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I I 72-23,352 SEGADE, Gustav Valentin, 1936CENTRAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICAN POETIC THEORY. [Portions of Text in Spanish]. The University of Arizona, Ph.D., 1972 Language and Literature, modern

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THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVE).

CENTRAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICAN POETIC THEORY

by Gustav Valentin Segade

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN SPANISH In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

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Gustav Valentin Seeade Central Issues in Contemporary Latin American Poetic Theory

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ABSTRACT

v

INTRODUCTION

1

THE ESTHETIC OF VICENTE HUIDOBRO

18

THE VANGUARDIA AND THE RISE OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICE

53

JAiME TORRES BODET AND JOSE GOROSTIZA: THE RECOGNITION OF LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

96

THE POETICS OF OCTAVIO PAZ: ESTHETIC

A CONTEMPORARY 120

CONCLUSIONS

141

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

145

iv

ABSTRACT This study analyzes representative writings that reflect main trends in the poetics of contemporary Latin America.

In the course of this examination, central

issues of the poetics of' contemporary Latin Americans are delineated and clarified. Traditional European values, grounded in NeoPlatonic and Judeo-Christian views, of reality, have given way to materialistic value systems which in turn elaborate "scientific" or Marxist analyses of reality.

Esthetic

theorists, following the culturally-engrained viewpoint of the West, have felt that they must side with one or the other aspect of conflicting realities:

spirit or matter,

being or becoming,, emotion or reason, romanticism or neoclassicism.

Latin America is turning to ancient American

and traditional Oriental answers to the European dilemma. In the pre- and post-World War I eras, Vicente Huidobro attempts a scientific account of the creative process.

He synthesizes many of the trends of the French

avant-garde into the esthetic he calls creacion-ismo.

At

the same time, in other writings, he advocates the ideal of poetry as a spiritual absolute.

Caught in the struggle

between spirit and matter, Huidobro attempts a

vi chronologically linear dialectic according to the Hegelian-Marxist formula. In the Latin America of the 1920s and 1930s, Huidobro is not alone.

Manifestoes, articles, and

creative works are published that reflect the many atti­ tudes and the "answers" to the issues that each author elaborates.

Anti-traditionalism is the common element

which permits us to label the theories vanguardista.

Such

writers as Jose Carlos Mariategui and Juan Marin advocate the materialistic Marxist pole of the ideological battle. Others, like Gonzalo Escudero Moscoso, feel that ultimate reality is spiritual, and that the goal of the esthetic quest is absolute beauty. Out of this conflict there develops an over­ powering need for reconciliation and wholeness.

Francisco

Ichaso and Andres Henestrosa turn away from the ancient conflict and begin the search for an American cultural ana artistic voice.

The question is not how the European echo

can be erased from the Latin American voice, but rather, what part Europe will sing in the new Latin American polyphony. In post-Revolutionary Mexico, the "Contemporaneos," led by Jaime Torres Bodet, court European acceptance of Mexico into "civilized" world culture.

Torres Bodet sees

Latin American literature as a spiritual and emotional

vii bulwark against the European materialists' "dehumanization" of art.

Jose Gorostiza's Muerte sin fin is one of

the great existential statements of contemporary poetry. Taken together, the "Contemporaneos" mark the coming of age of Latin American letters according to Western European standards. Octavio Paz, grounded in ancient Mexican and traditional Oriental views of reality, moves the worldwide discussion of esthetics toward a more inclusive and mature point of view.

Concepts central to his esthetics are his

dualistic vision of reality, the bipolar dependence of rhythm and thought in language, the image as the defini­ tive poetic unit, the poem as an instant of archetypal time, and the sacred function of poetry.

As seen in El

arco £ la lira, for Paz, poetry is the process of creating mythic time-space by means of the image-structuring of the thought-rhythm of language.

Poetry is one way in which

man creates meaning, consecrates the instant, and experiences the sacred.

INTRODUCTION The poetry of Latin America in the twentieth century has been heavily influenced by consciously expressed esthetic theories.

This study proposes to

analyze representative writings, both prose and poetry, that reflect these tendencies.

In the course of this

examination an attempt will be made to delineate and • clarify the central issues of contemporary Latin American poetic theory. The maturation of scientific materialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries questioned the traditional metaphysical bases of European cultural values.

These values, rooted in Neo-Platonic and Judeo-

Christian traditions, had appealed to some higher spiritual reality for their authority.

The successful

scientific manipulation of matter in process began making such an appeal seem increasingly irrelevant.

Thus, it has

become necessary to re-explore the foundations of Western Civilization. In the field of esthetics, the re-exploration gave rise to an artistic avant-garde.

The works of Vicente

Huidobro contain an early manifestation of representative avant-garde literary thought in Latin America.

Other

Latin American writers became engaged in theorizing, criticizing, and debating about what came to be called the arte nuevo.

The discussion was carried on in the pages of

the Latin American revista.

The dialogue reflected the

breakdown in traditional European values, in that the writers can be divided into two general classifications: those who advocated the embracing of scientific material­ ism, and those who attempted to salvage some part of the Western European spiritual heritage.

