Jose Gorostiza's "Canciones Para Cantar en Las Barcas"

Abstract

the critics.1 Those studies which have appeared concerning his work have concentrated their attention on the complex philosophic poem Muerte sin fin and left aside his earlier verse, including the book Canciones para cantar en las barcas-perhaps because of its apparent simplicity.2 But it is our feeling that a study of the latter work will show that it treats fundamental problems and conveys a great deal of meaning to the reader. Most of the twenty-five poems of the book use nature images very often taken from marine settings; the world of nature, indeed, seems to become the predominant theme of the work. But on studying the work we quickly notice that nature it never an end in itself, but rather a means which gives form to human preoccupations. Elements taken from the landscape serve to illuminate and make real to the