[2] His fame has since declined, and he is now little read; but he remains an important figure as the greatest poet to have written in the Murcian dialect.

His mother was a dressmaker; his father, Juan de Dios Medina, was a small businessman who was known for his love of literature and the arts.

After a spell in the army – including a period in the Philippines, where his first poems were composed – he returned in 1890 to the Murcia region and settled in the port city of Cartagena, where he found work with a publishing house that ran two local newspapers.

It was very well received by national critics and also by writers such as Miguel de Unamuno and Clarín,[3] and the response encouraged him to explore the possibilities of dialect literature further.

Medina gathered the series of poems that he had composed in preparation for El Rento and released them as Aires murcianos, which would become his most famous and successful work.