The Republic launched educational and cultural projects such as La Barraca, Lorca’s traveling theater, which took classical Spanish plays to the most remote villages of the country; and the Misiones Pedagógicas, a major educational initiative of the new Republican government aiming at bringing culture and education to distant areas of Spain.

Cernuda joined this second project. At first, his job at the Misiones’ headquarters in Madrid was to collect books to provide all schools with a library with the classics of Spanish and world literature. However, in 1932 he decided to join a group of "missionaries" of the Museo del Pueblo, which took to the villages some copies of famous paintings at the Prado Museum made by Ramón Gaya, Juan Bonafé and Eduardo Vicente. He went to Burgohondo, in Ávila (July 1932); Cifuentes, Guadalajara (November 1932); Pedraza in Segovia (January 1933), Toledo (April 1933), Nava de Asunción, Coca and Cuéllar in Segovia (December 1933), Teruel (May 1934); Aracena, Ayamonte and Isla Cristina in Huelva (summer 1934), and Ronda, in Malaga (September 1934).

However, if the Misiones Pedagógicas gave Cernuda the opportunity to deepen his knowledge of Spanish classical painting, they also made him aware of the poor state in which his country had been submerged for centuries. This experience opened his eyes to the sad conditions and the cultural poverty of the majority of the Spanish population.

No wonder he reacted with anger and his ideological attitude underwent a remarkable change, becoming revolutionary, though not fully Marxist. He published a statement entitled “Los que se incorporan” in October, Rafael Alberti’s periodical. In this note, Cernuda expressed his rejection of modern capitalist society. However, a careful reading of the text reveals that perhaps Cernuda did not have a clear idea of what communism meant in terms of economic and social organization. Judging by his statement, the only thing that interested him at that time was to destroy the existing capitalist system, so that man could return to a life entirely natural, free of any law or social code that could corrupt his spirit. Rather than seeking the material progress of man, Cernuda's interest was to achieve his spiritual liberation.

Meanwhile, between 1932 and 1933, Cernuda published in Héroe the first poems of his next series, [,] Donde habite el olvido, which appeared as a book at the end of 1934. Poets Manuel Altolaguirre and Concha Méndez, editors of Héroe, published his brief anthology, La invitación a la poesía, in March 1933.

Cernuda’s journeys with the Misiones Pedagógicas in Andalusia between 1933 and 1934, and his friendship with Bernabé Fernández-Canivell, Emilio Prados, Miguel Prieto, and the brothers Darío and Gerardo Carmona gave birth to a new series of poems. Their subject was the sea:

Therefore, by 1935, Cernuda had embraced Andalusian romanticism. His essays “Bécquer y el romanticismo español,” and “Divagación sobre la Andalucía romántica,” published in Jose Bergamín’s periodical, Cruz y Raya, were the result of this new adventure.  His interest in romanticism began when he read Bécquer and matured when he discovered the poetry of the English romantic poets Byron, Shelley, and Blake. However, the most decisive influence during this period came from German poet, Friedrich Hölderlin, evident in the poems “Himno a la tristeza” and “A la tristeza de los dioses,” both included in Invocaciones.

After Perfil del aire, Cernuda had only published Donde habite el olvido. He had four unpublished works: “Égloga, elegía y oda,” “Un río, un amor,” Los placeres prohibidos”and “Invocaciones.” In April 1936, after preparing a revised version of Perfil del aire - thereafter known as “Primeras poesías”- Cernuda collected his poems in a volume entitled La realidad y el deseo. Poets and critics such as Juan Ramón Jiménez, Pedro Salinas, Arturo Serrano Plaja and Manuel Altolaguirre received the book with high praise. But in the tribute from poets of his generation in a coffee shop on Botoneras St., in Madrid, on April 19, none spoke with more enthusiasm or more poetic insight than Federico García Lorca: «La realidad y el deseo me ha convencido con su perfección poética sin mácula, con su amorosa agonía encadenada, con su ira y sus piedras de sombra. Libro delicado y terrible al mismo tiempo, como un clave pálido que manara hilos de sangre por el temblor de cada cuerda» 6 .

The publication of La realidad y el deseo should have confirmed Cernuda as one of the greatest poets of his generation. However, history decided otherwise: in July 1936, the civil war broke out, ending, abruptly and violently, a period in the life of a whole generation. Whether or not anyone read Cernuda's poetry was something of little importance given the dramatic events facing the country.