The Pennsylvania State University
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Comparative Literature ARCHAIC MODERNISM AND SPANISH POETRY, 1898-1975 A Dissertation in Comparative Literature by Max Flack Jensen © 2017 Max Flack Jensen Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2017 The dissertation of Max F. Jensen was reviewed and approved* by the following: Jonathan P. Eburne Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, English, and French and Francophone Studies Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Thomas O. Beebee Edwin Earle Sparks Professor of Comparative Literature and German Nicolás Fernández-Medina Associate Professor of Spanish Mary E. Barnard Associate Professor of Spanish Robert R. Edwards Edwin Earle Sparks Professor of English and Comparative Literature Head of the Department of Comparative Literature *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Archaic Modernism examines the role that long-standing discourses of Spain’s cultural belatedness play in the complex character of its modern poetry through the Franco Era. While commentators from the first-century histories of Pliny the Elder, to the early twentieth-century proclamations of futurist F.T. Marinetti, Spain has been marked as outmoded, oppressive, and culturally obsolete, this dissertation challenges that Spain’s supposed archaism—a term I employ to gather the various stereotypes regarding Spain’s backwardness—has had an entirely negative effect on its cultural production. Instead, I argue that many modern poets engage in complex rewritings of the past that form the basis of an active and engaged aesthetic, inspiring experimental forms and critical perspectives that challenge the institutions they appropriate. While the use of primitive, primordial, and traditional motifs is a common feature to many canonical writers and artists of the modernist period across Europe and the Anglophone world, Spain exhibits a complex relationship to the past given its perennial marginalization as a belated nation. This special relationship to the suspect ideologies of the past allows us to reconsider the role that Spain played in the development of a broader European modernism. Furthermore, examining the continual debates within Spain about the relationship of its past and its literary culture, also shows us how poets consciously worked to recuperate certain truths, expressions, and inquiries associated with its archaic institutions as a means to establish a national cultural identity resistant to the marginalizing views of a hegemonic Northern European culture. Following this, I examine several Spanish poets who focused on spiritual notions such as irrationality, mysticism, and care for the suffering—ideas opposed to what they saw as an abhorrent Northern European, “protestant” modernization that had alienated human life through its rationalized quest for economic progress and material comforts. My focus on the role of archaism in Spanish poetry through the Civil War through the end of the Franco Era also iv highlights the work of several poets little-known poets such as José García Nieto, Juan Eduardo Cirlot, Fernando Millán, and Julio Campal. v TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... viii Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 “El arcaísmo”: An Intellectual Epidemic ......................................................................... 1 “El problema de España”: The Search for a Cultural Identity ......................................... 8 Archaism and the Practice of Rewriting .......................................................................... 12 Rhizome/Multiplicity: The Heterogeneity of the Archive ............................................... 18 Chapter Descriptions ........................................................................................................ 20 Chapter 1 Unstable Roots: The Legacy of Garcilaso de la Vega in Spanish Poetry from 1936-1953 ......................................................................................................................... 24 España Libre, Grande, y ¿Una? ........................................................................................ 24 The Traditional Legacy of Garcilaso de la Vega ............................................................. 33 The Subversive Legacy of Garcilaso de la Vega ............................................................. 37 Primordialism, Modernism, and Palingenesis .................................................................. 44 Garcilaso in the Twentieth Century ................................................................................. 48 Miguel Hernández’s Elegy to Garcilaso, “Égloga” .......................................................... 55 Garcilaso and Literary Climate of the Postwar ................................................................ 66 García Nieto’s “A tu orilla he venido...” .......................................................................... 70 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 77 Chapter 2 “El sentimiento trágico de Neuva York”: Federico García Lorca’s Catholic Vision of the United States ............................................................................................... 81 Memories of the Dead ...................................................................................................... 85 The Tragic Philosophy of Miguel de Unamuno ............................................................... 90 Lorca’s Hecho Poético and the Poetics of Wounding ...................................................... 95 Disfigured Forms and Perfect Architecture: Lorca’s Arrival in New York City ............. 100 “Voz de mi costado abierto:” The Reconciliation of Lorca’s Poetic Vocation ................ 104 Dos odas: Lorca’s Final Criticisms of the New World .................................................... 108 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 117 Chapter 3 The Epistemophilic Archaism of Juan Eduardo Cirlot ........................................... 119 The Circle, the Center, and the Cursed Spiral .................................................................. 119 Life and Context ............................................................................................................... 128 Cirlot’s Reception and Legacy ......................................................................................... 132 Cirlot’s Poetics of Juxtaposition ...................................................................................... 138 Cirlot, Surrealism, and the Avant-Garde .......................................................................... 147 Mythic Time, Bergson, and Fascism ................................................................................ 151 Palacio de plata: Abulfia, Schoenberg, and Permutational Form ................................... 154 Palacio de plata and Permutational Form ........................................................................ 158 vi Abraham Abulafia and Permutational Kabbalism ........................................................... 160 Arnold Schoenberg and Twelve-Tone Composition ........................................................ 165 Developing Variation, Continuous Variation ................................................................... 167 Chapter 4 “nunca esfacil”: Heterographic Experimental Poetry in Late Franco Era Spain ... 174 Heterography and Poetic Lineage .................................................................................... 181 Visual Poetry, Experimental Poetry, and Heterography .................................................. 183 Julio Campal and the Heterographic Tradition ................................................................ 187 Heterography in the Poetry of Julio Campal .................................................................... 190 Fernando Millán’s and the Negation of Writing .............................................................. 195 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 203 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 206 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 211 Vita 220 Max Jensen ............................................................................................................................... 220 EDUCATION ................................................................................................................. 220 AWARDS ........................................................................................................................ 220 Service ............................................................................................................................. 220 Classes Taught ...............................................................................................................