Language and Poetry: Some Poets of Spain [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674284357, 9780674284340

Table of contents :
PREFACE
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
1. PROSAIC LANGUAGE
2. POETIC LANGUAGE
3. THE INEFFABLE LANGUAGE OF MYSTICISM
4. THE INEFFABLE LANGUAGE OF DREAMS
5. ADEQUATE LANGUAGE
6. THE LANGUAGE OF THE POEM
SPANISH TEXTS
NOTES
INDEX

Citation preview

LANGUAGE and POETRY

The Charles Eliot Morton Lectures 4957-4958

LANGUAGE ana P O E T R Y Some Poets of Spain

Jorge Guillen

Harvard

University Press

Cambridge,

Massachusetts 19 6 1

© Copyright 1961 by the President All rights reserved

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J. Jones

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60-15889

PREFACE Let us not take as our point of departure "poetry," an indefinable term. Let us say "poem," as we would say "picture," "statue." All of these have one quality that immediately reassures us: they are objects, and objects that exist here and now, before our hands, our ears, our eyes. In reality, all is spirit, though inseparable from its body. And therefore a poem is language. W e could not accept this statement in reverse. If aesthetic value is inherent in all language, language is not always organized as a poem. What does the artist do to transform the words of everyday conversation into a material as suitable and genuine to him as are metal or marble to the sculptor? "Words are of no use," is the conclusion of those whose inner life is so rich and complex that they judge it to be ineffable: the experience of mysticism (San Juan de la Cruz) or the dreams of a visionary (Becquer). Others see in language a marvelous means of expression. Many writers belong to this tradition, perhaps a majority of them. (One example in Spain in recent times is Gabriel Mir