Jorge Guillen and the Poetry of Commitment

Abstract

Few contemporary poets shared Guill6n's unconditional acceptance and celebration of life. MacLeish mentions St. John Perse and Kazantzakis. There are others, of course: William Carlos Williams singing his red wheelbarrow, his yellow chimney; Pablo Neruda's delightful odes to celery and the potato. Most poets, however, especially in English, have chosen to lament and groan in the face of nothingness. The poetry of Cdntico is positive, optimistic, affirmative, it sings and rejoices. Ccantico ended with the 1950 edition. Jorge Guil'n has begun the writing of a new work called Clamor, two parts of which have already appeared: Maremdgnum (1957) and ... Que van a dar en la mar (1960); a third, A las alturas de las circunstancias, is in preparation. A poet is not a Platonic idea, he is a man of flesh and bone who grows and changes. The poet of Clamor is not the poet of Cdntico, although the great spirit of Jorge Guill6n and the underlying optimism are still present. Cdntico represented a search for pure beauty, for the eternal moment, for order and symmetry in the universe; in Maremdgnum the search for order has not been abandoned, but it has been overshadowed by the poet's concern for his fellow man and strife-tormented world; it is a poetry of commitment to the struggle for man's dignity, survival and essential worth. And this poetry of social concern and commitment was already announced in the final poem of Cadntico: