Abente y Lago, Victorino (1846–1935)

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Abente y Lago, Victorino (1846–1935)

Victorino Abente y Lago (b. 2 June 1846; d. 22 December 1935), Paraguayan poet. Abente published his first poems in his native town of Murguía, in the province of La Coruña, Spain. He went to Asunción in 1869, where he saw firsthand the sacking of the capital during the War of the Triple Alliance. Profoundly shaken by the devastation and ruin, he began to write poems reflecting human solidarity in the face of total destruction while harboring a deep faith in man's ability to recover and rebuild. Having developed a fondness for its land and people, he decided to remain in Paraguay and become a citizen. Abente was the first poet on record to sing of the Paraguayan woman in "Kygua Verá" (Lustrous Comb) and of her role in Paraguayan history in "La sibila paraguaya." He published most of his poems in Asunción dailies.

See alsoWar of the Triple Alliance .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hugo Rodríguez-Alcalá, Historia de La literatura paraguaya (1971), pp. 34-35.

Victorino Abente, Antología poéticas (1984).

                            Catalina Segovia-Case