Jorge Isaacs
Encyclopedia
Jorge Isaacs Ferrer was a Colombia
n writer
, politician
and soldier
. His only novel, María
, became one of the most notable works of the Romantic
movement in Spanish literature
.
His father was George Henry Isaacs, an English
Jew originally from Jamaica
. He first settled in Chocó
, Colombia, where he made a fortune from gold
mining
and trade with Jamaica. He then moved to Santiago de Cali
where he converted to Christianity
, bought his Colombian citizenship from Simon Bolivar and paid for it in cows. (There is a plaque on a bridge north of Bogota to commemorate this.) He married Manuela Ferrer Scarpetta, daughter of a Spanish Navy
officer. He also owned two hacienda
s near Cali, called "La Manuelita
" (named after his wife) and "El Paraíso". The latter would provide the setting for María. "El Paraiso" has been preserved as a museum, with emphasis upon its relation to the novel.
Jorge Isaacs was born in Quibdó
in 1837. Little is known about his childhood, but in some of his poems Isaacs portrays the Valley of the Cauca
as an idyllic place where he spent his most of it. He was first educated in Santiago de Cali, then in Popayán
and, finally, in Bogotá
between 1848 and 1852.
Isaacs returned to Santiago de Cali in 1852 without finishing his baccalaureate
studies. In 1854 he fought for seven months in the Cauca Campaign against the dictatorship of General
José María Melo
. In 1856 Isaacs married Felisa González Umaña, who was fourteen years-old at the time and they went on to have many children.
During the time of the civil wars his family went through a period of economic hardship. Isaacs tried unsuccessfully to become a merchant
as his father. He then turned to literature and wrote his first poems between 1859 and 1860. During that time he also wrote several drama
s of historical theme. Isaacs took arms again in 1860, this time against General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera
, and saw action in the Battle of Manizales during the Colombian Civil War (1860-1862). In 1861 Isaacs' father died; when the war ended Isaacs returned to Cali to take over the administration of his father's businesses, but he found them deeply in debt. This forced him to auction off two of his father's haciendas "La Rita" and "La Manuelita
", which were bought by the industrialist Santiago Eder
.
Isaacs' economic hardship took him back to Bogotá, where he found that his literary efforts were being well received. The members of the rea
der's club "El Mosaico" offered to publish his poems after Isaacs read them in one of their sessions. This compilation was published under the name Poesías in 1864. That year Isaacs took a job as the supervisor of the construction of a horse-path between Buenaventura
and Cali and started to write María
. Around that time he also fell ill with malaria
.
When María was published in 1867 it became an immediate success both in Colombia and in other Latin America
n countries. As a consequence Isaacs became a well-known personality in Colombia and his newly-found fame allowed him to start a career as journalist
and politician
. As a journalist he directed the newspaper La República, of moderate conservative
tendencies, in which he also published some articles. As a politician he first joined the Conservative Party, but later switched to the Radical Party. In 1870 he was sent to Chile
as consul general. On his return to Colombia he was actively involved in the politics of Valle del Cauca, which he represented in the Colombian Congress, and in 1876 he fought in yet another civil war. However his political career ended in 1879 after an incident where he proclaimed himself political and military leader of Antioquia
in response to a conservative revolt.
After his retirement from politics Isaacs published in 1881 the first canto
of the poem Saulo, although he was never able to complete it. He also explored the Magdalena Department
, in the north of Colombia, where he found important coal
and oil
deposits. Isaacs spent the last years of his life in the city of Ibagué
in Tolima where was planning to write a historical novel. He died of malaria on April 17, 1895.
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
. His only novel, María
María (novel)
María is a novel written by Colombian writer Jorge Isaacs between 1864 and 1867. It is a costumbrist novel representative of the Spanish romantic movement...
, became one of the most notable works of the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
movement in Spanish literature
Spanish literature
Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...
.
His father was George Henry Isaacs, an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Jew originally from Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
. He first settled in Chocó
Chocó Department
Chocó is a department of Colombia known for its large Afro-Colombian population. It is in the west of the country, and is the only Colombian department to have coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. It also has all of Colombia's border with Panama. Its capital is...
, Colombia, where he made a fortune from gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
and trade with Jamaica. He then moved to Santiago de Cali
Santiago de Cali
Santiago de Cali , simply referred to as Cali, is a city in western Colombia and the capital of the Valle del Cauca Department. With a population of 2.5 million, Cali is the third largest city in the country. It has one of the fastest growing economies and infrastructure in the country because...
where he converted to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, bought his Colombian citizenship from Simon Bolivar and paid for it in cows. (There is a plaque on a bridge north of Bogota to commemorate this.) He married Manuela Ferrer Scarpetta, daughter of a Spanish Navy
Spanish Navy
The Spanish Navy is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces, one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Armada is responsible for notable achievements in world history such as the discovery of Americas, the first world circumnavigation, and the discovery of a maritime path...
officer. He also owned two hacienda
Hacienda
Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...
s near Cali, called "La Manuelita
Manuelita
Inversiones Manuelita S.A. is a Colombian agribusiness corporation, headquartered in Palmira, Valle del Cauca, whose main products are refined sugar, ethanol, palm oil, mussels and shrimp...
" (named after his wife) and "El Paraíso". The latter would provide the setting for María. "El Paraiso" has been preserved as a museum, with emphasis upon its relation to the novel.