In the midst of this

often acrimonious polemic, the question of a Latin American esthetic identity, a Latin American voice, became increasingly important.

Writing after the Mexican

Revolution, Jaime Torres Bodet and Jose Gorostiza reflected further important developments in the search for Latin American esthetic foundations.

Finally, in the work

of Octavio Paz, one finds the full play of contemporary esthetic theory realized in its most creative manifesta­ tions. Contemporary Latin American art is not an eclectic synthesis.

Nor is it a "melting pot" in which a unified

plastic esthetic is being concocted.

It is, rather, a

rich pluralism of tradition and experience in which the various elements are respected and cherished for their own individuality.

Two of the major elements in this plural­

ism are the literary traditions of Western Europe and

Pre-Conquest America.

Of increasing importance is a

growing awareness of the rich cultural heritage of the Orient. The Far East, Africa, Oceania, and Pre-Conquest America have been fabled lands of the spirit from which the contemporary artist-explorer has returned treasureladen.

Although the native American tradition was

overpowered by the Conquest and virtually ignored for nearly four hundred years, modern Latin American writers . in search of forms and modes of expression significant to our times have turned to the ancient literature of this continent.

In the poems of Nahuatl-speaking America, the

modern artist has discovered a profoundly religious aware­ ness of the human condition.

As Octavio Paz points out in

El arco % la lira: Como todas las artes de las llamadas "civilizaciones ritualistas", el azteca es un arte religioso. La sociedad azteca esta sumergida en la atmdsfera, alternativemente sombrxa y luminosa, de lo sagrado. Todos los actos estan impregnados de religion. El Estado mismo es expresion suya. ... La vida publica y la privada son caras de una misma corriente vital, no mundos separados. Morir o nacer, ir a la guerra o a una fiesta, son hechos religiosos. ... Y hay m^s: el arte azteca es, literalmente, religion. (1967b, pp. 288-89) Like that of native America, the European tradi­ tion began as religious expression.

The fact that Europe

was able to fend off As-iatic and African invaders, and that it then became the conqueror of the Americas,

permitted a self-determined development which is pervasive from Pindar to the present.

In the pre-Aristotelian

poetics of Pindar, the gods are considered the ultimate source of poetic inspiration.

The poet is, for Pindar, a

divinely selected prophet: . . . There are many sharp shafts in the quiver under the crook of my arm. They speak to the understanding; most men need interpreters. The wise man knows many things in his blood; the vulgar are taught. . They will say anything. They clatter vainly like crows > against the sacred bird of Zeus. Come, my heart, strain the bow to the mark now.... (Lattimore 1947, pp. 7-8) The arrow in Olympian mythology is associated with Apollo, who is the god of light, and therefore, of conscious understanding.

The "many sharp shafts" in Pindar's quiver

"speak to the understanding."

There are "many things"

that the wise man knows "in his blood."

But, "most men

need interpreters," that is, the majority of people need the vaticinal powers of the poet to help them hear and understand the words of the gods. To the native American, poetry, called "flower and song," originated with the gods and constituted the only truth that man could tell about them. says: .In truth no one is intimate with You,

An anonymous poet

oh Giver of Life! Only as among the flowers we might seek someone, thus we seek You, we who live on earth, we who are at Your side. (Leon Portilla 1969, p. 68) The two traditions are alike in their acknowledgment of the sacred character of poetry. more subtle.

Their differences are

In the above verse the poet seeks knowledge

of the gods in the nature he experiences: poetry.

flowers and

His tradition does not separate the flower that

grows in the earth from the poem that grows in his heart. Truth is not given. experienced.

It grows from within him and can be

For Pindar, the truth is a donum dei, an

object which he puts before people who cannot experience it immediately.

Pindar sees himself as "the sacred bird

of Zeus," implying that he is intimate with the gods.

The

anonymous American says that no one can be intimate with the gods.

We who live on earth live at the side of them.

We live a separate reality. The fundamental difference between these two points of view has far-reaching implications.

If

knowledge comes to man from outside himself and nature, if the poet is a medium chosen of the gods, then only the elect can write poetry.

If, on the other hand, knowledge

is "within the heart," that is, within the individual, inseparable from the rest of nature, then the gods do not

inspire or elect the poet. search of truth.

He is simply a human being in

He knows that he can experience that

truth immediately, either in the objective reality of the flower, in the subjective reality of. his heart, or in the undivided instant of the poem.

As Netzahualcoyotl,

fifteenth-century king of Texcoco, says: At last my heart knows; for now I hear a song, I contemplate, a flower which will not wither! (Le6n Portilia 1969, p. 88) For Netzahualcoyotl poetry was the one gift which might possibly ascend to the place of immortality: They shall not wither, my flowers, they shall not cease, my songs. I, the singer, lift them up. They are scattered, they spread about. Even though on earth my flowers may wither and yellow, they will be carried th.ere, to the innermost house of the bird with the golden feathers. (Leon Portilla 1969, p. 89) Here, the poem, though it may fade even from the world of man, is projected into the realm of immortality. claim is made for the poet himself.

