Copyright by Gloria Del Carmen Díaz 2008
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Copyright by Gloria del Carmen Díaz 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Gloria del Carmen Díaz Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: José Lezama Lima’s Paradiso: Knowledge and the Labyrinth Committee: César A. Salgado, Supervisor José Cerna-Bazán Lily Litvak Charles R. Rossman Stanislav Zimic José Lezama Lima’s Paradiso: Knowledge and the Labyrinth by Gloria del Carmen Díaz, B.B.A.; M.S.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2008 Dedication In memory of my father Acknowledgements To Professor César A. Salgado, I extend my appreciation. The friendly and fundamental dialog we have maintained helped me traverse the difficulties and discover the joys of the subject, and I thank him for his insightful suggestions, opportune help, and continuing support. I am equally thankful to Professors José Cerna-Bazán, Lily Litvak, Charles Rossman, and Stanislav Zimic for their enlightened perspective, thoughtful comments, and kind assistance with my work. My gratefulness also goes to the Faculty of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese for their academic and financial support during the course of my studies. To my loving family and dear friends I express my profound gratitude. Forever with me in faith and spirit, their unwavering support illumined the paths and made possible the labors of this journey. v José Lezama Lima’s Paradiso: Knowledge and the Labyrinth Gloria del Carmen Díaz, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisor: César A. Salgado In this study Lezama’s Paradiso is “the mysterious labyrinth of the cognitive image,” a metaphor for his search for ultimate enlightenment--knowledge of super nature toward the Highest Good. The Preamble introduces the novel Paradiso as his poetic sum of knowledge generated by the Cognitive Eros like an encyclopedic narrative with revelation at the center. Chapter One presents labyrinth fundamentals and the mythic method to analyze the novel. It identifies a heightened perception or sensation, cognition, and imagination as “new” senses “beyond reason” needed to read this “new other” novel. It also explains how the author’s clues aid comprehension, how the poetic word illuminates a fourfold method for interpretation, and how the double structure of the narrative superimposes a circuitous pathway of multicursal storylines and descriptions of Old World images upon a linear unicursal surface narrative. Chapter Two examines three cognitive images in Lezama’s labyrinth: Confluence analyzes how multiple streams of thought and images flow from chaos into order in the poet’s mind and how the vi labyrinth’s principle of opposition represents the convergence of contradictory images whose combination will inspire other images. Androgyne or Oneness illustrates the nature of creativity--how symmetrical opposite images unite or copulate to germinate other imagery. Figure and Revelation show Lezama’s use of Scriptural figura to represent the prefigurative sense of his writing. Chapter Three interprets Lezama’s own labyrinthine method and steps for interpreting Paradiso derived from his scrutiny of “the other” analogous novel, Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela. The study concludes that Paradiso delivers Lezama’s Delphic Course, a systematized literary orientation based on the belief that each text transmits wisdom. The protagonist/reader undergoes Anthropophany, is transformed into a learned interpreter and a higher self toward manifestation in the image of the Word/God. With the author-protagonist as mentor Paradiso proclaims Lezama’s ideal program of cultural, intellectual, ethical, and spiritual formation of the individual after the classic Greek Paideia, parallel to the way of purification and redemption achieved through the Paideia of Christ. Finally, the text embodies Lezama’s crusade to restore Cuba as a bridge for cultural exchange and development between the Old World and the New World. vii Table of Contents Preamble. Lezama’s Circle of Knowledge, the Labyrinth, and Paradiso .....................................................................................1 Chapter One. Toward a Comprehension beyond Reason ..................................................12 One. Overview of Lezama and his Works as Labyrinths ......................................12 Two. The Method of this Dissertation ...................................................................27 Three. Awakening the New Senses .......................................................................43 Chapter Two. Cognitive Images: Confluence, Androgyne and Figure ...........................................................................................56 