Abstract

Leopoldo María Panero came to be known in 1970 for his inclusion in José María Castellet’s anthology Nueve novísimos poetas españoles. In his first collection of poems, Así se fundó Carnaby Street, Panero built a universe full of cultural references deriving from both pop culture and high culture. Additionally, in those poems, it is possible to find certain tender and naïve sensibility typical of childhood which the author seems to long for. However, from his second collection of poems, Panero’s poetry comes to reveal a discouraging and bleak vision of the world. The world is portrayed as a deserted cruel ghostly place in which the poet feels like an abandoned child. His verses are filled with all sorts of actions which go against accepted morals and customs such as homosexuality, violence, incest, etc. On the other hand, his poems are sprinkled with words considered clearly inappropriate for lyrical poetry such as “pedo”, “mierda”, “excremento”, “culo”, “ano”, “falo”, “vagina”, “cagar”, “masturbarse”, “cópula”, “necrofilia”, “semen”, etc. His father, Leopoldo Panero, who was defined by Dámaso Alonso as a “poeta arraigado”, was the official poet laureate of the Francoism, as he came to support the National-Catholic ideology of the Francoist regime portraying it in his works as a guarantor of harmony and peace. Leopoldo María Panero’s poetry constitutes a sharp contrast with the utopic worldview of his father, as what we find there is a discouraging dystopia. Undoubtedly, this change was possible due to the sociopolitical shift which Spain went through in the latter half of the 20th century.

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