No such

The "innermost house

of the bird with the golden feathers" is not the heavenly home of man.

The native American ambivalence concerning

the question of immortality is poignantly expressed by the Huexotzincoan elder, Ayocuan. Will I have to go like the flowers that perish? Will nothing remain of my name? Nothing of my fame here on earth?

7 At least my flowers, at least my songs! Earth is the region of the fleeting moment. Is it also thus in the place where in some way one lives? Is there joy there, is there friendship? Or is it only here on earth we come to know our faces? (Leon Portilla 1969, pp. 81-82) This native American ambivalence contrasts strongly with the traditional Western view of the rela­ tionship of the poet to the poem, and immortality.

In

speaking of the immortality of poetry, Horace quite clearly stakes his claim: My record is more lasting than grav'd brass, And loftier than the regal pyramids, Safe from the touch of biting rain, beyond The blast's mad fury; and unnumber'd years Shall in their flight sweep over it in vain. I shall not perish; much will 'scape the tomb, And ever young my fame will grow with time, Long as the Pontifex and Silent Maid Shall go together up the Capitol. Of me 'twill run "By sounding Aufidus, Where erst King Daunus in a thirsty land Sway'd a rude people, there from low estate, Sprang the first master of Aeolian song In native numbers." Rise, Melpomene, Anticipate thy need of glorious praise, And wreathe with Delphic bay thy poet's brow. (Guinagh and Dorjahn 1952, p. 444) For Netzahualcoyotl's "flowers" that "shall not wither" and "songs" that "shall not cease," Horace erects a monument "more lasting than grav'd brass, / And loftier than the regal pyramids."

To Ayocuan's questions, "Will

I have to go like the flowers that perish? / Will nothing remain of my name?" Horace answers "I shall not perish." The poems of the West are everlasting because they will be

remembered in linear time.

The poems of native America

may last forever because they may be worthy of existence outside of time, in "the place / where in some way one lives" after death. At this point, it seems possible to state three important characteristics of native American esthetics. First, and foremost, the art of Pre-Conquest America was religious.

Second, knowledge of the divine could be

experienced in "flower and song."

Third, the native

American's ambivalence toward the afterlife, and his certainty that all that is of this world must perish, led him to seek immortality for his poems, not in the memory of man, but in that other reality, the realm of eternity itself.

Thus, the act of composing poetry was a sacred

act, and the poem composed, a sacred object. With the conquest of the "New World" by the adventurers of Renaissance Spain, the development of native American literature was driven underground.

There­

after, the literary traditions of Western Europe became those of Latin America.

From the Renaissance to the end

of the nineteenth century, the literature of Europe and the Americas was dominated by the twin spirits of neoclassicism and romanticism.

These two conventions are a

reflection of the larger metaphysical conflict that has dominated European thought, namely, the clash between

spirit and matter.

In order to appreciate these twin

demons, it is useful to examine their origins in the classical world of Plato and Aristotle.

In The Republic,

Plato says: Your lovers of sights and sounds delight in beautiful tones and colours and shapes and in all the works of art into which these enter; but they have not the power of thought to behold and to take delight in the nature of Beauty itself. That power to approach Beauty and behold it as it is in itself, is rare indeed. Quite true. Now if a man believes in the existence of beautiful things, but not of Beauty itself, and cannot follow a guide who would lead him to a knowledge of it, is he not living in a dream? Consider: does not dreaming, whether one is awake or asleep, consist in mistaking a semblance for the reality it resembles?

For, besides producing any kind of artificial thing, this same craftsman can create all plants and animals, himself included, and earth and sky and gods and the heavenly bodies and all the things under the earth in Hades. That sounds like a miraculous feat of vir- . tuosity. Are you incredulous? Tell me, do you think there could be no such craftsman at all, or that there might be someone who could create all these things in one sense, though not in another? Do you not see that you could do it yourself, in a way? In what way, I should like to know. There is no difficulty; in fact there are several.ways in which the thing can be done quite quickly. The quickest perhaps would be to take a mirror and turn it round in all directions. In a

10 very short time you could produce sun and stars and earth and yourself and all the other animals and plants and lifeless objects which we mentioned just now. Yes, in appearance, but not the actual things. Quite so; you are helping out my argument. My notion is that a painter is a craftsman of that kind. You may say that the things he produces are not real; but there is a sense in which he too does produce a bed. Yes, the appearance of one. . . . And we may call the carpenter the manu­ facturer of a bed? Yes. Can we say the same of the painter? Certainly not. Then what is he, with reference to a bed? I think it would be fairest to describe him as the artist who represents the things which the other two make. Very well, said I; so the work of the artist is at the third remove from the essential nature of the thing? Exactly. The tragic poet, too, is an artist who repre­ sents things; so this will apply to him: he and all other artists are, as it were, third in succession from the throne of truth. Just so. (Cornford 1945, pp. 183, 325-27) Clearly, Plato subordinates esthetics to metaphysics. Because the artist does not grasp the ultimate reality of pure Form, he can have no important place in Plato's

11 idealistic society.

