
Remembering the glories of the past
Let us dispel, my love, the sadness;
And let us both bow our heads
Dying of joy and love.

He ended his life in Cuba devoted to teaching and letters. In 1951 he was anthologized in Poesías de la patria (La Habana, Publicaciones del Ministerio de cultura, 1951)

Death

He died on September 19, 1890, in La Habana, he who was the most popular singer of the life of the indigenous peoples. His verses achieved notoriety and many of them were set to music. He achieved great popularity not only for his quality as a versifier, but essentially for being a spokesman for the patriotic feelings of the Creoles. In his verses he described the life and customs of the first inhabitants of Cuba.