Text of review of Maria Victoria Atencia, Legend of Myself , trans. Roberta Ann Quance (original) (raw)
Related papers
“Juan Ramón Jiménez: Piecing Together a Poetic Identity”
Apuntes Hispánicos, 2003
s poetry takes his readers on a journey through the inner landscapes of his consciousness on the road to his becoming. Turning his poetic focus away from the distractions of external reality, he creates a new self-referential universe that gives form to the nature of his soul. 1 He explicitly articulates his desire to give poetic form to his soul in the Eternidades when he comments in poem 2 of the collection: "mi alma ha de volver a hacer/ el mundo como mi alma (307)." 2 Although Jiménez attempts to retreat inward in order to create his own private universe, the external world influences his poetic vision. It is precisely the clash between these two forces, the internal universe and the external world, that shapes his poetry and that simultaneously fragments the poetic self and the poet's coming to consciousness. In what follows, I intend to explore the inner landscapes of the collection of poems of Estío, the Díario and Eternidades in order to examine the fragmentation of the poetic self that dominates the poetic voice (s) within these collections. 3
De 1905, fecha en la que Manuel Altolaguirre nació en Málaga, hasta 1959, fecha de su muerte, cuando regrasaba hacia Madrid, tras presentar su película El cantar de los cantares en el Festival de Cine de San Sebastian, toda una vida plena, inmersa en uno de los momentos más cruciales de la literatura y la historia del siglo XX. Altolaguirre vivió todos los cambios políticos y sociales que tuvieron lugar en España en el primer tercio de siglo, marcados por la confrontación entre la pervivencia del "antiguo régimen" y la emergencia de la conciencia demócrata y solidaria asumida ya en Europa. Vivió el auge de las vanguardias artísticas que ya imperaban en ésta, y el periodo de efervescencia regeneradora que venía teniendo lugar en España.Perteneciente a la más joven de las tres generaciones que elevaron la cultura española a un "nuevo Siglo de Oro", la del 98 (Antonio Machado, Unamuno...), la del 14 (Ortega y Gasset, Juan Ramón Jiménez...) y la del 27 (García Lorca, Alberti, Cernuda...), fue miembro aglutinante y decisivo de esta última, primero desde su Málaga natal, ya desde 1923, junto a otros poetas malagueños, con la revista Ambos, embrión de la emblemática Litoral, editada junto a Emilio Prados, que llegaría a traspasar las fronteras del exilio, y del tiempo. Pero no acabó aquí su empresa fundacional: con sus colecciones y revistas posteriores (Málaga, París, Madrid, Londres, La Habana, México), como impresor en solitario, dio cauce permanente a la expresión de los integrantes del grupo y a la de los jóvenes poetas que emergían. Cultivó todos los géneros: poesía, prosa poética, teatro, biografía, ensayo, guión cinematográfico... Poeta innato, si su tarea múltiple y su entrega a la obra ajena y la cultura en general, hicieron reducir el número de versos que nos legó, consiguió, sobre ello, ofrecernos, en su quintaesenciada obra poética, un universo coherente y profundo, lleno de verdad y de belleza, que merece ser considerado como uno de los más auténticos y originales de la literatura contemporánea.
Language and Consciousness in the poetry of the "Novisimos": Guillermo Carnero's Latest Poetry
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, 1992
Guillermo Carnero's latest book of poetry, Divisibilidad indefinida, has recently appeared in Spain. In it, the reader witnesses, on the one hand, the reaffirmation of the poetic of the "novisimos": a self-conscious use of language, the presence of "culturalism," a distancing of language, a doubling of the poetic persona. On the other hand, the book reveals an effort to encompass a more complete perspective of poetic reality. The combative attitude of the first decade of the "novisimos" having been left behind, Carnero now develops his poetry in Divisibilidad indefinida by bringing it nearer to human life, although without renouncing the aesthetic imperatives indicated by his earlier work of Ensayo de una teoria de la visión.
Translating the Unknown: observations on Emilio Villa's poetry
My article, entitled Translating the Unknown, will briefly analyse the main characteristics of Emilio Villa's writing, translating extracted parts from two different poems. I will show the difficulties to understand and therefore translate the complex texts of Villa, with their constant semantic, visual and phonetics provocations. The author aimed to create a ‘new artistic speech’ and he tried to ‘regenerate the word’, deforming and associating different idioms, modern and ancient at the same time. In his poetry we can find his passion for etymologies (and for the origin of our culture), and the interest in continuing the experimental work of the avant-gardes, such as Joyce, Artaud, Duchamp. The approach to Villa’s poems can be difficult and discouraging at the beginning but, as in Joyce’s works, it later reveals pages full of potential, alive and even fun for the irony always present. His interdisciplinary poetry interacts with visual arts, anthropology, religions and mythology, and it was until the end a constant creative experimentation. For these reasons, I consider important to translate Villa, or try to do it, opening a productive platform of discussion.
Esta edición consta de dos partes, la parte introductoria y la antología poética del autor. La primera esta compuesta de un ensayo titulado "José Moreno Villa o el destino de precursor" (pp. 11-63) y de un apéndice bibliográfico (pp. 65-74)". Tras esta primera parte se ofrece una antología de todos sus libros de poemas, cotejando variantes con la antología, "La música que llevaba", que en 1949 ofreció el propio autor. El ensayo introductorio se enfoca de manera cronológica, atendiendo a su vida, formación, personalidad creadora, actividad social y política, etc., enmarcando cada uno de sus libros poéticos en este engranaje que va conformando de manera decisiva su poesía. Ofrezco un estudio pormenorizado y crítico de cada uno de estos libros, destacando lo que su obra tiene de precursora con respecto a la de autores coetáneos y a generaciones poéticas posteriores.
De la nueva luz: en torno a la poesía última de Juan Ramón Jiménez (review)
Hispanic Review, 2012
De la nueva luz approaches the late poetry of Juan Ramó n Jiménez from several angles, critical, biographical, and comparative. The ten chapters comprising this book were written on separate occasions, and seven of them were published separately in shorter versions. The first section of the book, ''Hacia otra desnudez,'' approaches Juan Ramó n's poetry and life on their own terms, while the second, ''Afinidades e influencias,'' employs a comparative method, relating the poet to other significant figures, including his wife Zenobia Camprubí. Given the way in which this book has taken shape, there are some unnecessary repetitions of ideas and textual examples, but these are minor distractions in an otherwise wellconceived book. There is no question that Professor Juliá, the author and editor of previous volumes on Juan Ramó n, is in a position to speak with authority about his poetic achievement. Her erudition and her admiration for the poet are evident on virtually every page of the book, as she strives to defend him against certain persistent misconceptions or caricatures of his personality. She is particularly anxious to remove Juan Ramó n from his ivory tower, emphasizing his engagement with the outside world during his exile years. At the same time, she never denies that he was also a difficult individual whose conduct often alienated others. The author writes with admirable clarity and concision throughout, making this j 329