Because he reproduces the appearance

of mere appearances, his product is thrice removed from reality. For Aristotle, it is this very reproduction of appearances, this imitation of the material world, that constitutes the essence of esthetics: Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from one another in three respects,—the medium, the objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.

For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. (Butcher 1951, pp. 7, 27) Without attempting a history of the influence of classical Greek esthetics, it seems safe to assert that the metaphysical division between spirit and matter has pervaded Western thought in every age: Spirit

Matter

being

becoming

the One

the Many

Platonic idealism

Aristotelian materialism

soul

body

emotion

reason

romanticism

neo-classicism

12 Spirit

Matter

religion

science

Word

word

subjective

objective

substance

form

Though both Plato and Aristotle view art as an imitation of reality, they differ in their metaphysical biases.

For

Plato, as for the romantic, ultimate reality is not of this world.

For Aristotle and the neo-classicist, it is

this world that is the object of artistic imitation. According to Luis Monguio, who has traced the poetics of representative Latin American poets from Independence to the present, Jose Joaquin Olmedo (17801847), neo-classicist of his time, would have said that what is philosophically good, that- which comes from the intellect, is what is poetically good: ... primero lo que es bueno despuds lo que es amable, y lu.ego lo que es bello. (Monguio 19 57, p. 112) The Age of Reason called for a laying aside of the chaotic unknown, the inspired, the unconscious.

Nature was to be

imitated by the intellect, applying the reasonable rules of "good taste" such as those' proposed by the interpreters of Aristotle.

Andres Bello, representative of Latin

American neo-classicism, agrees:

13 Esta es mi fe literaria. Libertad en todo; pero no veo libertad, sino embriaguez licenciosa, en las orgias de la imaginacion. ... la autoridad de la razon debe prevalecer, hasta en la poesia. (Monguio 1957, p. 112) The "freedom" of the neo-classicists is a freedom within defined boundaries: aspects of man.

those of the reasonable, nonaffective

"Imaginacion" is here synonymous with

emotion, and the Age of Reason would have none of it. To Esteban Echeverria (1805-1851), representative of Latin American romanticism, Aristotelian rules did not apply: Por ser original el poeta moderno no reconoce reglas en el sentido "aristoteiico" de la palabra porque tiene las suyas que no son otras que las eternas de la naturaleza, fuente viva e inagotable de la poesia; el poeta ... se abrevara en la viva e inagotable fuente de toda poesia: la verdad y la naturaleza. Por ello todos los poetas verdaderamente romanticos son originales y se confunden con los clasicos antiguos, que recibieron este nombre por ser moaelos de perfeccion o tipos originales. ... El verdadero poeta idealiza, embelleze, y "artiza" lo natural, lo real, a imagen y semejanza de las arquetipicas concepciones de su inteligencia. (Monguio 1957, p. 113) Romanticist and neo-classicist alike proclaim objective reality as the source to be imitated.

Both see the

conscious mind as the forge for ideas; they differ in that the romanticist would discard Aristotelian rule and add affective reasoning to the intellectual process which

14 produces poetry.

In so doing, he opens the door to the

realm of the spirit. Critics often wonder why romantic attitudes seem to prevail in the poetry of Latin America.

Perhaps part

of the answer can be found in the fact that the romantic esthetic, in insisting upon the rights of emotion, includes more human experience than does neo-classicism. The key word in neo-classical thought is "exclusive." Seeking the "best" in all things, this type of esthetic sensibility limits the "best" in njan to that which is attributable to reason.

The universe is carefully

analyzed and dissected; rules are developed to curb the chaotic "dark" side of man.

Romantic theory accepts

emotion, and, therefore, creates a more universally recognized mode of expression. Although the native American poetic tradition does not become important to Latin American poetic theory until it is revived in the twentieth century, a comparison of the native American tradition with neo-classical and romantic modes of thought may yield insights into the significance of its revival.

As previously stated, for

the ancient American, poetry was a religious experience, while for Pindar, poetry interpreted religion.

From

sacred beginnings, the poetry of the West became secu­ larized.

Native American poetic development returned to

15 a pre-literate oral tradition where it became raw material for sociologists and anthropologists.

For neo-classical

poets of the West, poetry became firmly based in reason. For the romanticist, reason had to be tempered by emotion and imagination.

For the native American, the source of

poetry is the total man, what he calls "heart and face." Reason, imagination, emotion, and experience form the indivisible sacred matrix wherein poetry is molded.

Since

he does not see himself as separate from nature, he cannot conceive of a poet who stands outside nature, imitating. Man and poetry are as much a part of nature as flower and song.

This point of view has important implications for

the contemporary Latin American poet who, like Octavio Paz, seeks precisely such an integrated approach. The impasse that developed in the battle between spirit and matter led to the near destruction of poetry by rhetorical and academic convention, and pseudoscientific philosophy.

