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[@] Maria Esther Maciel Home Page |
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A POETICS OF LUCIDITY: Review of the book
We could apply to the Mexican poet Octavio Paz the same notion that T. S.
Eliot formulated with regard to Ezra Pound. That is to say that his
criticism and his poetry, as well as his perception and his praxis, make up a
single cosmos; it is, therefore, necessary to read his poetry in order to
understand his criticism, and be familiar with his criticism in order to
understand his poetry.
In fact, from the beginning of his intellectual career, Paz embraced the
roles of poet and critic, thus affiliating himself to a lineage of poetics
which has become one of the most important ramifications of the history of
modern poetry and criticism: that of those poets ruled by the sign of a
"passionate criticism," who not only convert their poetry into a
topos for the reflection about the act of creation itself, but who also
dedicate themselves to a critical practice. They write about other
authors and works, reflect about poetry and weave critical considerations
about diverse themes.
There is no doubt that the manifold character of Paz remains a great
challenge to the study of his work, for it offers many possibilities of
approach, various ways of entry, countless points of bifurcation and
crossroads. On the other hand, this multiplicity constitutes an extremely
rich and seductive incursion for scholars who dedicate themselves to poetry
or other fields. We should take note that, as a poet-critic, Paz
himself was attuned to the practice of self-evaluation, tracing the
directions of his own work. It is, therefore, a formidable task to
propose a new perspective, to transit through those avenues of his work that
still remain unknown, without falling into the seductive entrapment of the
poet’s own discourse.
Yet this challenge has not intimidated the critic J. Agustín Pastén B.,
professor of Latin-American literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
and author of the book Octavio Paz: crítico practicante de una poética,
published in 1999. Aware that much has already been said about the
poetry of Paz, he took the option of focusing upon the Mexican poet’s
critical work, from the early moments of his intellectual career in the
1930s. Making use of the term "practicing critic," coined by
T. S. Eliot to define a poet who also embraces the role of a critic of
poetry, Agustín Pastén concentrates on the formative years of Paz’s critical
thought, to show how the first manifestations of the poet’s critical practice
already announced, with a great deal of vigor, a poetics which, in spite of
its marginality with regard to the early Mexican literary institutions, would
reveal its greatest consistency in volumes such El arco y la lira and Los
hijos del limo, several decades later.
We should bear in mind how Paz, in the first pages
of his Primeras Letras (which unites his texts written between 1931 and
1943), refers to the writings of his youth as apprenticeship exercises, to be
read as "flechas, avisos y signos que aparecen en las carreteras y en
los caminos; pero no apuntán hacia una direcctión precisa:
son los rastros de las idas y venidas, las dudas y las transitorias
certidumbres de una exploración de los monumentos y las tumbas, los arenales
y los esjismos de la literatura". (PAZ
1994:8) Although he recognizes the value that these pages can have as
documents of a certain moment in the history of Mexican literature, his
attitude towards these writings is self-conscious and critical, viewing them
as unworthy of recovery or consideration. Agustín Pastén, in his book, does
not yield to these observations of the Mexican poet-critic. In
fact, he gives a new dimension to the importance of the essays and reviews
compiled in the second part of Primeras Letras. The entire first
chapter of Agustín Pastén’s book is dedicated to a careful examination of
three important aspects in the process of Paz’s development as a
"practicing critic:" his conception of poetry, his contempt for the
predominant school of criticism of the contemporary Mexican milieu, and his
own personal canon, made up of authors notably attuned to the search of a
Mexican identity.
The second chapter is dedicated to the critical essays compiled in the first
half of Las Peras del Olmo, where, according to Agustín Pastén, Paz
"pule y refina los juicios críticos de escritores anteriores,"
and assumes the role as a protagonist in the literary circles of Mexico
during the latter half of the twentieth century. In spite of being preceded
by more critically acclaimed volumes of essays, such as El laberinto de la
soledad and El arco y la lira, it is in Las Peras del Olmo that
Paz unites articles previously published in disparate Mexican periodicals.
They therefore render evident the process of the poet’s critical maturity, a
consciousness which begins to be regarded, from that point onwards, as
"una de las más influyentes dentro de la esfera literária
mexicana," as Agustín Pastén explains.
