Influencia literaria: La obra poética y crítica de Luis Cernuda, Jorge Guillén, José Lezama Lima, Octavio Paz, Fernando Charry Lara y Jaime Gil de Biedma

Abstract

The six poets which are the subject of this study shared the same attitude towards literary criticism and its relation to the writing of poetry. All of them thought that literary criticism was a means of elucidation of their own work, and a form of participation in contemporary polemics on the literary tradition and the function of poetry in a modern society. As they took part in them, they assumed certain positions relating to the ideas of Paul Valéry and T. S. Eliot, who were probably the two most influential literary critics during the first half of the Twentieth century. Guillén, Cernuda, Paz, Lezama, Charry and Gil de Biedma also debated with each other during their literary careers. Moreover, because they were part of the Romantic and Symbolist tradition of poetry, they had to face several fundamental problems in the writing of poetry: what is the relation between poetry and correspondances or universal analogies, what is its relation to historical reality, whether the expression of an individual subject can reach some degree of universality or not. Each of them solved these problems in their own particular way. These issues are brought up in this thesis, which compares their literary criticism and their poetry.

Date of Award	26 Sept 2012
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Elena Usandizaga Lleonart (Director)