De la tierra al aire

Abstract

This article analyzes the representation of nature in Aníbal Núñez’s poetry, halfway between the ecological commitment and the elegy for the environmental disaster. While the poet’s initial books show the parallels between nature-based fables and advertising codes, since Naturaleza no recuperable there is a continuous transformation of landscape into culture, as well as a progressive loss of nature’s real sense and a degradation of its moral substance. From then on, the depiction of nature adopts the descriptive neutrality of historical chronicles (Estampas de ultramar), takes refuge in art (Figura en un paisaje), or is dissolved in the funerary performance of ruins (Alzado de la ruina). More generally, Aníbal Núñez’s symbolic world offers a metaphorical transposition of postmodern vacuum and advances the role that certain topoi (locus amœnus, beatus ille) play in contemporary Spanish poetry.