The most striking feature of an onomastic study of the Rimas, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer\u27s major poetic creation, is the extreme paucity of given names.1 Only four such names appear in all of the Rimas (Ofelia, Minerva, Lazaro, Dante), but even these few must be qualified for the purpose of this study. They are not properly given names, actually identifying characters or people addressed by the poet in his lyrics. All four have connotative and/or metaphorical functions as employed in their respective poems.2 In point of fact, then, there are no personal names at all uttered in the seventy-nine poems that constitute this significant body of verse

Lynch, Susan

Rodriguez, Alfred

English

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Literary Onomastics Studies
Volume 15 Article 9
1988
"Espiritu Sin Nombre": Names in Becquer
Susan Lynch
Alfred Rodriguez
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Lynch, Susan and Rodriguez, Alfred (1988) ""Espiritu Sin Nombre": Names in Becquer," Literary Onomastics Studies: Vol. 15 , Article
9.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/los/vol15/iss1/9
"Espiritu Sin No1nbre'': Names in Becquer 
Susan Lynch and Alfred Rodriguez 
The most striking feature of an onomastic study of the Rimas, Gustavo Adolfo 
Becquer's major poetic creation, is the extreme paucity of given names. 1 Only four such 
names appear in all of the Rimas (Ofelia, Minerva, Lazaro, Dante), but even these few 
must be qualified for the purpose of this study. They are not properly given names, 
actually identifying characters or people addressed by the poet in his lyrics. All four 
have connotative and/or metaphorical functions as employed in their respective poems. 
2 In point of fact, then, there are no personal names at all uttered in the seventy-nine 
poems that constitute this significant body of verse. 
The absolute omission of personal names from the Rimas, poetry often openly directed 
to another being, 3 is enough to render this aesthetic practice significant. Its·absolute 
character eliminates whim or accident as factors and makes unnecessary any listing of 
exceptions and special conditions. 4 Becquer consciously avoids giving names to the 
objects of his love poetry, even when these are real enough to have been identified by 
his biographers. 5 
Names, especially "Qersonal names, are-as philosophers, linguists, and literary critics 
are wont to repeat 6 -features of speech intended to lend identifiable concreteness to 
. beings and things: 
Names identify without a shadow of a doubt, are gates to a 
character's knowable personality and bound that personality with 
isolating precision. 7 
Although somewhat surprising in its absoluteness, Becquer's complete avoidance of 
personal names in the Rimas is perfectly consistent with the fundamentals of his poetics, 
as deduced by numerous scholarly studies: 8 
La poesfa, esencia indefinible, es nota, y perfume, y llama, y 
susurro, y suspiro d�l alma ... , todo basta lo mas inconcreto, 
sugeridor e inaprensible. 9 . 
The ethereal and inconcrete objects of Becquer's Rimas, the "disembodied souls" that a 
critic has spoken of, 10 would come across as far more corporeal and concrete than the 
poet wished if he had allowed himself the name identification that would otherwise be 
considered reasonable. 
In this respect, then, the poet's absolute avoidance of personal name-tags for the 
objects of his lyrical expression stands forth as an aesthetic banner, proclaiming-just as 
patently as any other number of practices in the Rimas 11 -his will to project a poetic 
world of imprecise and ethereal subjects: 
Deliberately withholding a name mystifies, creates the tensions of 
risk-laden unfamiliarity. 12 
Literary Onomastics Studies Page 39 
This consistent Becquerian practice in the Rimas is especially striking when set against 
the background of the romantics that he succeeded. The most significant and 
representative poet of the latter group, Espronceda, may readily be placed, in this 
regard, at the opposite end of the scale, with an almost inescapable compulsion to 
identify, name-tag, the various objects of his lyrical expression. 13 
Becquer's prose Leyendas could not be e�ected to reflect the absolute avoidance of 
personal names achieved in the Rimas. 14 The narrative Benre itself-however proximate the resthetics of poetry and prose in Becquer -makes it extremely difficult 
to avoid personal names completely, for name identification/differentiation of specific 
characters could not reasonably be avoided. Under these circumstances, Becquer's own 
remark in El Maestro Herold indicates his awareness of the need for personalizing 
nam.es: 
Para que nuestros lectores puedan formarse una idea, aunque 
pa.lida, de su ardiente visi6n, les diremos el nombre de aquel 
musico .... 
With this in mind, and in keeping with both the broad outline of Becquer's resthetic 
goals and their application to his prose as well as his poetry, it is not surprising to find 
that ·the Leyendas offer an average of less than two personal names per narration: 
thirty-four personal names in t'.�'enty-two prose pieces. 16 Nearly one-fourth of his 
stories (fivef contain no personal names at all, and another five contain only one such 
name each. 7 
Becquer's controlled and minimal reliance on personal names in the Leyendas, what 
frequently amounts to studied omission, may best be underscored by comparing his 
usage, in this sense, to that of Zorrilla in his poetic 'leyendas,' for these, despite the 
difference in medium, are frequently cited as the basic antecedents for Becquer's 
