SOURCE: Summerhill, Stephen J. “The Failure of Symbols in a Surrealist Poem of Luis Cernuda.” Essays in Literature 6, no. 1 (spring 1979): 129-39.

In the following essay, Summerhill analyzes “El caso del pájaro asesinado” as an expression of the dominant theme of doubt in Un río, un amor, emphasizing Cernuda's awareness of the limitations of symbolism.

One of the most important of Cernuda's collections of poetry is his 1929 volume, Un río, un amor [A River, A Love] Written under the influence of French surrealism during a period of deep personal torment, the work expresses the poet's fall from a state of innocence and love into a cruel, almost nightmare reality of anguish and solitude. Cernuda apparently suffered some profound disillusionment just prior to writing the book,¹ and feeling overcome by a sense of impotence, tedium, and a longing to escape the harshness of the world, he sought...