Guillén, Jorge [key], 1893–1984, Spanish poet. Guillén left Spain after the civil war (1939) and taught Spanish in the United States. His verse is difficult, terse, and lyrical. Cántico, his volume of poems, has appeared in four successively augmented editions (1928, 1936, 1945, 1950; tr. 1965). Among the most intellectual of modern Spanish poets, he has been compared to Paul Valéry, whose work he translated. Affirmation: 1919–1966 (1968) is a bilingual anthology of Guillén's work. In 1976 the Spanish government awarded him the Cervantes Prize, the highest literary honor of the Spanish-speaking world.
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