Politics, Aesthetics, and the Question of Meaning in Vallejo

Abstract

almost notoriously difficult poetry of follows, I want to suggest that Vallejo is difficult C6sar Vabbejo (Peru, 1892-Paris, 1938) is ften because meaning ( nd hence the poli ical) in defined as political for what are in fact largely his work is neither constituted, as it s for the biographical reasons-the poet's humble backmore traditional social poets, as a task primaground and w bb-known militancy on the Left rily of representat on; n r is it conceived as a which his writing refracts in themes such s the questi n of the interruption of representation, defense of the poo a d solidar y with the Repubtha i e e minacy f mea ing which accordi g lican cause in Spain. A thematic understanding of to much post-structurabist theory is in itself pothe pol ti thi po try ascrib a ic, (clas l ticably subversiv . Rathe , V llej 's d fficulty sically) representatio al qualitie to t e work a is th t of a po try which disturbs a cepted c nd t it-on out Vallej ' gi al y al ng wi h figurat ons f hought, bu so u hes us o h s iff culty-thus ign ring he d pth of his own participate in t e c ea of a new cogn tive ght on he relatio h be ween po i ics and mode. Eveswar of the o ac ty of wor s, Vabbe a s ics. j s e r id olog c b undarie . R ther L t rary histories commo ly p ir Va j w han claim t r deem la guage or l ad us o a his contemporary Pablo Nerudabecause both are clear space beyond its turbulent sut-face, Valbejo highly acclaimed, Left-oriented writers who fit-st strives within it to set in motion what he calls ar se in e yday of t e v nt-garde p iod. Yet in ne of i books el rigor diali ico d l simple styl a d cl a m sa f s ab y u do bj i o y subj ivo (Va bejo 1977: 90). co c u po try such a N rud ' i Canto e l, nde t mak th poe ava l ble to I an ill-educated public and unrecupet-abbe to a bourg i it r trad n, p fy n h tic The discovery of language as mediation is very different from Vablejo' s, whose most politicentral to both modem poetry and contemporary cabby commit ed poetry is, in a seeming paradox, literary the ry. After th Romantics' voyage toalso nearby unreadable by traditional standards. wards t limits of language, summed up b Vallejo, in his c itic l writings, which question Rubin Dario at the end of the nineteenth century h hum v lu f h a ntd styl in in the lines Yo pes-sigo una fot-ma / que no p e r h po i r f M kov ki' cue ts-amiestibo (622); aftes-the avant-garde' lit ca v , cons n ly p d t qu st o mphasis on linguistic productivi y at the bev l of f o o s o t s c co n f w he s gn fiesover the referenti l func ion of art; i u cr ng pr g n ist c l era . T is and e p c ally af er the escr p ion of the wo ld q s i p r ls c sr bl m i n t xt i s muc rece t literary an cultu al temporary critical debate: how can literature theory, it has become commonplace to conclude m g wi ut f l g int h r p that the apprehension of heterogeneous impulses t b go ri d s urse? An exand self-ironic stances in our literary and cultural o h l l base nd implic ions text are the bastpo sible ho izon oftheirs-eading, V b j ' s y s fficu t is c l, em, o as w ll as t only p ssible non-repress v is k o ba d on p ph as cri ic l at itude. The elf-p i g of this critia ed mag . I w t cab evelopm nt s e fically at the e d of inter