Casal, Julián del

Casal, Julián del ho͞olyänˈ dĕl käsälˈ [key], 1863–93, Cuban poet, b. Havana. A friend of Rubén Darío, Casal became a leader in modernismo. He was greatly influenced by the French Parnassians. Afflicted with a painful form of tuberculosis, he wrote verse expressing deep pessimism, often choosing subjects from antiquity and far-off lands, especially Japan. His best-known collections are Hojas al viento [leaves in the wind] (1890) and Bustos y rimas [busts and rhymes] (1893).

See critical edition of his poems in English (3 vol., 1976–78); selected prose in English (1949); study by P. Pearsall (1984).

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