Bécquer's influence on 20th-century poets of the Spanish language can be felt in the works of Luis Cernuda, Octavio Paz, Giannina Braschi, Antonio Machado, and Juan Ramón Jiménez.

His father, José Domínguez Bécquer, who descended from an originally-Flemish family established in the Andalusian capital in the 16th century that was well respected in the city, was a painter of relatively good repute in his native town.

It was also with Campillo that Bécquer began to show his literary vocation, as the two boys started writing while sharing time at San Telmo.

However, she wanted Gustavo to have a profession, so in 1850 she got him admitted as a pupil into the studio of Don Antonio Cabral Bejarano, at the Santa Isabel de Hungría school.

Studying the art of drawing did not distract Gustavo from his passion for poetry; furthermore, his uncle Joaquin paid for his Latin classes, which brought him closer to his beloved Horace, one of his earliest influences.

Joaquin also noticed the great aptitude of his nephew for words, and encouraged him to pursue writing as a career, contrary to the designs of Doña Manuela, with whom Gustavo was still living at the time.

Along with his friends Narciso Campillo and Julio Nombela, both poets also, they had dreamed of moving to Madrid together and selling their poetry for good money, though reality proved to be quite different.

After long arguments over the trip with Doña Manuela, who resisted the idea, Bécquer finally left for Madrid in October of that same year, alone and quite poor, except for the little money that his uncle provided for him.

Before this tragic sickness took his life away, Bécquer asked his good friend, Augusto Ferrán, also a poet, to burn all his letters and publish his poems instead, since he thought once he was dead, his work would be more valuable.

It was also during this period that he would meet the young Cuban poet Rodríguez Correa, who would later play a major role in collecting his works for posthumous publication.

Shortly after, he met by chance a girl by the name of Julia Espín, with whom he fell deeply in love, and who also served as an inspiration for much of his romantic poetry.

Around 1860, Rodríguez Correa found Bécquer a government position, from where he was fired shortly after for spending his time writing and drawing while on the job.

He had also been appointed to a government post, fiscal de novelas (supervisor attorney for novels and published literature) by his friend, patron and benefactor, founder of both newspapers El Contemporáneo and Los Tiempos, former President of Spain, and the then Spanish Minister of Home Affairs, Luis González Bravo.

During this period, the poet concentrated on finishing his compilations of poems Rimas (Rhymes) and Libro de los gorriones (Book of the Sparrows), so he did not publish a great deal of his works.

Here, he started re-writing the book that had gone missing, due to his loyal benefactor Luis González Bravo's forced exile to France the year before.

With the sole purpose of putting bread on the table, Bécquer went back to writing for El museo universal, and then left to take the job of literary director of a new artistic magazine called La ilustración de Madrid.

Around this time, between 1868 and 1869, the two brothers published a book of satiric and erotic illustrations under a pseudonym, which humorously critiqued the life of royalty in Spain, called Los Borbones en pelotas.

After publishing a few short works in the magazine, the poet also became gravely ill and died in poverty in Madrid, on December 22, almost three months after his beloved brother.

After his death, his friend Rodríguez Correa, with the collaboration of Campillo, Nombela, and Augusto Ferrán, collected and organized his manuscripts for publication, as a way to help the widow and children of the poet.

His work is unfinished and unequal, but it is singularly free from the rhetoric characteristic of his native Andalusia and, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, its lyrical ardor is of a beautiful sweetness and sincerity.

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.

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.

Some depict supernatural and semi-religious (Christian) events, like The Mount of the Souls, The Green Eyes, The Rose of the Passion (a blood libel) with references to the Holy Child of La Guardia and The miserere (a religious song).