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Vicente Huidobro and the ‘Two Souls’ of Romanticism

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Vicente Huidobro and the ‘Two Souls’ of Romanticism View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UC Research Repository Vicente Huidobro and the ‘Two Souls’ of Romanticism Tim Bowron A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Spanish Spanish Programme, School of Languages and Cultures University of Canterbury 2013 “Naive enough to set off in pursuit of Truth, I had explored - to no avail - any number of disciplines. I was beginning to be confirmed in my skepticism when the notion occurred to me of consulting, as a last result, Poetry: who knows? perhaps it would be profitable, perhaps it conceals beneath its arbitrary appearances some definitive revelation ... Illusory recourse! Poetry had outstripped be in negation and cost me even my uncertainties ...” ― E.M. Cioran, All Gall is Divided (trans. Richard Howard) Table of Contents Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................. 5 Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 6 A Note on Translations .......................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 8 Literature Review ................................................................................................................... 9 Theoretical Approach ........................................................................................................... 13 Scope and Organisation ....................................................................................................... 14 Chapter 1: The ‘Two Souls’ of Romanticism .......................................................................... 17 Defining Romanticism ......................................................................................................... 17 The ‘Two Souls’ .................................................................................................................. 20 Hölderlin: the divine vessel ................................................................................................. 24 Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis: the priests of the new religion .......................................... 26 Emerson: the role of the poet-shaman ................................................................................. 28 Lugones’ Las montañas del oro: the poet as visionary ........................................................ 30 Nietzsche, Mallarmé and the French Decadents: the world in a beautiful book ................. 32 Chapter 2: The Prehistory of Huidobro’s creacionismo .......................................................... 36 Canciones en la noche ......................................................................................................... 36 La gruta del silencio ............................................................................................................ 40 Las pagodas ocultas ............................................................................................................. 45 Pasando y pasando and “Non Serviam” .............................................................................. 49 Chapter 3: The Epoch of creacionismo, 1916-1926 ................................................................ 56 Adán ..................................................................................................................................... 57 El espejo de agua ................................................................................................................. 62 Literary Reviews and Polemics ........................................................................................... 66 Manifestes manifeste ............................................................................................................ 73 Vientos contrarios ................................................................................................................ 77 Chapter 4: From Poet-God to Citizen of Oblivion (1931-1948).............................................. 83 Altazor .................................................................................................................................. 86 Sátiro o el poder de las palabras ......................................................................................... 92 Ver y palpar ......................................................................................................................... 95 El ciudadano del olvido and Últimos poemas .................................................................... 102 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 109 Appendix ................................................................................................................................ 111 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................... 112 Acknowledgement Enormous thanks are to my senior thesis supervisor, Dr. Laura López Fernández, for first awakening my interest in Huidobro and for her unfailing generosity and confidence in my research endeavours (even when I myself was close to abandoning hope). To my co-supervisor, Dr. Beatriz Caballero Rodríguez, I also owe a debt of gratitude for introducing me to the History of Ideas and to the school of Continental Philosophy – disciplines that have played a vital role in informing my theoretical approach to this present investigation. Finally to my wife Srey I owe most of all: without the extreme patience and forbearance that she has shown me over the past few years, none of this would have been possible. 5 Abstract This thesis seeks to analyse the often contradictory viewpoints concerning the role of the poet and the nature of poetic creation expressed in the writings of the Chilean vanguardista Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948). In particular, it looks to focus on the tension between Huidobro’s doctrine of creacionismo (with its emphasis on the idea of poetry as the product of conscious willpower bringing forth new worlds ex-nihilo from the mind of the poet) and the Neo-Platonist concept, implicit in many of Huidobro’s more lyrical compositions, that the images and metaphors deployed by the poet are no mere arbitrary inventions but instead analogical representations of an inexpressible Infinite (existing a priori to language) which cannot be apprehended through rational modes of thought and expression. This tension is studied in the context of the hybrid discipline known as the “History of Ideas” with attention being paid as much to the philosophical as to the purely literary sources of these clashing aesthetic principles (ranging from Schelling and the German Romantics to Nietzsche and the French Decadents), which the present author contends spring ultimately from a common motivation: namely the desire to rediscover in art that which the discoveries of the Enlightenment had rendered impossible through either religion or systematic philosophy – a road to the Absolute. 6 A Note on Translations When reproducing poetry or dramatic works in languages other than Spanish or English, I have opted to keep the quotation in the source language and then provided a translation into English immediately following the original (either in square brackets, in the case of block quotes, or in a chapter endnote, in the case of in-text quotations). In the case of poetry in French these translations are my own, in the case of poetry in German the source for the translation will be indicated in parentheses. With respect to prose works (such as essays, literary criticism and philosophy) in languages other than Spanish or English I have opted to use English translations wherever they are available. 7 Introduction The career of the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro has traditionally been viewed as one of abrupt zigzags and internal contradictions. In particular, scholars have tended to highlight the obvious disjunction between Huidobro’s doctrine of creacionismo as propounded in his various literary manifestos and his actual poetic praxis – with emphasis also often placed on a demarcation or periodisation of Huidobro’s poetry into separate and discrete ‘stages’. According to this narrative of linear progression, we begin with a pre-avant-garde stage characterised by Huidobro’s youthful infatuation with Ruben Darío and the modernistas before moving on to the period of Huidobro’s active participation in the Parisian avant-garde in the years immediately following the First World War. Finally, in the period from 1931 onwards most critics appear to discern in Huidobro’s work a gradual disillusionment and increasing scepticism in the redemptive or generative capacity of art, characterised by a move away from ‘pure’ creacionismo to a more ‘humanist’ or ‘impure’ kind of poetry.1 Such schemas are not without their uses and, insofar as their ability to describe the course of Huidobro’s evolution on a purely textual or stylistic level is concerned, they are difficult to fault. However, it is my contention that the manifold and often sudden changes in Huidobro’s poetic praxis can only be understood in the context of tensions that were, right from the outset, inherent in the Chilean vanguardista’s
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