Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

University of Oklahoma

Rereading Jorge Guillén

Author(s): Ricardo Gullón
Source: Books Abroad, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Winter, 1968), pp. 39-46
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
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Aire con una graciairrepetible.
("Aquel instante,"Que van a dar . . . 114.)
That phrase, "de unos hombres" implies
the will to accept the gift- and the pos-
session, once repeated- to which I refer. A the air of
tragedy creeps in when we realize that we
must struggle to guard that possession.
They can take it away from us or try to
do so:
Asi vivimos sin saber
Si el aire es nuestro.
Quiza muramosen la calle,
Quiza en el lecho.
("Los intranquilos,"Maremdgnum56.)
Me distraigoal fin, sonrio.
Perola angustiame acecha.
jSi mi aire fuese mio!
("Treboles,"Que van a dar . . . 74.)
Because the terrible thing is that a per-
GULL6N 39
verted air is around, which threatens us,
which tries to pollute ours, which belongs
to others. Already Melibea was sighing:
"Without breathing in your air ... ," and
Calisto sees the danger: "And I am lost in
others,/That do not know you."
de Melibea," Que van a dar
("Huerto
. . . 188.)
And Guillen, who does know, therefore
leaves that window open at the end of his
work, through which the spirit of a friend
breathes:
Mientrashaya
alguna ventanaabierta.
Pedro Salinas.
("Dedicatoriafinal,"Clamor)
May this great work sail before the wind
for centuries and centuries.
Bryn Mawr College

Rereading Jorge Guillen*

By RICARDO GULL6N
The lighted world

impulse toward light, so vigorous in grace, the poetry restoresto us an elemental

poems like "Paso a la aurora" or
"Amanece, amanezco," is contrasted and
realized by the exemplary serenity that per-
mits Guillen to conquer completely the
beauty of the word. When in "Pleno amor"
or in "Anillo" we see love lighting and
transfiguringthe world, the vision awakens
echoes, vibrations,since, above the perverse
incident and bloody history, the necessity
to exist fully, a necessity expressed admir-
ably in these poems, grows in the soul.
In "El aire" we find the embodiment of
"lo mas leve" in the eternal. The "anhelo
de trasparencia"that we feel by grace of
air is the best expression of a certain secret
human anxiety, and the clarity of the air
reveals a mystery: its inexcusable domina-
tion over us. Through such poems, Guillen
makes existence seem more tolerable, not
directing it toward an endless anguish;
through this lightness of transfiguring
hope, trusting, disarmed, and, in spite of
everything, sure of itself. Few poems illus-
trate better the first attitude of Guillen,
fixed in the essential and the enduring, in
the exaltation of what cannot vary and, on
the other hand, can contribute to our sal-
vation.
Such poems help to maintain an always
difficult optimism. The association and fu-
sion with the nontemporalor supratemporal
gives the impression of living, even for an
instant, outside of historicaltime, or at least
outside the vicissitudes that break and sift
us, obliging us to endure them as something
inevitable in the epoch, perhaps humanly
inevitable.The humanism of Guillen shines
forth in this poetry, full of fervor for the
things that can restore the abundance of
living to man, making him live according
to his natural destiny and not according to
the threat imposed by malign forces.