The logical positivism of the

nineteenth century, for instance, affected Latin Americans in particular.

If the conscious mind of an individual is

to be expressed, he must attempt to gain an understanding of the time and space in which he lives.

Logical

positivism told the Latin American mestizo that "civiliza­ tion" and "culture" were European, and that "savagery" and "barbarism" were indigenous to America.

The "White"

16 aspects of the Latin American were good, the native American and Black were not.

That which was neo-classical

or romantic was at least respectable in its sources. which was personal, of the mestizo self, was not.

That

When

the chaos of Europe exploded in Latin America in Mexico in 1910, the experience of cultural breakdown in the actuality of war and revolution forced an even deeper urgency for self identification upon Latin Americans. This acuity is reflected in the pages of the revista, and in the works of Jaime Torres Bodet and Jose Gorostiza. Vicente Huidobro witnessed the breakdown in European cultural values marked by the cataclysm of World War I.

In the twentieth century, what was considered to

be man's nature, and the nature of the universe, has had to be reconsidered.

Reason, embodied in scientific

progress, was supposed to lead mankind to greater heights of civilization.

Instead, it has guided man to the

development and use of unbelievably destructive powers. An inadequate set of cultural values has permitted him to unchain a nationalistic emotionalism that has destroyed more human beings than ever before.

Thus, the figure of

twentieth century man, armed with the limitless physical power of scientific materialism, and guided by the flickering light of an almost extinguished spiritual flame, threatens to destroy the natural world.

In times

17

of great universal crisis man seems to understand that radical approaches must be taken if solutions are to be found.

Our time is that kind of time.

means just that:

affecting all men, in all areas of

endeavor, in all places in the world. excluded.

Universal crisis

Poetry is not

The most profound metaphysical, ethical,

epistemological, and esthetic questions have had to be asked again, and the poet and the critic have not accepted the old answers; they cannot.

This turmoil is clearly

reflected in the pages of the Latin American revista.

THE ESTHETIC OF VICENTE HUIDOBRO Acutely aware of the state of contemporary Euro­ pean civilization, Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948) was impelled to rebel against the stifling demands of the ageold view of art as an imitation of nature.

He hurled his

Non serviam in the faces of neo-classicists and romanti­ cists alike: NON SERVIAM Y he aqui que una buena manana, despues de una nbche de preciosos suenos y delicadas pesadillas, el poeta se levanta y grita a la madre Natura: Non serviam. Con toda la fuerza de sus pulmones, un eco traductor y optimista repite en las lejanias: "No te servir€." La madre Natura iba ya a fulminar al joven poeta rebelde, cuando £ste, quitandose el sombrero y haciendo un gracioso gesto, exclamo: "Eres una viej ecita encantadora." Ese non serviam qued6 grabado'en una manana de la historia del mundo. No era un grito caprichoso, no era un acto de rebeldia super­ ficial. Era el resultado de toda una evolucion, la suma de multiples experiencias. El poeta, en plena conciencia de su pasado y de su futuro, lanzaba al mundo la declaracion de su independencia frente a la Naturaleza. Ya no quiere servirla' mas en calidad de esclavo. El poeta dice a sus hermanos: "Hasta ahora no hemos hecho otra cosa que imitar al mundo en

18

sus aspectos, no hemos creado nada. £Que ha salido de nosotros que no estuviera antes parado ante nosotros, rodeando nuestros ojos, desafiando nuestros pies o nuestras manos? Hemos cantado a la Naturaleza (cosa que a ella bien poco le importa). Nunca hemos creado realidades propias, como ella lo hace o lo hizo en tiempos pasados, cuando era joven y llena de impulsos creadores. Hemos aceptado, sin mayor reflexion, el hecho de que no puede haber otras realidades que las que nos rodean, y no hemos pensado que nosotros tambiSn podemos crear realidades en un mundo nuestro, en un mundo que espera su fauna y su flora propias. Flora y fauna que solo el poeta puede crear, por ese don especial que le dio la misma madre Naturaleza a el y unicamente a el." Non serviam. No he de ser tu esclavo, madre Natura; sere tu amo. Te serviras de m£; esta bien. No quiero y no puedo evitarlo; pero yo tambi£n me servire de ti. Yo tendre mis arboles que no serein como los tuyos, tendre mis montanas, tendr£ mis r£os y mis mares, tendre mi cielo y mis estrellas. Y ya no podrcls decirme: "Este Urbol estci mal, no me gusta ese cielo ... , los m£os son mejores." Yo te respondere que mis cielos y mis arboles son los m£os y no los tuyos y que no tienen por qu£ parecerse. Ya no podras aplastar a nadie con tus pretensiones exageradas de vieja chocha y regalona. Ya nos escapamos de tu trampa. Adi6s, viejecita encantadora; adi6s, madre y madrastra, no reniego ni te maldigo por los anos de esclavitud a tu servicio. Ellos fueron la mas preciosa ensenanza. Lo unico que deseo es no olvidar nunca tus lecciones, pero ya tengo edad para andar solo por estos mundos. Por los tuyos y por los m£os. Una nueva era comienza. A1 abrir sus puertas de jaspe, hinco una rodilla en la tierra y te saludo muy respetuosamente. (Huidobro 1964, pp. 653-54)

20 Huidobro's hail and farewell to Mother Nature is also his farewell to the neo-classical and romantic traditions.

To

the traditional assumption that poetry is an imitation of nature, the echo of Huidobro's voice.answers, "No te servirS.11

Huidobro's refusal to imitate nature is not a

capricious or a superficial rebellion, but is the result of the poet's awareness evolving through his experience of the tradition in his time.

