Josemaria heredia biography

…poets such as the Cuban José María de Heredia, who had begun by mastering Neoclassical poetic forms. Heredia still wrote odes in the Neoclassical manner, but the emotional charge of his poetry, the presentation of a self astonished by the beauty and power of nature, and his espousal of the…

The death of his father, José Francisco Heredia, in 1820 caused his son José María to return to Cuba the following year from Mexico. Heredia's time in the United States lasted from December 4, 1823 until August 22, 1825.

The "Niágara" was originally published in Heredia's first collection, entitled Poesías, published in New York, 1825. The theme of a fissure or split in the relationship between subject and object appears in “Niágara” to coincide with his feelings of split or torn between countries.

José Maria de Heredia, (born Nov. 22, 1842, La Fortuna, Cuba—died Oct. 2, 1905, near Houdan, Fr.), Cuban-born French poet, brilliant master of the sonnet.