De Eros y poetica: itinerarios de Jose Lezama Lima y Luis Cernuda
Abstract
The most striking affinity in the aesthetic approach of the works of the Spanish poet Luis Cernuda and the Cuban Jose Lezama Lima is thematic and stylistic: Eros and the poetic tropes. Eros constitutes the ideational impetus of the literary creation of both writers. The semantic impetus for my interpretation is the mythological connotation of Eros as the creative God of Love born from a primitive Chaos. The following exegesis explores the cyclical nature of the relationship between Eros and Art: Eros inspires artistic creativity, and aesthetic activity prompts further identification with Eros. The first step is the definition of the poetic written thread: the figurative Eros. It springs from the conjunction of the Greek myth and the four rhetorical figures: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. The figurative eros reveals the codification and key of Lezama's and Cernuda's poetics. The second step analyses the symmetry and correspondence in figurative eros's inherent mirror: the relation Eros/Narcissus. Narcissus is the obscure and lost reflection of Eros in the figurative process. It is the birth and ascension of the hieroglyfic-symbolic sign. The third and final step reveals the obscure descent into the world of orfic eros. One penetrates euphonia and rythm in order to feel and visualize the absent presence of eros and, then, after distortion and metamorphosis, attends to the delivery of the creative product. The figurative Eros and its two satellites represent the philological and rhetorical axis of Lezama's and Cernuda's poetics. These figures comprise a triangle that melts into a two-sided symmetrical and circular figure, into spectral spirals that face each other in the mirror formed by eros.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Kadir, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Romance literature|Modern literature|Latin American literature|Caribbean literature|Literature
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