In a world of accelerating

technological proliferation, nature seems increasingly remote and passive.

The scientist and the technician are

"conquering" nature and constantly adding to objective reality's inventory of things.

In such a world, the poet

cannot tolerate his old, slavish dependency on this Mother Nature who has become a weak sister.

Huidobro, for one,

cannot: Non serviam. No he de ser tu esclavo, madre Natura; sere tu amo. Te serviras de mi; esta bien. No quiero y no puedo evitarlo; pero yo tambien me servire de ti. Yo tendre mis arboles que no seran como los tuyos, tendre mis montanas, tendre mis r£os y mis mares, tendre mi cielo y mis estrellas. (p. 653) Huidobro's answer to the specific neo-classical demand for a poetry of the rationally selected "best" is: Y ya no podras decirme: "Este arbol esta mal, no me gusta ese cielo ... , los mios son mejores." Yo te respondere que mis cielos y mis arboles son los m£os y no los tuyos y que no tienen por que parecerse. Ya no podras aplastar a nadie con

21 tus pretensiones exageradas de vieja chocha y regalona. Ya nos escapamos de tu- trampa. (pp. 653-54) The young Chilean proposes to substitute the externalized subjective reality of the poet for the objective reality demanded by neo-classical reason. Confronted with a romantic natural world patheti­ cally infused with the emotions of human kind, Huidobro parenthetically offers a view of nature which would be acceptable to the modern physicist:

"Hemos cantado a la

Naturaleza (cosa que a ella bien poco le importa)" (p. 653).

Then, while retaining the romantic insistence

upon the poetic value of imagination and emotion, which he displays in this essay itself, Huidobro, by rejecting the assumption that all art is imitation, takes a step beyond the narrow sensibilities of the nineteenth century into the accelerated world of contemporary man: El poeta dice a sus hermanos: "Hasta ahora no hemos hecho otra cosa que imitar al mundo en susaspectos, no hemos creado nada. iQue ha salido de nosotros que no estuviera antes parado ante nosotros, rodeando nuestros ojos, desafiando nuestros pies o nuestras manos?" (p. 653) To imitate nature is not enough.

The twentieth century

poet must add something to the totality of objective reality.

This adding to nature is the essence of

Huidobro1s esthetic.

22 This esthetic came to be called creacionismo: Pero fue en el Ateneo de Buenos Aires, en una conferencia que di en junio de 1916, donde expuse plenamente la teoria. Fue alii donde se me bautiz6 como creacionista por haber dicho en mi conferencia que la primera condicion del poeta es crear; la segunda, crear, y la tercera, crear. (p. 673) According to Enrique Molina, rector of the Universidad de Concepci6n in the 1920s, the Latin American man of letters was supposed to have read certain writers and critics of universal importance:

11

... en America a

Emerson, Ricardo Rojas, Roberto F. Giusti, Jose Enrique Rod6 ... " (Molina 1926, p. 195).

In the manifesto, "El

creacionismo," Vicente Huidobro acknowledges his debt to the first thinker on Molina's list, Ralph Waldo Emerson: En mi poema Adan, que escribi durante las vacaciones de 1914 y que fue publicado en 1916, encontrareis estas frases de Emerson en el Prefacio, donde se habla de la constitucion del poema: Un pensamiento tan vivo que, como el esplritu de pranta o de un animal, tiene una arquitectura propia, adorna la naturaleza con una cosa nueva. (Huidobro 1961, pp. 672-73) Indeed, his debt to Emerson is great.

Throughout

Huidobro's works one finds, not only Transcendentalist conceptualization, but expressions and passages that are almost paraphrases of Emerson.

A complete study of the

influence of the North American philosopher on Huidobro is beyond the scope of thi's study, but a few examples may be

23 given in order to point out a part of the metaphysical background of creacionismo. In comparing two of Emerson's works, "Art," from Essays:

First Series (1841), and "The Poet," from Essays:

Second Series (1844), with Huidobro's manifestos, one finds ideas and expressions that are strikingly similar. Emerson begins the essay, "Art," by saying: Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole. This appears in works both of the useful and fine arts, if we employ the popular distinction of works according to their aim either at use or beauty. Thus, in our fine arts, not imitation but creation is the aim. (Atkinson 1940, p. 305) In this statement are the seeds of two key concepts of the creacionista esthetic:

(1) that art, like the essence

of man, is qualitatively progressive, and (2) that crea­ tion is the true aim of art.