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40 BOOKS ABROAD
The defense of light, the need for light
has, then, a profound meaning. Darkness
createsthe proper milieu for terrors,for the
fermentation of the grim and monstrous
threats of the times. Recognizing man in
the world implies restoring to creation its
primitive order, its genuine beauty. Once
again it is necessaryto discuss the old ques-
tion of whether praising the eternal and im-
perishable means ignoring the daily strug-
gle. Now we see, and the examination of
Clamor will make us understand it better,
that in the case of Guillen there is no alien-
ation from reality, but total immersion in
it; to feel it jubilantlydoes not mean not to
recognize how much abjectnessthere may
be behind the beauty. If he says that the
world is well made, he does not refer to the
way society is organized, but to living, pro-
ductive nature, in which it is possible to
rest a moment when infamy grows.
I do not understand how the poet can be
reproached for the exaltation of what is
beautiful, under the pretext that, on realiz-
ing it, he takes his eyes off too-well-recog-
nized darkness. To propose natural beauty
as an object of contemplation and conso-
lation is not to escapeanything; it is to point
out, among the violence and oppression, a
small place for happiness and hope.
The Guillenian spirit of joy can help us,
since it does not arise from stupid Pangloss-
ism but from supreme confidence in man.
On the other hand, Luis Felipe Vivanco
has called attention to the frequency with
which, in the definitive version of Cdntico,
night is sung about. The abundanceof noc-
turnes reveals the poet's intimacy with this
aspect of existence. The penetration into
the night is properly offset by the percep-
tion of dawn. It is not possible to disjoin
one from the other, since they complement
each other. How could one ignore the dark
side of nature, so filled with mysterious
presences,with restrainedconfidencespress-
ing upon the heart? Look at the marvelous
romance "Caminantede puerto, noche sin
luna," and you will see how the night is
not the area of terrors, but a penetrable
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shadow and a world susceptibleof illumin-
ation and conquest, although, in the same
poem, the mystery is operative, perhaps
baleful.
As for the vision of the world, Guillen
is anti-Eliot. Cdnticois not, like The Waste
Land, "poetryof frustration and disorder,"
as Bowra has termed it, nor does it insist on
the limitations of the human soul; it at-
tempts to be an illumination and constitutes
a mighty effort to bring light to the world.
But, as I have just indicated, nothing is
further from ordinary optimism, from an
empty attitude of self-satisfaction.The hap-
piness expressedin the poem is existential;
it is due to the delight of being, and it is
anterior to coming to grips with the prob-
lems of the world.
The asceticism of the precision-perfection
One critic has reproachedGuillen for an
impassivity which seems to me to be absent
from his work and from his intent. It is
not impossible to discover in poems of Can-
tico "the heat of the coals" in which they
were forged; an attentive reading permits
one to find in them the trace of the fire. Is
it right to censure the skill of the verse and
the discreet hiding of sentiment? This
would not be more refined by showing it;
for the poet and the reader the emotions
are not important, but their expression in
the poem is. What happened, before it was
written in the heart of the author, is hardly
interesting; only what is written will be
taken into account when the effort is evalu-
ated.
Eternal sentiments expressedin new lan-
guage. The univocal word of Guillen per-
haps will not awaken responses analogous
to those of other poets, and it is necessary
to adapt oneself to this asceticism of pre-
cision if his poetry is to be understood.Gui-
llen has achieved a difficult and beautiful
equilibrium between the emotion and its
distillation in verse; a blended balance
which does not give a feeling of effort be-
cause the hard-breathingcreativity is hid-
den. Yet, the Spanish taste prefers this

