Resisting alienation: the literary work of Enrique Lihn PDF
Preview Resisting alienation: the literary work of Enrique Lihn
Resisting Alienation .................16291$ $$FM 06-26-0709:40:06 PS PAGE1 .................16291$ $$FM 06-26-0709:40:06 PS PAGE2 Resisting Alienation The Literary Work of Enrique Lihn Christopher M. Travis Lewisburg BucknellUniversityPress .................16291$ $$FM 06-26-0709:40:09 PS PAGE3 (cid:2)2007byRosemontPublishing&PrintingCorp. All rightsreserved. Authorization tophotocopy itemsfor internal orpersonal use, ortheinternalorpersonaluseofspecificclients,isgrantedbythecopyrightowner, providedthatabaseof$10.00,pluseightcentsperpage,percopyispaiddirectlyto the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, Massachusetts 01923.[978-0-8387-5675-1/07$10.00(cid:3)8¢pp,pc.] AssociatedUniversityPresses 2010EastparkBoulevard Cranbury,NJ08512 ThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstherequirementsoftheAmerican NationalStandardforPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibraryMaterials Z39.48-1984. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Travis,Christopher,1971– Resistingalienation:theliteraryworkofEnriqueLihn/ChristopherTravis. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN-13:978-0-8387-5675-1(alk.paper) ISBN-10:0-8387-5675-1(alk.paper) 1.Lihn,Enrique—Criticismandinterpretation. I.Title. PQ8097.L47Z88 2007 861(cid:2).64—dc22 2006037015 printedinthe unitedstatesofamerica .................16291$ $$FM 06-26-0709:40:09 PS PAGE4 Contents Acknowledgments 6 Introduction 9 1. QuestioningLiterary Expression:Dialectical Engagement inLihn’s EarlyWriting 26 2. Lihn’s ReturntoAmerica: ReflectionsinForm 89 BeyondSeptember11, 1973:ArtAfter‘Auschwitz’’ 133 3. GlobalObservationsofAlienation withLocal Implications 144 4. BeyondPoetry: InventingDystopia 164 5. Spectacles, Happenings,andApparitions:ThePresenceof theCarnivalesqueinLihn 211 Conclusion:TheDiaryofDyingandthePoetryofLife 235 Notes 250 WorksCited 282 Index 289 5 .................16291$ CNTS 06-26-0709:40:15 PS PAGE5 Acknowledgments I ’D LIKE TO EXPRESS SINCERE GRATITUDE TO MEMBERS OF MY dissertation committee at the University of Texas including directors Naomi Lindstrom and Jose´ Cerna-Baza´n, to the many friends and colleagues, writers, critics, and professors, in Chile and the United States,whomadevaluablecontributionstothisbook,andtothededi- catededitorsofBucknellUniversity PressandAssociatedUniversity Presses. The book has benefited greatly from the high quality of the growing bibliography on Lihn and from the personal readings, reac- tions,andwritingsinresponsetoLihnandhisworkbyLihn’sfamily andfriends,andmyownstudentsatElmhurstCollege.Thankyouto all those interested in the work of this provocative artist who keep his work alive through creative and critical interpretation. Generous fundingforessentialstagesoftheprocesshasbeenprovidedthrough Elmhurst’sFacultyDevelopmentGrantprogram.Idedicatethebook to my wife Tavia and family, and to the writers of Chile, who con- tinuetoshowthatdespue´sde todo,siempre hayarte. 6 .................16291$ $ACK 06-26-0709:40:33 PS PAGE6 Resisting Alienation .................16291$ HFTL 06-26-0709:40:41 PS PAGE7 .................16291$ HFTL 06-26-0709:40:42 PS PAGE8 Introduction laverdadesrevolucionaria,comoloestambie´nlabu´squedadela misma. [Thetruthisrevolutionary,asisalsothesearchforit] —EnriqueLihn ‘‘C HILE:TIERRADELOSPOETAS.’’PEOPLEOFTENSPEAKOFCHILEAS the‘‘landofpoets’’citingNobelPrizewinnersPabloNerudaandGa- briela Mistral, the active writers’ guilds, foundations, societies, pub- lishers, and journals. Within Chile, poets, readers, critics, professors, andpublishersarespeakingofEnriqueLihn(1929–88).WhowasEn- rique Lihn? How is it possible that a writer whose life and work are sofrequentlycitedbydevotedLatinAmericanpoetscanstillberela- tively unknown to North American readers? When Chilean writers honor Pablo Neruda, but prefer to engage critically and creatively with Lihn in their own