Huidobro says:

... la primera condicidn del poeta es crear; la segunda, crear, y la tercera, crear. (1964, p. 673) El reinado de la literatura termino. El siglo veinte vera nacer el reinado de la poesza en el verdadero sentido de la palabra, es decir, en el de la creacidn .... (p. 672) Debemos crear. El hombre ya no imita. Inventa, hechos del mundo, nacidos en el seno Naturaleza, hechos nuevos nacidos en un poema, un cuadro, una estatua, un vapor, un auto, un aeroplano. ...

agrega a los de la su cabeza: barco a

Debemos crear. ... El estudio del arte a traves de la historia nos muestra claramente ese tender de la imitacion hacia la creacion en todas las realizaciones humanas. Podemos establecer una ley de Seleccion Cientifica y MeccLnica equivalente a la de Selecci6n Natural. (p. 693) In considering the timelessness of poetry, Emerson writes: For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings and attempt to write them down.

So, when the soul of the poet has come to ripeness of thought, she detaches and sends away from it its poems or songs—a fearless, sleepless, death­ less progeny, which is not exposed to the accidents of the weary kingdom of time; a fear­ less, vivacious offspring, clad with wings (such was the virtue of the soul out of which they came) which carry them fast and far, and infix them irrecoverably into the hearts of men . . . . (Atkinson 1940, pp. 322, 330) In "La poesla," Huidobro writes: La Poesla esta antes del principio del hombre y despues del hombre. Ella es el lenguaje del Paralso y el lenguaje del Juicio Final, ella ordena las ubres de la eternidad, ella es in­ tangible como el tabu del cielo. ... El poeta os tiende la mano para conduciros mas alia del ultimo horizonte, mas arriba de la punta de la piramide, en ese campo que se extiende mas alia de lo verdadero y lo falso, mas alia de la vida y de la muerte, mas alia del espacio y del tiempo, mas alia de la razon y la fantasia, mils allcL del esplritu y la materia. (1964, pp. 655-56)

25 Both consider poetry to be an ideal form, existing"before man, and eternal.

Both feel that the poet somehow flies

to a region beyond this world. In discussing poetic language, Emerson and Huidobro agree that the poet functions as the Namer of things, surprising one with the relationships he sees, creating a Whole: For as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God that makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole— re-attaching even artificial things and violation of nature, to nature, by a deeper insight— disposes very easily of the most disagreeable facts. . . . All the facts of the animal economy, sex, nutrition, gestation, birth, growth, are symbols of the passage of the world into the soul of man, to suffer there a change and reappear a new and higher fact. He uses forms according to the life, and not according to the form. This is true science. The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. ... By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer or Language-maker, naming things some­ times after their appearance, sometimes after their essencej and giving to every one its own name and not another's, thereby rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary. The poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses• • • • (Atkinson 1940, pp. 328-29) El poeta es aquel que sorprende la relacion oculta que existe entre las cosas mas lejanas, los ocultos hilos que las unen. Hay que pulsar aquellos hilos como las cuerdas de un arpa, y producir una resonancia que ponga en movimiento las dos realidades lejanas. La imagen es el broche que las une, el broche de luz. Y su poder reside en la alegrxa de la

26 revelaci6n, pues toda revelacion, todo descubrimiento produce en el hombre un estado de entusiasmo. A1 hombre le gusta que le muestren ciertos aspectos de las cosas, ciertos sentidos ocultos de los fenfimenos, o ciertas formas que, de ser mis o menos habituales, pasan a ser imprevistas, a adquirir doble importancia. Pues bien, yo digo que la imagen constituye una revelaci6n. Y mientras mis sorprendente sea esta revelaci6n, mis trascendental sera su efecto. Para el poeta creacionista sera una serie de revelaciones dadas mediante imagenes puras, sin excluir las demis revelaciones de conceptos ni el elemento misterio, la que creari aquella atm6sfera de maravilla que llamamos poema. (Huidobro 1964, p. 666) Huidobro1s preoccupation with language and the word grew out of an esthetic discussion that was general in the Latin America of his times: Dario y Lugones crelan en el concepto del vocablo como metifora, instrumento basico de la poesia. Y Lugones ademas es un antecesor de las escuelas vanguardistas de los anos de la primera posguerra en su insistencia en la metafora como el soplo vital del verso; de ah£ a declarar (lo que no hace) que el verso es solo la metafora (que es lo que hicieron casi todas las escuelas de vanguardia) va un paso. (Monguio 1957, p. 122) Huidobro ends his poem, Arte poetica, with what is probably his most famous expression, "El poeta es un pequeno Dios" (Florit 1968, p. 254).