shortness of breath should not be hidden,
and the majoritywould prefer a poetry that
shows the signs of a sudden burst of feeling
to the poetry that is sober and contained.
So much density and concentrationas Cdn-
tico contains cannot be achieved without
breaking the sonorous charm. In certain
verses the elimination of adjectives, even
nouns, lends to the poem a very special
dynamism:
Yo, yo despertar,ser, estar . . .
It is not possible to imagine more dy-
namic verse,and at the same time, more free
of encumbrances: "despertar,ser, estar."He
is defining all that happens to him : awaken-
ing he is born, he is restored to life, he is
aware that he has a being, a reality, and
precisely a localized reality. On awakening
he finds himself in a situation, in the situ-
ation described in the poem. The recog-
nition is expressed with such a concise suc-
cession of verbs; awakening is becoming
aware and the poem is a lyrical expression
of the intuition that permits the poet to
take account of himself and his contact
with the world.
The "placed"word (as Vivanco calls it)
of Jorge Guillen expands to maximal ex-
pressiveness,to significance with an abun-
dance of meaning. If the rigorous and con-
centrated form hides the emotion, or dis-
guises it, it is because the latter was pre-
viously distilled and reduced. As I said,
sentiment muted by the poet's better judg-
ment disconcertsthe reader.But the concen-
tration and reduction to the essential does
not always exclude the moving element. In
"Su persona,"the decisive sentiment shines
through. It is the memory of a lost love:
El sol no da en tu recuerdo.
Sufro.
La memoria es pena.
This poem tells how serenity, won with
so much difficulty,was not attained without
a struggle. Serenity is the result of an inner
debate,in which spectersof the imagination
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GULLON 41
and memory fight against it. The evident
dangers of remembrance ("No quiero que
los fantasmas en fantasma me conviertan")
are opposedby the desirefor concreteloveli-
ness, for life in the present.
Like the English imagists, he sets aside
all those words that are not necessary for
the presentation of the theme. Thus there
is no attempt at "embellishment," at pro-
viding the reader with an easy access from
his inner feelings to those of the poet.
Rapidly, like the bather pushed into the
water, the former falls into a different world
and encounters strange things; not strange
in themselves, but in their appearance.Like
someone used to identifying a characterby
mascara and tinsel, he does not recognize
it unadorned.
It was common a few years ago to com-
pare Guillen with Valery; furthermore, to
suggest and even to affirm the influence of
the second upon the first. I myself, writing
some years ago about Cdntico, took for
granted this influence, and now it interests
me to clarify its limitations; there is a co-
incidence of attitude between the two poets.
Their poetry is not similar; if they share
a love for the lucid and meticulous work,
and they do not shun any effort to give the
verse a diamond-like quality, Guillen's
work- and the difference is enormous- is
spontaneous and necessary. In that of Va-
lery there is a point of gratuity, of supreme
and admirableplaying with the word. This
dramatic difference comes about because
Valery wrote poems departing, as he said,
from the necessity of making, and not the
necessity of saying; those of Guillen are not
made but felt, sung, irresistibly created. It
is the impulse upward, so obvious and vig-
orous. All his poetry wants to climb, fly,
governed by an eagerness for fullness that
can only be found in its natural heaven.
The exaltation of being, referred to earlier,
takes him there. When he sings of spring,
the rose, love, or the dream, he is not elab-
orating a poem in the reflective, intense
manner of Valery, but expressing urgent
intuitions.
42 BOOKS ABROAD
Everything is rooted in this ineffable
sense of perfection which I mentioned in
the beginning. We recallthe decitna,so well
known, where such a feeling is declared in
a form both impetuous and reserved:
jBeatosillon! La casa
Corroborasu presencia
Con la vaga intermitencia
De su invocacionen masa
A la memoria.No pasa
Nada. Los ojos no ven,
Saben.El mundo esta bien
Hecho. El instantelo exalta
A marea,de tan alta,
De tan alta, sin vaiven.
This timeless declaration of perfection is
formulated with the precision and the ex-
actness habitual to the poet, but, let us not
be mistaken, it is concerned with an excla-
mation torn by the feeling of beatitude
("jBeato sillon!") with the happiness pro-
duced by the contemplation of the world
at the moment of its pure perfection, seen
and captured in an instant of incredible
abundance that cannot be measured with
the yardstick of usual events, because it is
the imperishable instant of eternity.
The well-made world of "Beato sillon"
is the harmonious, ideal world crystallized
in the mind, in the ideal appreciation.And
it is important to point out the spontaneous
tone of the canto, of the Cdntico. The im-
portant thing is the unique stress with
which it is said. The stress and all that it
implies of rhythm and sound, of evocation
by means of the word. This impresses us,
takes control of us. The construction of the
decima shows how the verses break and
mount again responding to a well-defined
expressive intent.
Guillen is the poet whose submission to
destiny seems most clear and his destiny is
to sing the way he sings. His poetry ex-
presses admirable fidelity to the situation
from which he writes, and being, as we see,
the poet of dawn, he has not hesitated to
sing of the night, and not as a necessary
corollary of dawn, but as an expression of
the inexorable change in life. Night, like
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winter, refers to death, that is to say, to the
fulfillment of destiny. Night and death are
the natural conclusion of day and of life.
A poem, "Descanso en jardin," will show
the virile serenity of the one who writes it.
The mausoleum is admirably and succinct-
ly described in a very condensed line:
"Calma en bloque." In death there is an
order that is not opposed to life; it ends
it peacefully:
Marmoles,frondasiguales:
Verde el orden.
Sobre el cipres unos astros:
Mas verdores.
Haya parael gran cansancio
Sombraacorde.
Los astrosse acercanentre
Nubarrones.
An identical sensation of serenity is that
of the sonnet "Muerte a lo lejos"; the final
allusion is assured and serene. The medi-
tation upon death terminatesnobly, in tran-
quil acceptanceof the general law. He only
recoils and protests if the event is accom-
panied by what is not inevitable or fatal;
by an unexpected assault of gratuitous
cruelty frequently enveloped in the natural.
Grief, suffering could have been avoided,
perhaps . . . ; they will not be, then, norms
of inexcusable acceptance. In "Muchas
gracias, adios" he expressed perfectly his
protest against useless grief.
Guillen's fidelity to life and love for the
perfect make him confront the inhuman
elements of creation, and this impulse is
good, because in it we see him in harmony
with himself, demonstrating how coherent,
closed, and complete is his world. A world,
I insist, in which harmony and the tendency
to perfection (secured in the fullness of be-
ing) are unequivocal constants. The Gui-
llen universe is the most complete and har-
monious of all those invented by the poets
of his generation. If in Maremdgnum we
sense the eruption of the forces of discord,
that signifies the full recognition of the dark
and dramatic side of the universe in which
we live : that is to say, its historical side.

