“Yo no canto a la defense de stalingrado” picks up and unites two separate streams of poetic thought which have been constant themes throughout the Epigramas: Love’s relationship to contingent temporality and history as mediated by the poetic form, and also Love’s relationship to society as mediated by money. The poem is divided into two [...]
Archive for March, 2010
Money poems. “Yo no canto a la defensa de stalingrado” and “Tú has trabajado veinte años”
Posted in Thesis on March 31, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Recibe estas rosas costarricences Myriam
Posted in Uncategorized on March 14, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In many of Cardenal’s epigrams, love and history are compared with each other in terms of their temporality. Politics and history are contingent and immanent realities which exist inside the flow of time, while love through poetry exists outside the flow of time, in a transcendent and intemporal mode. This contrast of temporalities emerges somewhat [...]
Yo he repartido papeletas clandestinas
Posted in Uncategorized on March 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Like “me contaron” this epigram describes the political activities of the poetic speaker and their relationship to his romantic situation. There is definite progression between the political activities in the prior epigram and this one. “Me contaron” describes a single vague action, -the writing of an article whose contents are unspecified- motivated not by political [...]
Me contaron que estabas enamorada de otro
Posted in Uncategorized on March 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
At this point in the text the poet’s growing political engagement occurs, although as in Aparicio suggests without any real sense of consciousness. He vents his erotic frustration on the government not out of conviction, but as a cowardly evasion of the cause of his alienation. Aparicio: Rather than confront the you for preferring another [...]
Epigramas and Narcissism
Posted in Thesis, Uncategorized on March 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The more deeply I read Epigramas the less I seem to like it. I almost wish I had chosen another text. I originally chose it because of William Rowe´s observations how Cardenal’s three texts Epigramas, Salmos and Gethsemani KY reflect a preoccupation with the sometimes troubled relationship between eros and politics. Indeed, Aparicio notes that [...]