According to T. S. Eliot, criticism needs to exert a vitalizing function with
relation to the creative practice and vice-versa. That is true for all
critics that practice, and practice well, the art of which they write. (ELIOT
1975:74). Paz, already a poet before he took up critical writing, was
aware of this. "La poesia ha sido mi estrella fija,"
he said, explaining that he wrote his first poem when he was still a child.
(PAZ 1994:16) He began to reflect on poetry and the various manners
through which the poetic faculty manifests itself out of a need to answer
questions regarding his own poetic work. These reflections later became
inseparable from the process of creation. One might say that in his essays,
even when dealing with themes not directly related to poetry, Paz never
abandoned his vocation as a poet. On the other hand, his critical
thinking is present in many of the poems written throughout his intellectual
journey. This is shown in the analyses Agustín Pastén makes of ¿Águila
o Sol?, Blanco, El Mono Gramático and Vuelta, poetic texts in which Paz
makes a criticism of language.
The study of ¿Águila o Sol? is encompassed in the third chapter of
Octavio Paz: crítico practicante en busca de una poética. The priority that
is given to this work is justified since it is a collection of poems in prose
published in 1951, which, according to Agustín Pastén, "constituye un
puente entre las tempranas definiciones de la poesía y las que cristalizan
más adelante El arco y la lira." This would mark the first
more consistent attempt by the poet to make "la crítica desde adentro,"
which Agustín Pastén believes to confirm Paz’s vocation as a "practicing
critic." In this chapter the author dedicates himself not only to
the analysis of the thematic and formal aspect of the poems, but also
evaluates their critical reception in the intellectual milieu of Europe and
the Americas. He also investigates the relationship between ¿Aguila
o Sol? and the aesthetic principles of the French Surrealist
movement. We should note that Paz was an active participant of the
latter, during six years he spent in France, in the second half of the 1940s.
Blanco, El Mono Gramático and Vuelta are only studied by Agustín Pastén in
the fifth and final chapter of his book, entitled "Hacia la poesía
teórica." Beforehand, in the preceding chapter, he traces the
relations between the first theories Paz formulates about poetry (especially
those that form the key essay "Poesía de soledad y poesía de comunión"),
and the books El arco y la lira and Los hijos del limo. The great
merit of this chapter lies in its exposition of the mobile character of Paz’s
ideas, that is, the potential capacity that he can exercise as a
"practicing critic," to change his concepts, review his own
limitations and reformulate earlier writings.
In fact, by fusing poetry and reflection, Paz also exercises a practice that
accompanies him throughout his entire intellectual journey:
self-criticism. Instead of "drowning himself in a determinate
stage of his work, becoming a specialist in the nuances of his own diction,
making himself at home with normativeness,"as the Brazilian critic
Haroldo de Campos observed (CAMPOS 1986: 302), the Mexican poet demonstrates,
rather, that worthy critical thinking only exists when in movement, in a
constant process of self-evaluation. That is why his books tend to
present themselves as a replica, confirmation and denial of former works.
This is examined by Agustín Pastén throughout his study, as he
shows how the judgments that Paz makes, initially revealed as definitive,
final and absolute, slowly transform themselves, becoming more flexible,
until they go into a process of debate and revision of themselves.
One might say that the term "practicing critic" appears in an
excessive and repetitive manner in the book, or that the analyses of Paz seem
rather descriptive. However, Octavio Paz: crítico practicante en
busca de una poética remains a worthy contribution to the study of Paz,
particularly as it traces, in a detailed and competent manner, the trajectory
of Paz’s critical practice, making counterpoints and approximations between
the various texts and moments of the poet’s life. Also, Agustín Pastén’s book
exmines the convergences and divergences of Paz with the Mexican intellectual
milieu throughout various decades. For these reasons, it is an
indispensable work not only to those who are interested in the crossings
between poetry and criticism in the work of the Mexican writer, but also to
students of modern Hispanic-American criticism. (Translation:
Maria Clara Versiani Galery) Works
Cited CAMPOS, Haroldo de, 1986. Constelação para Octavio Paz. In: PAZ, Octavio. Signos em rotação. (São Paulo: Perspectiva, p.299-305) ELIOT,
T.S, 1975. The function of criticism. In: Selected prose. (London: Faber
& Faber) PASTÉN
B., J. Agustín, 1999. Octavio Paz: crítico practicante en busca de una
poética. (Madrid: Editorial Pliegos) PAZ, Octavio,
1994. Prólogo. La casa de la presencia - Obras Completas v.1. (México: Fondo
de Cultura Económica)
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