publication, as a way to help the widow and children of the poet. The first edition of their effort was published in 1871, and a second volume was published six years later. Further revisions came out on the editions released in 1881, 1885, and 1898. In such prose tales as El Rayo de Luna, El Beso, and La Rosa de Pasión, Bécquer is manifestly influenced by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and as a poet he has analogies with Heine. His work is unfinished and unequal, but it is singularly free from the rhetoric characteristic of his native Andalusia, and its lyrical ardor is of a beautiful sweetness and sincerity. He also wrote in an epistolary style: Cartas desde mi Celda – written during his travels to Veruela's Monastery – or La Mujer de Piedra or little theatre plays La novia y el pantalón. It is not so well known that he was an excellent graphic artist. Most of his work concentrated on spontaneity of love and the solitude of nature. His work, and in particular his Rimas, are considered some of the most important work in Spanish poetry, greatly influencing the following generations of writers, notably authors like Antonio Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez, writers belonging to the Generation of '27, such as Federico García Lorca and Jorge Guillén, and many Hispano-American writers like Rubén Darío. Works Rhymes (Rimas) Bécquer's poems were recited from memory by his contemporaries, and greatly influenced the generations afterwards. Modeled in brief stanza forms, both musical and erotic, Bécquer's 77 Rimas came to a few thousand lines, considered the foundation of modern Spanish poetry. Luis Cernuda wrote: 'There is in Bécquer an essential poet quality: that of expressing with a clarity and firmness that only classics have... Bécquer plays in our modern poetry a role equivalent to Garcilaso's in our classic poetry: that of creating a new tradition, which he bestows upon his descendants. His book was composed after his death from many sources, the primary one being a manuscript by Bécquer himself, The Book of Sparrows. Birds are a motif that shows up frequently in Bécquer's canon, such as in "Rima LIII" (Rhyme 53), where swallows appear as a sign of the end to a passionate relationship. The refrain "¡Esas... no volverán!" appears in the 20th novel Yo-Yo Boing! by Puerto Rican poet Giannina Braschi, who references Bécquer's swallows to describe the sorrow and angst of