Mariano Melgar

MARIANO MELGAR (1790 -1815)

It is considered that the literature of arequipa and peruvian republican starts with the work of Mariano Melgar, who died six years before the Independence for which he had fought, although his poetry as heralding a new era. It is said that in the three years knew how to read and write, and the eight dominated the Latin. The son of a Spanish arequipa poor, Melgar, he studied at the Catholic Seminary of St. Jerome, where in 1810 he became a professor of grammar, rhetoric, Latin, and philosophy. Translated Ovid and started writing custom loas, odes and greetings rimados to authorities and characters ecclesiastical. He left the seminary in 1813 and was interested by the romantic poetry of his time. In less than a year and a half wrote the majority of the verses that give you fame. In love with a cousin called Silvia Melgar dedicated to a letter of 522 verses and poems of love upset. Rejected by her, he enlisted in the army of independence in 1814. On the 12th of march, 1815, he was captured and executed by the army of the Viceroyalty of Peru.