There is some evi­

dence that he found confirmation for this view in Emerson and in the indigenous expression of his native Andes. "The Poet," Emerson says: If the imagination intoxicates the poet, it is not inactive in other men. The metamorphosis

In

27 excites in the beholder an emotion of joy. The use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for all men. We seem to be touched by a wand which makes us dance and run about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave or a cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables, oracles and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating gods. . . . . . . The poets are thus liberating gods. The ancient British bards had for the title of their order, "Those who are free throughout the world." They are free, and they make free. (Atkinson 1940, pp. 334-, 335) In "La creaci6n pura," Huidobro says: "Esta idea de • artista como creador absoluto, del Artista-Dios, me la sugiriG un viejo poeta indigena de Sudamerica (aimara) que dijo:

'El poeta es un dios; no cantes a la lluvia, poeta,

haz Hover'" (1964, p. 658).

This does not imply that

Huidobro was trying to reconcile a modern scientific view of poetry with a primitive magical view: ... A pesar de que el autor de estos versos cayo en el error de confundir al poeta con el mago y creer que el artista para aparecer como un creador debe cambiar las leyes del mundo, cuando lo que ha de hacer consiste en crear su propio mundo, paralelo e independiente de la Naturaleza. (1964, p. 658) Huidobro's visits to France, beginning in 1916, gave him a firsthand knowledge of the writers and ideas of the European avant-garde.

He is, in ifact, listed as

one of the editors of the first issue of Nord Sud, March 15, 1917, along with Guillaume Apollinaire, Pierre Reverdy, Paul Derm£e, Tristan Tzara, and Max Jacob.

Out of a matrix of influences that include the North American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, the literary preoccupations of Latin American writers such as Rub£n Dario and Leopoldo Lugones, and the contributions of the French avant-garde, Huidobro undertook the development of a systematic poetic theory that is uniquely his own. Huidobro begins 'his essay, "La creacion pura: ensayo de est£tica," with a clear statement of his inten­ tion to elaborate a scientific approach to poetry: El entusiasmo artistico de nuestra epoca y la lucha entre las diferentes concepciones individuales o colectivas resultantes de este entusiasmo, han vuelto a poner de moda los problemas esteticos, como en tiempos de Hegel y Schleiermacher. No obstante, hoy debemos exigir mayor claridad y mayor precision que las de aquella epoca, pues el lenguaje metafisico de todos los profesores de est£tica del siglo XVIII y de comienzos del XIX no tiene ningtin sentido para nosotros. Por ello debemos alejarnos lo mas posible de la metaflsica y aproximarnos cada vez mas a la filosofia cientifica. (1964, p. 656) To Vicente Huidobro, a "scientific philosophy" implied a dialectical methodology in the Hegelian tradition: The method of logic used by Hegel and adapted by Marx to his materialist philosophy: it is based on the concept of the contradiction of opposites (thesis and antithesis) and their continual resolution (synthesis). (Webster's 1958, p. 404) The assertion that a scientific account of poetry can be made constitutes Huidobro's thesis.

This thesis

29 immediately generates its implied antithesis: scientific esthetic theory.

all non-

The synthesis of these two

dialectically opposed positions is Vicente Huidobro's new esthetic ideology, creacionismo. Toward the end of this manifesto, Huidobro arrives at a definition of scientific esthetics:

"Este nuevo

hecho creado por el artista es precisamente el que nos interesa, y su estudio, unido al estudio de su genesis, constituye la Est£tica o teoria del Arte" (1964, p. 660). This definition of esthetics is based on:

(1) a

scientific account of the history of all previous art; this account attempts to be self-contained, not relying on any previous esthetic philosophy; and (2) the synthesis at which he arrives by means of this historical account of art views the creation of art as a dynamic process.

From

its first impulse in the objective world of nature, the poem journeys through the consciousness of the poet to its final realization in that equally objective, but separate world of art. Huidobro's scientific account sees the history of art as a dialectical process: Empecemos por estudiar las diferentes fases, los diversos aspectos bajo los que el arte se ha representado o puede representarse. Estas fases pueden reducirse a tres, y para designarlas con mayor claridad, he aqul el esquema que imagine:.

Arte inferior al medio (Arte reproductivo). Arte en armonia con el medio (Arte de adaptaci6n). Arte superior al medio (Arte creativo). Cada una de las partes que componen este esquema, y que marca una epoca en la historia del arte, involucrara un segundo esquema, tambien fcompuesto de tres partes y que resume la evolucion de cada una de aquellas epocas: Predominio de la inteligencia sobre la sensi­ bilidad. Armonia entre la . sensibilidad y la inteli­ gencia. Predominio de la sensibilidad sobre la inteli­ gencia. Al analizar, por ejemplo, el primer elemento del primer esquema—es decir, el Arte reproductivo—, airemos que los primeros pasos haeia- su exteriorizacion los- da la Inteligencia, que busca y ensaya. 3e trata de reproducir la Naturaleza, y la Razon inxenta nacerlo con la mayor economxa y sencillez de que el artista es capaz. Se dejarl a un lado todo lo superfluo. En esta £poca, cada d£a hay que resolver un nuevo problema y la Inteligencia debe trabajar con tal ardor que la sensibilidad aueda relegada a segundo piano, como supeditada a la Razon. Pero pronto llega la segunda epoca: los principales problemas ya se hallan resueltos, y todo lo superfluo e innecesario para la elaboraci