In one of his stays in Valldemossa, Rubén Darío stayed at La Cartuja.
In the rocky fields, where great heaps of grey and white rocks amassed, and amongst the olives that harked pack to pagan Greece, and in the valleys laden with pomegranates and where figs offered up their sexual nectar, and where vines and great bunches of grapes hung remembering the sleep of Mallarmé's faun, and where there are flowers and thorns, and green leaves of maize plants, and yet here it would not be at all surprising to suddenly see appear Aegipan, or a nymph, or a hamadryad, to the sound of a reed flute as is customary in Hellenic lyrics and fiction. The young lads are strong with lively eyes and elegant bodies, and the adolescent girls are well formed and rounded where appropriate by Mother Nature, with the bounty and beauty by satyrs and jolly demons.
El oro de Mallorca (The Gold of Mallorca), 1913
Translated by Richard Mansell.
(Metapa, Nicaragua, 1867 – Lleó, Nicaragua, 1916). Rubén Darío was one of the driving forces behind the renewal of poetry written in the Spanish language, and he exerted a decisive influence on 20th century Hispanic poetry. He was born in Metapa in 1867 and grew up in the cultured setting of his maternal family, who formed part of the country’s intellectual circles.
Rubén Darío’s early poetry shows a strong preoccupation with form as a result of the introduction of symbolism and Parnassian ways to Spanish poetry. The publication of Azul (Azure) in 1888 is a supreme example of Latin-American Modernism, with clearly distinctive characteristics from the poetry of European movements of the time. Although he never relinquished formal beauty and aestheticism, new concerns became evident in his poetry, with the appearance of an existential anguish and sociohistorical preoccupation, culminating in the 1905 work Cantos de vida i esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope).
Darío joined Nicaragua’s diplomatic service and became a correspondent for the newspaper La Nación, thus allowing him to meet his goal of travelling round Europe. He visited Mallorca on several occasions. In 1906, he lived in El Terreno, a district of Palma, and in 1913 he retreated to Valldemossa’s Carthusian Monastery in an attempt to regain his health. During these stays, he wrote a series of articles published under the title La isla de Oro (The Island of Gold), in addition to El oro de Mallorca (The Gold of Mallorca). This unfinished autobiographical novel, in which the author is represented by Benjamín Itapes, describes real situations and figures from Mallorcan life.
The Charterhouse building is also known as King Sanç's palace since Jaume II ordered it to be built as a residence for his son Sanç. At the end of the 14th century, King Martí the Humane gave it to Carthusian monks, who founded the monastery and were there for four centuries, until 1835.
With the sale of Church lands, the Charterhouse passed into private hands. This explains its current décor, typical of a Majorcan mansion, more appropriate for its new residential use. This shift to private ownership turned the Charterhouse into a place that welcomed distinguished guests who have enriched its history, such as Rubén Darío, Azorín, Unamuno, Santiago Russinyol, Eugeni d'Ors and others.
Rubén Darío's stay in Valldemossa left a deep imprint in his work, and in his poetry we find the poem 'La Cartuja', an emotional texts that accompanies us through the rooms and the history of the Charterhouse.