Jorge Isaacs was born in Quibdó
Quibdó
Quibdó is the capital city of Chocó Department, in western Colombia. The municipality of Quibdó has an area of 3,337.5 km² and a population of 100,000 mainly consisting of Afro Colombians and Zambo Colombians. Quibdo serves a a receptor for those persons affected by the Colombian armed...
in 1837. Little is known about his childhood, but in some of his poems Isaacs portrays the Valley of the Cauca
Cauca River
The Cauca River is a river in Colombia that lies between the Occidental and Central cordilleras. Born in southwestern Colombia near the city of Popayán, it joins the Magdalena River near Pinillos in Bolívar Department, and the combined river eventually flows out into the Caribbean Sea. It has a...
as an idyllic place where he spent his most of it. He was first educated in Santiago de Cali, then in Popayán
Popayán
Popayán is the capital of the Colombian department of Cauca. It is located in southwestern Colombia between Colombia's Western Mountain Range and Central Mountain Range...
and, finally, in Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
between 1848 and 1852.
Isaacs returned to Santiago de Cali in 1852 without finishing his baccalaureate
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
studies. In 1854 he fought for seven months in the Cauca Campaign against the dictatorship of General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
José María Melo
José María Melo
José María Dionisio Melo y Ortiz was a Colombian general and politician of Pijao ancestry, who fought in the South American wars of independence, and who in 1854 rose to power and held the presidency of Colombia. In August, 1850, artisans demanded protection and the creation of a national workshop...
. In 1856 Isaacs married Felisa González Umaña, who was fourteen years-old at the time and they went on to have many children.
During the time of the civil wars his family went through a period of economic hardship. Isaacs tried unsuccessfully to become a merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
as his father. He then turned to literature and wrote his first poems between 1859 and 1860. During that time he also wrote several drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
s of historical theme. Isaacs took arms again in 1860, this time against General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera
Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera
Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera y Arboleda was a Colombian general and political figure. He was president of Colombia four times. The first time was as president of Republic of New Granada from 1845 to 1849. During the Colombian Civil War of 1860-1862 he led liberal forces in a civil war against...
, and saw action in the Battle of Manizales during the Colombian Civil War (1860-1862). In 1861 Isaacs' father died; when the war ended Isaacs returned to Cali to take over the administration of his father's businesses, but he found them deeply in debt. This forced him to auction off two of his father's haciendas "La Rita" and "La Manuelita
Manuelita
Inversiones Manuelita S.A. is a Colombian agribusiness corporation, headquartered in Palmira, Valle del Cauca, whose main products are refined sugar, ethanol, palm oil, mussels and shrimp...
", which were bought by the industrialist Santiago Eder
Santiago Eder
James Martin Eder , known in Colombia as Santiago Martín Eder Kaiser, don Santiago Eder or simply "El Fundador", is considered the pioneer of the sugar industry in Colombia, and is widely recognized as one of Colombia's leading 19th century industrial pioneers.-Early life:Eder was born in Mitau in...
.
Isaacs' economic hardship took him back to Bogotá, where he found that his literary efforts were being well received. The members of the rea
der's club "El Mosaico" offered to publish his poems after Isaacs read them in one of their sessions. This compilation was published under the name Poesías in 1864. That year Isaacs took a job as the supervisor of the construction of a horse-path between Buenaventura
Buenaventura, Colombia
Buenaventura is a port city and municipality located in the department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia . Buenaventura is the main port of Colombia in the Pacific Ocean....
and Cali and started to write María
María (novel)
María is a novel written by Colombian writer Jorge Isaacs between 1864 and 1867. It is a costumbrist novel representative of the Spanish romantic movement...
. Around that time he also fell ill with malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
.
When María was published in 1867 it became an immediate success both in Colombia and in other Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries. As a consequence Isaacs became a well-known personality in Colombia and his newly-found fame allowed him to start a career as journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. As a journalist he directed the newspaper La República, of moderate conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
tendencies, in which he also published some articles. As a politician he first joined the Conservative Party, but later switched to the Radical Party. In 1870 he was sent to Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
as consul general. On his return to Colombia he was actively involved in the politics of Valle del Cauca, which he represented in the Colombian Congress, and in 1876 he fought in yet another civil war. However his political career ended in 1879 after an incident where he proclaimed himself political and military leader of Antioquia
Antioquia Department
Antioquia is one of the 32 departments of Colombia, located in the central northwestern part of Colombia with a narrow section that borders the Caribbean Sea. Most of its territory is mountainous with some valleys, much of which is part of the Andes mountain range...
in response to a conservative revolt.
After his retirement from politics Isaacs published in 1881 the first canto
Canto
The canto is a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from Italian, meaning "song" or singing. Famous examples of epic poetry which employ the canto division are Lord Byron's Don Juan, Valmiki's Ramayana , Dante's The Divine Comedy , and Ezra Pound's The...
of the poem Saulo, although he was never able to complete it. He also explored the Magdalena Department
Magdalena Department
Magdalena is a department of Colombia, located to the north of the country by the Caribbean Sea. The capital of the Magdalena Department is Santa Marta and was named after the Magdalena River...
, in the north of Colombia, where he found important coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
and oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
deposits. Isaacs spent the last years of his life in the city of Ibagué
Ibagué
Ibagué is the capital of the department of Tolima in Colombia. It is situated 1,285 m above sea level, on the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Central between the Chipalo and Combeima rivers, tributaries of the Coello River...
in Tolima where was planning to write a historical novel. He died of malaria on April 17, 1895.
External links
- Biography - In Spanish.
- Online edition of María - In Spanish.
- María as a free ebook (@Feedbooks) - In Spanish
- El Paraíso Museum photo gallery