One. Confluence....................................................................................................57 Two. Androgyne or Oneness ...............................................................................110 Three. Figure and Revelation...............................................................................132 Chapter Three. Lezama’s Labyrinth and the Other Novel...............................................166 Conclusions. Lezama at the Crossroads...........................................................................255 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................268 Vita…………...................................................................................................................283 viii PREAMBLE. LEZAMA’S CIRCLE OF KNOWLEDGE, THE LABYRINTH, AND PARADISO The eros of knowledge transmits a totality . (El amor de conocimiento transmite una totalidad . .)1 Paradiso has much of poem. In my poetry, essay and novel form part of the same digging into the marrow of the elder tree. (Paradiso tiene mucho de poema. En mi poesía, ensayo y novela forman parte del mismo escarbar en la médula del saúco).2 Like a summa--what Paradiso really is--as said in the Middle Ages, I thought I had to achieve a novel . (Como una súmula--lo que en realidad es el Paradiso--como se decía en la Edad Media, creí que debía llegar a una novela . .).3 . it is an obligation to take poetry to the labyrinth where man confronts and overcomes the beast. In short, the total victory of poetry against all the intercrossings of chaos. (. es una obligación llevar la poesía al laberinto donde el hombre cuadra y vence la bestia. En fin, la total victoria de la poesía contra todos los entrecruzamientos del caos).4 José Lezama Lima 1 “Plenitud relacionable,” Tratados en la Habana, José Lezama Lima: Obras completas vol. 2 (México, D.F.: Aguilar, 1977) 478. 2 Cartas a Eloísa y otra correspondencia (1939-1976) (Madrid: Verbum, 1998) 141. 3 “Interrogando a Lezama Lima,” Recopilación de textos sobre José Lezama Lima, ed. Pedro Simón (1970; Madrid: Casa de las Américas, 1995) 19-20. 4 Cartas a Eloísa 141. 1 For over half a century the life and works of the Cuban poet, editor, essayist, theorist, storyteller, novelist, critic, and mentor José Lezama Lima (1910-76) have attracted the interest of intellectuals but not the attention of the general public.5 The general audience ignores expressiveness like his. His breadth is too cosmopolitan, his meaning is too diffuse, his vision is too peculiar and his system of thought is too complex. But his works, published from the nineteen-thirties to the seventies, have stimulated much scholarly analysis and criticism in Hispanic and comparative letters.6 Few figures in the canon of contemporary Latin-American letters have inspired as much amazement, acclaim, perplexity, resistance, and revalorization. Perhaps our only point of agreement is that he and his work are difficult. 5 Note: Hereafter I refer to the author as Lezama and use the abbreviation JLL. In quotations from foreign publications the translation appears first, the original text follows in parentheses. When a translation is not available I provide my own version. In general, my sources for Lezama’s major works are: essays, the Aguilar JLL: Obras completas mentioned above, noted as OC II; poems, JLL: Poesía completa, ed. Eliana Dávila (La Habana: Letras Cubanas , 1994), noted as PC; novels: the critical edition of JLL: Paradiso, coord. Cintio Vitier (Paris: ALLCA/UNESCO Archivos, 1988), noted as Paradiso (plus the chapter in Roman numerals); and JLL: Oppiano Licario, ed. César López (Madrid: Cátedra 1989), noted as OL (plus the chapter in Roman numerals). I also cite from the English version of JLL: Paradiso, trans. Gregory Rabassa (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), noted as P-Rabassa. When my analysis of the novel requires a more exact rendition, I depart from Rabassa’s translation and enclose my own in brackets. 6 Studies of the author and/or his texts include: Brett Levinson, Secondary Moderns: Mimesis, History and Revolution in Lezama’s American Expression (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 1996); Aída Beaupied, Narciso hermético: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz y JLL (Liverpool, UK: Liverpool UP, 1997); Ben A. Heller, Assimilation / Generation / Resurrection: Contrapuntal Readings in the Poetry of JLL (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell UP, 1997); Virgilio López Lemus, La imagen y el cuerpo: Lezama y Sarduy (La Habana: Unión, 1997); a chapter pertaining to Lezama in Alan West, Tropics of History: Cuba Imagined (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1997); a reading manual, Remedios Mataix, Paradiso y Oppiano Licario: