The Real and the Public in Recent Critical Pœtry (with a Note on Antonio Méndez Rubio’s Work)

Abstract

Considering Jacques Ranciere's thought, one can distinguish today two main aspects that are generally dealt with by all critical poetry, described in principle as that which assumes its antagonistic participation in a certain social, cultural or political conflict. The first consists of the public dimension of the poetical discourse, understood both in the political sense of participation in a certain local/national or global public sphere (Jurgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser) and in a physical sense. The latter is associated with the emergence of the poem outside the printed page, thereby giving rise to an in situ exposition, with all that this involves above all in relation to spatiality, corporality, intermediality and performativity (Middleton, Grabner, Fischer-Lichte). The second aspect is shaped by this type of poetry's bias for a new intellection and representation of reality and truth, which it somehow aspires to demonstrate with ethical and political, as well as artistic efficiency. I will approach this topic from a general theoretical perspective and provide examples by focusing particularly on recent critical poetry by Antonio Mendez Rubio.