The vital current
In the fourth edition of Cantico, a novelty
worthy of comment can be observed.In the
text as well as in the index, the titles of the
poems appear printed with a type of a dif-
ferent size. In a book so constructed and
accomplished, established by an author so
attentive to details,the differencemust have
a meaning; this consists, I think, in empha-
sizing the crucialpoints with relation to the
lines of force traced through the entire
work. Neither in the groups of sonnets
and decimas, nor in the rest of the compo-
sitions of the third part,does Guillen under-
line any poem, even when it does alter the
order of the previous edition.
A certain number of the later poems cor-
respond to the familiar cycle, known from
the third Cantico, and emerging in all the
sections of the definitive edition. It is in-
structive to follow through it the current
of sentiment aroused in the poet by the
contemplation of the games and doings of
the "feliz insensato,"his grandson. Thus in
that current his heart is dissolved, the clear
impassioned impulse that links him to life.
"Arranques," enchanting in movement
and naturalness, describes the child in na-
ture, by the sea or in the meadow. The crea-
ture is a shout, an exaltation of life, a cata-
ract:
Precipitandosecorre
Con tumulto de roturas
Una alegriaque cae
De brucessobrela espuma.
A delightful force to contemplate, since in
the happinessof the child the poet feels that
the pleasureof being alive is confirmed, the
zeal for the excellent things which the crea-
ture will desireto accumulate:field, sky, sea
. . . The authenticityof the minute person is
revealed in his games and through them
Guillen gathers moments in whose whim-
sicality he intuits secrets. "Feliz insensato"
is the descriptionof a pure, gratuitous flight
through the candid heaven of tireless child-
hood which is self-sufficient in its own
frailty.
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GULL6N 43
The delight of inventing the world, of
discovering it, is one of the constants in
the jubilant sentiment of the author. And
the life of the child is one of continual dis-
covery. A revelation of harmonies that are
clarities.In two of the decimas included for
the first time in the fourth edition of Can-
tico, one notes the revelation of the spirit,
on the lips, in the eyes, in the expectant at-
titude of the creature. The mischievous
little devil is in the work and we perceive
him in permanentdialogue with the author,
that is to say, with the grandfather; a very
human and eternal dialogue, renewed in ex-
pression, which reaches the intensity and
the concentrationhabitual in Guillen.
I have already said how the exclusive at-
tention to the essence of things is dimin-
ished in the successive versions of the great
book, and it has even been possible for Eu-
genio Frutos to qualify as "jubilantexisten-
tialism"the Guillenian attitude.He is right,
since the intuitions crystallized in the poem
correspond to the lived experiences in
which, as Frutos has rightly seen, that
which is merges with what exists; to be is
to exist, and to exist is to be, dynamically,
actively. In poems like "Luz natal," there
are concrete referencesto Castile and Spain
unthinkable in the first period:
Luz de esta Castilla
Me impone mi destine
jHermosasprecisiones!
Gracianatal:Espafia
Orea una frescura:
Frescurade Castillaen el encuentro
De los dos rios, de los dos verdores.
The particular and concrete appear in
the poem, and nature is designated by name
and detail. Already on another occasion
I indicated the significance of "Luz natal"
and I said that the experienceis simply this :
the poet, returned to his native land, is situ-
ated facing the Castilian plain at a point
delimited by a short geographicalreference.
Close to Valladolid, in the midst of Castile,
he reflectsupon the intertwining courses of
44 BOOKS ABROAD
blood. Generations and time, the debt to poem placed between two splendid cantos
the parents and the gladness to be under of love: "Anillo" and "Sol en la boda."Per-
this sky, on this soil, in this language and haps a vacation time, surely enjoyed on the
history. In the "luz natal" the poet feels campus of some American college. If the
himself to be whole and real, and, passing air of Castile imposes a concentratedmedi-
over the abyss, sings of his loyalty to the tation upon being in time, one's origins and
land. space, the foreign landscape, nature guard-
He sings and affirmslife once more, with ed and ruled by a skillful and prudent hand
complete faith: inspires him to disinterested contempla-
tion of beauty, to give himself over to the
Que los muertosentierrena sus muertos,
Jamasa la esperanza. pure pleasure of seeing. It would not be
Es mia, sera vuestra, difficult to discover the changes, subtle
Aqui, generaciones. changes of attitude determined in the mind
Cuantas,y juveniles, of the poet by the various landscapes con-
jPisaranestacumbreque yo piso! templated.
The poet knows himself to be a part of
Pine groves, wheat fields, poplar trees . . .
the world and the world overwhelms him
and spring. If in the course of the poem
with evidences ("evidencias,verdores,"that
grim images emerge, unwelcome mem- is to say, verdure, evidences) of splendid
ories, the poet, after looking them in the
beauty, which he succeedsin retaining with
face, not denying them, but affirming him- a sure intuition for the most beautiful:
self and his hope, in spite of them, finds his
Fervor of life:
vital optimism again, the conviction that
life will continue in joy. En las tan entregadas
This examination of conscience hides its Corolas
pathos in the fluidity and the terseness Se zambullenavispas,aberrojos,
of the language : an exclamation or a ques- Y con todo el grosor
Menudode su cuerpo
tion is sufficient,as it usually occurs here to - Venid-
express an emotion; a simple repetition of Pesadamentesobrelos estambres
the pronoun yo (the second time between Gravitan
question marks) suggests the astonish- Durante unos segundosexquisitos.
ment at the lucky chance of having been
born there and then. Take note of the word "exquisite."
This feeling, exactly because it is not ex-Wasps, dragonflies,flowers, blades of grass,
clusive, when it finds (as in this case) a the water and what lives in it. It is sum-
mer and the bright afternoon denies mys-
simple and coherent expression,can be very
significant. Life is a gift: tery. As is usual in this book, the figures are
seen in the round, luminous in the summer
. . . jRegalo!
light. If there is an enigma, it is in the
Regalo paraquien water of the pond, when the spectatorbends
|Ah! Nada merecia, over it looking for his image- a try at phan-
No era nada ni nadie.
toms- in the changing mirror.In the poetry
The gift of existence, of energy received of Guillen the enigmas are "courteous"(re-
from the father and transmitted to the son member "Mas alia"); the phantoms are
(or to the work) . Consciousof his existence, known, and the contemplation of them ri-
he proclaims this "thanks" which more diculous, because we are not unaware of
than once vibratesin Cdntico: thanks to life their real substance. This poem is impor-
and the Creatorwho grants it. The perma- tant because it proclaims the certainty of
nent contemplative sensuousnessof Guillen the reality of being, the belief in a reality
reappears in "Tiempo libre," an extensive that consists in being and living in the

