Sacred Heart University DigitalCommons@SHU Languages Faculty Publications Languages and Literatures 2003 The Living World, Politics, and Nation: Nature and Discourse in the Poetry of Nicolás Guillén Mark J. Mascia Sacred Heart University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/lang_fac Part of the Latin American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Mascia, M. J. (2003). The living world, politics and aation: Nature and discourse in the poetry of Nicolás Guillén. AUMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Modern Language Association, 99(1), 67-103. doi: 10.1179/aulla.2003.006 This Peer-Reviewed Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Languages and Literatures at DigitalCommons@SHU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Languages Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@SHU. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. THE LIVING WORLD, POLITICS AND NATION: NATURE AND DISCOURSE IN THE POETRY OF NICOLAS GUILLEN MARKJ. MASCIA Sacred Heart University The work of the Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen (1902-89) has been widely studied throughout both the Spanish- and English-speaking wodds. Most often, Guillen's poetic corpus is examined from two particular perspectives: its political aspect and its African elements. In the first case, Guillen is valued for his political ideology of communism, and is placed within the context of elaborating the social condition of the Cuban people and of the masses of Latin America as a whole. In the second, Guillen is examined for his contributions to Afrocenttic literary movements and for his inclusion of different African traits in his poetry, most notably lyrical rhythms, musicality, vocabulary and folklore.