narrations in prose.18 As might have been expected, Zorrilla's poetic narrations offer 
the abundance of name fixation that was common to Becquer's romantic predecessors . .t' 
The relative paucity of personal names in the Leyendas, together with their total 
absence from the Rimas, clearly establishes a fundamental norm (albeit negatively 
expressed) of Becquer's literary creativity: the absolutely minimal use of personal 
names, whether to fix real love objects or narrative characters. The mystery-·enhancing 
effects of this consistent Becquerian practice-when reinforced, naturally, by other 
resthetic devices with the same finality-is immediately apparent in his work: 
Desea, rodeado de misterio, sumergirse en el misterio, vivir 
cercado de poesfa y estar inmerso en la misma poesia; purificarse 
de la materia, para unirse al espfritu . ... 20 
It is significant to note, on the other hand, that it is only this radical reduction that 
distinguishes Becquer's use of personal names from that of his romantic predecessors. 
The literary intent and impact of what names do appear in the Leyendas almost 
invariably reflect a romantic continuity in Becquer that scholars acknowledge. 21  The 
overwhelming majority of the names assigned by Becquer to his characters are 
Page 40 Literary Onomastics Studies 
...,..,,_,F,AA�""u." ... .ll""' immediately as those used most profusely by romantic poets and 
playwrights, and these logically reflect a fundamental identification on his part with the 
name-giving criteria of the former: a) names with a connotative literary charge: Beatrfz, 
Ines, Manrique, Constanza; b) names with an apparent historical suggestivity: Alonso, 
Lope, lingo, Teobaldo, Fernando; c) names with a religious-spiritual connotative 
charge: Magdalena, Marta, Sara; d) names with a poetic-semantic projection: Amparo, 
Margarita; e) exotic names: Pulo, Tippot, Siannah, Herold; f) names with a 
cacophonous suggestion of the vulgar or prosaic: Baltasara, Gregorio. 
On at least one occasion, as well, the reader is made privy to the creative associations 
that might have governed Becquer's name selection. In La Corza Blanca, the feminine 
protagonist's transformational qualities might well have suggested the name 
(Constanza) of Cervantes' heroine from La Ilustre Fregona, who is not what she 
appears to be either. In both cases, of course, the name stands in ironic defiance of the 
character's mutability. 
It is not surprising to find a character called Esteban in this story, in which tragedy 
results from a piercing arrow, for the name is borne by the Catholic saint invariably 
identified with martyrdom before Roman archers. 
In conclusion, Becquer selects and uses personal names much in the functional manner 
of his romantic predecessors; but it is his studied and calculated reduction of their use 
that sets him apart, and in radical fashion, from their name-giving practice. It is a norm 
that is undoubtedly instrumental in his projection of a mysterious and inconcrete 
universe, and it is certainly in keeping with his avowed resthetic goals. 
Notes 
1 G. A. Becquer, Rimas, edici6n de Jose Pedro Dfaz (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S. A., 
1963). 
2 Rimas VI, VII, XII, XXIX in edition cited. Only Shakespeare's Ophelia (VI) is the 
actual subject of the poem, but the poet's first line, "Como la brisa que la sangre ore a," 
and the verse that introduces her, "Sfmbolo del dolor y la ternura," suggest Becquer's 
emblematic use of the character. 
3 Over thirty-five percent of the Rimas use the second person of verb and pronoun, and 
speak directly to the love-object. Close to sixty percent of the Rimas involve another 
being. 
4 See G. Alvarez-Altman, "Onomastics as a Modern Critical Approach to Literature," 
Literary Onomastics Studies, 1 (1974), 109. 
5 SeeR. Brown, Becquer (Barcelona: Editorial Aedos, 1963), pp. 122-124. 
6 See, for example, E. Cassirer, Language and Myth, trans. S. K. Langer (NY: Harper & 
Bros., 1946), p. 3; and R. Fox, The Red Lamp of Incest (NY: E. P� Dutton, 1980), p. 191. 
Literary Onomastics Studies Page 41 
7 W. F. H. Nicolaisen, "What is Your Name? The Question of Identity in Some of the 
Waverly Novels," Names, 27 (1979), 256. 
8 See F. L6pez Estrada, Poetica para un poeta (Madrid: Gredos, S. A., 1972), for the 
most recent and complete study. 
9 M. Alonso, Segundo estilo de Becquer (Madrid: Ediciones Guadarrama, 1972), p. 280. 
10 J. Paley, "Becquer's Disembodied Souls," Hispanic Review, 47 (1979), 185-192. 
11 See, for example, Alonso, pp. 284-308. 
12 Nicolaisen, p. 256. 
13 Espronceda identifies the object of his lyrical expression by name in more than 
seventy-five percent of the cases. 
14 G. A Becquer, Leyendas, edici6n de J. Campos (Madrid: Alianza, 1979). All 
references will be to this edition. 
15 See, for example, M. Garcfa-Vifi6, Mundo y trasmundo de las Leyendas de Becquer 
(Madrid: Gredos, S. A., 1970), pp. 24-25. 
16 Actually 1.05 names on the average, and even fewer if such deity names as Brahma, 
Vishnu and Siva were discounted. 
17 El beso, La venta de los gatos, La creaci6n, Creed en Dios, El maestro Herold. 
18 See Garcia-Vifi6, pp. 25, 82; and R. Benitez, Becquer tradicionalista (Madrid: 
Gredos, S. A., 1971 ), pp. 92-108. 
19 As a rule, Zorrilla populates his 'leyendas' with an abundance of named characters. 
20 Alonso, p. 281. 
21 S . . 1 B ' ' B' d. . I" ee, tn parttcu ar, emtez s ecquer tra letona tsta. 
Susan A. Lynch 
Albuquerque Technical-Vocational Institute 
Albuquerque, NM 
Page 42 
Alfred Rodriguez 
University of New Mexico 
Albuquerque, NM 
Literary Onomastics Studies 


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