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 GULLON 45

world, driving away the dismemberedspec- toward clarity, order, joy; without doubt
ter that the pond offers. his world has a peerlesscoherence,but, pre-
I think that Guillen's existentialism cisely on that account, the indications that
never was affirmedin such a cutting way. can reveal zones in the conscious not subject
Here he did it with a new tone: the poet to the mental discipline of the poet, should
reflects the world, he is the mirror of the be scrupulously analyzed.
creation and, thanks to the world, he "is" In "Ariadna, Ariadna" he speaks of
it more integrally, he lives the splendor of chaos, but a fertile one; in "Mas alia," of
the afternoon and loves it intensely: to re- "courteous"enigmas, but enigmas. I know
flect is to love. The charms of the world en- that the whole poem has another meaning
counter an enthusiasticecho in the heart of than the one I am insinuating here, but it
one who, on receiving them, returns them. is proper to note the expressions that give
The murmuring of the trees and the living testimony in the opposite direction from
water are, in this poetry, signs of tranquil- the declared one. "Noche del caballero"
lity, of life itself and wholly human, of life, makes us think of that possible exploration
of manifest life. In this sense, perhapsthere of the mystery within a poetry that denies
is in Cdntico no poem so revealing as it, but denies it when the elucidating spirit
"Noche del caballero."The quotation from intervenes, not objectively. The center of
Don Quixote declares that "el caballero"is the poem is the man who dominates the
the dreamer from La Mancha, and the night, challenges it and attractsit to his fist.
night the one lived at the foot of the fulling Among the sonnets included in the last edi-
mills. The selection of the theme is very tion of Cdntico,I find one, "Con el duende,"
Guillenian, since in that episode Cervantes that fortifies the thesis presented here. The
shows how the dawn, illuminating things, whole nocturnal side of life- the disorder
restoresform and truth to them. Intractable and the anguish are, therefore,for this poet,
to the acceptance of mystery, this poetry dark- implies the presence of a duende, a
emerges with a desire for clarity, permeated secret company that incites him to song.
with light, because as we have repeatedly
said, the intelligence of the author does not Courteous enigmas
accept what is confused, turgid, inhuman. Guillen's world, a world of beauty and
(The process, as always, is accomplished plenitude, is filled to overflowing with
within.) resplendentmarvels. All the grace of reality
There is in Guillen an exigent logic that shines forth in this finely accomplished
chases away the shadows. With a jubilant
poetry. In a previous study on it I have
spirit he confronts the darkness, and at his pointed out some of these fine details.
step the woods dissolve into foliage, fra- Blecua and Damaso Alonso, on their part,
grances, breezes . . . and perhaps, perhaps, have commented on the most attractive
pages of Cdntico. The prodigious wonders
Sino velaseahorael ya elegido of the world are therein made poetry, and
the two criticspresentedconvincing explica-
fears would triumph in the night. Then it tions of them that in part coincided. The
may be that there is an enemy in the dark. air, the water, spring, the cycle of the sea-
The closed night opens through the de- sons, trees, birds . . . , fill this marvelous
cision of the knight, of the soul for whom environment, rich with light and painted
solitude is rest and instead of denying the in its right relief. Damaso Alonso points
strange, admits it, resolves itself to look for out: "How simple is the point of departure,
it. Is there not a supposition, an admission the trivial fact of our daily life, from which
of mystery as possible, in him who combats Jorge Guillen takes off! Yes, it is character-
it ? The mind of Guillen undoubtedly tends istic of Jorge Guillen and, moreover, it es-