writing, pay homage to Gabriela Mistral, but aspiretoimbuetheirownspeechandversewiththewittyconscience and sardonic tones most associated with Lihn, we must investigate further.WhenawinneroftheprestigiousPremioCasadelasAme´ri- cas (1966), or fellowships from UNESCO and the Guggenheim Foundation, does not appear on the reading lists of leading North AmericanandEuropeandoctoralprograms,andyetisdeemedbyNi- canor Parra—himself candidate on many occasions for the Nobel Prize in Literature—as one of Latin America’s greatest poets, many questions arise. Could it be that Lihn’s premature death of lung can- cer temporarily silenced his unique voice and few were prepared to continue his hard line of critical creativity? Does his poetry take the reader to a level of discomfort, with its challenging philosophical questions, sense of modern foreboding, and cynicism, which we are attimesreluctanttoconfront?Or,wemustwonder,didthepersonal- ity of a man more interested in honest friendships and courageous writingthansocialgracesandrhetoricsomehowalienatetheacademic community? One thing is clear: Lihn was supremely devoted to his 9 .................16291$ INTR 06-26-0709:40:48 PS PAGE9 10 RESISTING ALIENATION work,and thesincerityoftheidealsit embodied.Whilethechalleng- ing nature of his writing or the visceral struggle that is played out in the language of his poetry may have limited his commercial success, he has been highly venerated by the writers of his time and today’s writers.Heservesasinspirationandvalidation,forwriters,thattheir insecurities, disillusion, and fear are real and acceptable; that writing is not about finding the perfect form of expression, but about the struggle,theprocess.Asamodel,butalsothroughpraiseandpointed critique, Lihn inspired followers to confront reality, but also to en- gagewiththestruggleofpoetryitself.1Poetryisreality. I ‘‘discovered’’ Lihn in the rare books section of the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas, when I came upon therecordingofatalkhegaveinAustinasaVisitingProfessor,1985. Speaking to those who had worked with Lihn, I learned that he changed the lives of many, inspired others, and could also, it turned out,bea ratherunaccommodatingofficemate.Onthetape,hisvoice rises and falls with the humble yet powerful intonations of a man committedtoliterature,withnointerestinthelyricalgamesandrhe- torical falsity of what we oftenencounter at public readings. Unwill- ing to sell himself to a hungry public as a practitioner of Magical Realism or as political refugee, and certainly not as the heir apparent to his countryman Pablo Neruda, Lihn challenged the audience with complex negativity, beauty hidden within the trappings of parody, truthandtranscendenceacknowledgedfortheirexistenceonlyasun- attainable.Afterreadinganumberofpoemsandwaitingpatientlyfor the English translations, the man who spoke surprisingly little En- glish (considering the years spent in such places as New York and Texas) explained that there would be no translation provided for the remaining poems. Those who knew or have studied Lihn understand thatwhatmayhavebeenreceivedatthetimeasinsensitivitywasmore a reflection of his profound understanding of the effects of language on ideology, of imperialistic dominance of English over Spanish and other languages, of art too removed from its sociohistorical context, of the dangers of trying to fit Latin American writers into a canon drivenanddesignedbyNorthAmericanscholars,oftheequallydan- gerous practice of applying the paradigms of Western literary criti- cism to poetry from Latin America. In truth, Lihn’s work is quite comparable in certain regards to the poetry of William Carlos Wil- liams (1883–1963), Robert Lowell (1917–77), Ezra Pound (1885– 1972), and some of the beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg (1926–97).2 It may show signs of antipoetry, as comparable first to .................16291$ INTR 06-26-0709:40:50 PS PAGE10
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