Poetics of Enchantment: Language, Sacramentality, and Meaning in Twentieth-Century Argentine Poetry

University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies Hispanic Studies 2011 POETICS OF ENCHANTMENT: LANGUAGE, SACRAMENTALITY, AND MEANING IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARGENTINE POETRY Adam Gregory Glover University of Kentucky, [email protected] Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Glover, Adam Gregory, "POETICS OF ENCHANTMENT: LANGUAGE, SACRAMENTALITY, AND MEANING IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARGENTINE POETRY" (2011). Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies. 3. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/hisp_etds/3 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Hispanic Studies at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STUDENT AGREEMENT: I represent that my thesis or dissertation and abstract are my original work. Proper attribution has been given to all outside sources. I understand that I am solely responsible for obtaining any needed copyright permissions. I have obtained and attached hereto needed written permission statements(s) from the owner(s) of each third-party copyrighted matter to be included in my work, allowing electronic distribution (if such use is not permitted by the fair use doctrine). I hereby grant to The University of Kentucky and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible my work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I agree that the document mentioned above may be made available immediately for worldwide access unless a preapproved embargo applies. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of my work. I understand that I am free to register the copyright to my work. REVIEW, APPROVAL AND ACCEPTANCE The document mentioned above has been reviewed and accepted by the student’s advisor, on behalf of the advisory committee, and by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), on behalf of the program; we verify that this is the final, approved version of the student’s dissertation including all changes required by the advisory committee. The undersigned agree to abide by the statements above. Adam Gregory Glover, Student Enrico Mario Santí, Major Professor Susan Larson, Director of Graduate Studies POETICS OF ENCHANTMENT: LANGUAGE, SACRAMENTALITY, AND MEANING IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARGENTINE POETRY __________________________________________ DISSERTATION __________________________________________ A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky By Adam Gregory Glover Lexington, Kentucky Director: Enrico Mario Santí, William T. Bryan Professor of Hispanic Studies Lexington, Kentucky 1995 Copyright © Adam Gregory Glover 2011 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION POETICS OF ENCHANTMENT: LANGUAGE, SACRAMENTALITY, MEANING IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARGENTINE POETRY This dissertation explores the relationship between language, sacramentality, and enchantment in three twentieth-century Argentine poets: Francisco Luis Bernárdez (1900-1976), Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), and Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972). It seeks to ask and answer two fundamental questions. First, to what extent might it be possible to understand the conception of poetic language characteristic of modern poetry as an articulation, however muffled and secularized, of a sacramental apprehension of language and world? Second, how might such a conception be related to what Max Weber famously called “the disenchantment of the world”? The dissertation begins with a broad overview of the development of the concept of disenchant within Western culture and then proceeds to a reading of the three poets mentioned above. Special attention is given throughout both to historical and political context and to the specific ways in which Bernárdez, Borges, and Pizarnik understand and employ poetic language. In each case, I attempt to show how, among both secular and religious poets, language retains vestiges of a sacramental understanding of the world. KEYWORDS: Enchantment, Sacramentality, Francisco Luis Bernárdez, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejandra Pizarnik Adam Glover Student’s Signature 10 December 2011 Date POETICS OF ENCHANTMENT: LANGUAGE, SACRAMENTALITY, AND MEANING IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARGENTINE POETRY By Adam Gregory Glover Enrico Mario Santi Director of Dissertation Susan Larson Director of Graduate Studies 10 December 2011 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I should like to thank, first and above all, my advisor, Dr. Enrico Mario Santí, whose expert guidance is largely responsible for the degree to which my dissertation resembles a piece of academic scholarship. I would also like to thank the members of my committee: Dr. Edward Stanton, Dr. Susan Carvalho, Dr. David Bradshaw, and Dr. Abigail Firey. Their comments and suggestions not only improved the project, but also saved me from many embarrassing ommissions and other foibles. Any errors that remain are, of course, exclusively mine. Finally, thanks is due to my wife, Rachel, who taught me what sacramentality really means and who, for the past three years, has been the precise shape of grace in my life. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iii Chapter One: Introduction ...................................................................................................1 1.1. Sacramentality and Sacramental Poetics ...........................................................4 1.2. The Argument ....................................................................................................9 1.3. Chapter 2: The Idea of Disenchantment ..........................................................11 1.4. Chapter 3: The Sacramental Imagination: Poetry and Enchantment in Francisco Luis Bernárdez ................................................................................14 1.5. Chapter 4: The Splendor of the Tigers: Jorge Luis Borges and the poetics of Re-Enchantment ...............................................................................................20 1.6. Chapter 5: Alejandra Pizarnik and the Achievement of Disenchantment .......24 Chapter Two: The Idea of Disenchantment Introduction ............................................................................................................30 2.1. Sources of Disenchantment: Revolutions and Reformations..........................33 2.1.1. The Scientific Revolution ..............................................................33 2.1.2. Modern Science and the Disenchantment of Language .................38 2.1.3. The Protestant Reformation ...........................................................46 2.1.4. Conjunctive and Disjunctive Semiotics .........................................49 2.1.5. Real Presence: The Eucharistic Controversy and Protestant Semiosis .........................................................................................52 2.2. Varieties of Disenchantment in Latin America ..............................................57 2.2.1. Disenchantment and the New World .............................................58 2.2.2. The Argentine Generation of 1837 ................................................60 2.2.3. Positivism, Modernism, and the Crisis of Secularization ..............64 Chapter Three: The Sacramental Imagination: Poetry and Enchantment in Francisco Luis Bernárdez Introduction ............................................................................................................75 3.1. Bernárdez and the Buenos Aires Avant-Garde ...............................................75 3.2. Argentine Catholic Culture in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries ........81 3.3. Bernárdez’s Contexts: Philosophical, Theological, and Literary ...................88 3.3.1. The Realist Attitude and the Sacramental Alternative ..................90 3.3.2. Jacques Maritain: Between Catholicism and Modernity ...............94 3.3.3. Bernárdez, Catholicism, and the “Theologization of Poetry” ........99 3.4. Bernárdez’s Sacramental Poetics: A Preliminary Distinction .....................105 3.4.1. The Transition To Sacramentality ...............................................106 3.4.2. Sacramentality Proper: The Eucharistic Redemption of Sign and World ..........................................................................................110 3.4.3. Allegories of Sacramentality ........................................................123 3.4.3.a. Sacramentality and Musicality ........................................123 3.4.3.b. Sacramentality and Eschatological Hope ........................152 Chapter Four: The Splendor of the Tigers: Borges, Magic, and Re-enchantment Introduction ..........................................................................................................165 iv 4.1. Borges, Poetry, Magic...................................................................................166 4.2. Borges and the Varieties of Disenchantment ................................................170 4.3. Poetry and Re-enchantment in the Modern Poetic Tradition ........................181 4.4. Borges and Irony ...........................................................................................192 4.5. Borges, Tigers,

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