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46 BOOKS ABROAD
sentially defines his poetry, this starting out
from the anecdote, from the small or daily
occurrence. The most everyday, the most
average, the minimal, receives meaning in
his poetry."
If the observation of Alonso is correct
(and without doubt it is) it is not only the
beauty of nature in its multiple forms that
attractsand inspires Guillen, but also at the
same time the varied circumstances of hu-
man life. The family, the children, and
then the grandchildren are present in the
poem, and with them the small incident,
the vision of women with their wash by a
small river or any other spectacle equally
commonplace and far from transcendent.
How deep do we feel the poet to be within
life and committed to it! His world was
growing in the round and completing itself,
and Cdntico is a breviary where there are
signs of how much it affects the heart of
man.
Consider, as an example, "Aire bailado,"
a poem of the gaiety of dance. Seldom
would one find such subtle elegance in de-
scribing this spectacle.The couples are seen
from outside and there is no pretext of tell-
ing us what is going on within each; they
are describedfrom the exterior, as the spec-
tator sees them. And this objectivity is
enough (so expressive is the precision) to
transmit the correct impression.
The poem begins, as is usual with Gui-
llen, with a simple mention: "Couples . . . ,"
sufficient to suggest the beginning of the
dance. A verb that is revealing of the action
follows: "prorrumpen."Two other verbs
accent the dynamic quality of the spectacle:
"pasan,giran." Verbs in the present indica-
tive since the dance is happening while the
poet imagines it. It is a present repeatedly
manifest, that goes on developing in the
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successive turns of the poem, as if the lat-
ter would like to join in the turns of the
dance until it comes to an end result of
acceptance and declaration of reality, ac-
cording to Guillen's taste. If we compare
this poem with "El vals" of Vicente Alei-
xandre, we see how different the tone and
rhythm are. In the poem by Aleixandre
there is, as Damaso Alonso has said, "a kind
of lividity of spectral light"; the dancers
have certainly a phantom-like quality and
unmistakably belong to the realm of the
visionary. We are in an environment of
shadows where nothing has real consist-
ency; the poem is rooted in impressions
that come from the dream world beyond.
In Guillen the couples do not lose their
reality although they are multiplied by the
mirrors,and if through them they seem mo-
mentarily spectral,it is not the dancersthat
produce this impression but their images
vanishing in the mirrors, in which every-
thing has a different aspect. Outside the
mirrors reality triumphs, as in the poetry
of Guillen, vanquishing dream and fantasy.
The dance ceases and the couples return:
Hacia su centrofirme de planeta.
But if, as always, reality finally imposes
itself, the specters are also there in some
manner, and not alluded to, but seen in
the mirror. Once I wrote that Guillen's
poetry is a poetry of the intelligence; now,
the more I read it the more places I en-
counter where the feeling of mystery sur-
reptitiously penetrates it, enigmas, even if
"courteous"ones. Without any diminution
of the rigor and precision, from time to
time, in the most unprecedentedway, there
emerges an allusion, a presence revealing
the dark realms.
University of Texas