Nothingness and Poetic Experience: Ueda and Valente

The aim of this chapter is to explore the role played by the notion of nothingness in the hermeneutics of poetic experience of two authors who worked independently on this issue, the Spanish poet José Ángel Valente and the Japanese philosopher Ueda Shizuteru. Here, we examine how both authors offered a theoretical reflection on language and creativity based on their reading of mystical literature. At the same time, we suggest that the “rhizomatic” connection that can be established between these two authors is clear in the way they noted a certain proximity between European mysticism and Eastern spiritual traditions, especially with regard to the expressive word that comes from ineffable experiences remaining on the borderline between silence and language.