4—
Los Crepúsculos Del Jardín:
Subversion, Irony, Parody
Los crepúsculos del jardín (1905) is usually considered to be the work of Lugones which exhibits most completely the conventions of modernismo, especially with its attention to stylized scenes, exotic detail, and erotic description. Although it presents many similarities with modernismo 's conventions, it also includes a masked but critical commentary on them. By his excesses of elaborate stylization. Lugones deflates the self-enclosure of modernismo, its arcane symbols and resistant formal structures. The publication of Los crepúsculos del jardín in 1905 corresponds to a waning in the poetic movement of modernismo, which now begins to intersect with other literary tendencies such as realism. Its conventionality as a mode of writing now becomes more clearly visible because of the abundance of productions that make its mechanisms more apparent. Just as la poesía gauchesca at this time reveals itself as a code of constructions that simulates frankness and "simple" language,[1] so modernismo 's ubiquitous presence allows for its own deciphering as a code and enlarges its circle of initiates.
Although modernismo does not postulate a world vision in the same way that the social prophecies of romanticism do, its inward expansion creates a type of muted message. Although its rhetoric is not the "Romantic megaphone" of Hartman's description, its plethora of euphonic devices and striking visual images assertively push forward its conceptual framework. modernismo 's foundations in symbolism propose correspondences between the sensory world and a transcendent reality, and since this system privileges a certain array of objects in the sensory world to symbolize inner states, its intensification process is often one of decoration, a heaping up of stylistic devices and
visual details until its very excesses make it vulnerable to parodic attack. When the conceptual framework supporting the code of modernismo begins to fade, when it becomes accessible to a wider public as a set of easily understood signs, then the writing itself becomes more visible as an act of construction, a craft or work rather than a revelation of transcendent meaning.
The poetic self-enclosure of Los crepúsculos del jardín alternates between fragility and tonal shading on one hand, and violent dislocation and cacophony on the other. In the same manner, Los crepúsculos del jardín's major themes, eroticism and crepuscular landscapes, bounce back and forth between extremes. For Lugones, a pattern of pristine intactness apparently invites an invasive transgression. In Los crepúsculos, however, rather than breaking modernismo 's patterns of mysterious rites and consistent beauty from the outside, Lugones subverts them from within. Exaggeration is one of Lugones' favored methods of making his models more visible. He exaggerates certain themes by extending their development too far, or points out certain techniques by explicitly commenting on their use within the poems themselves. One swan will not suffice, there must be three; each facet of the sunset's fading glory must be catalogued, and the detailed presentation of the desired woman detracts from its totality by a listing of the separate parts of her decor, including even her stocking color. The overflow of odds and ends, the bibelotisme of the poems, begins to take on prosaic tones of realism rather than the enchanted sketches for which modernismo was striving.
In his second volume Lugones violates the mysteries of modernismo by exaggerating the methods of producing the aura, by disclosing its secrets and allowing the uninitiated to participate. The elements he selects from the code's iconography of eroticism and beauty are not contained within a relationship of impassibility and self-containment. Lugones' didacticism reemerges as he strives to point out, with a heavy hand, his production methods. In doing so, he releases its secrets and exposes its rites. As the models become explicit, he adds a distancing commentary on the construction process which deflates the aura. Time and again, the deflation is apparent and the self-reflexive world of modernismo changes into a commentary on the process of con-
struction. Yet, unlike the deflation in Lunario sentimental, here one cannot see as clearly the impulses behind the dismantling of modernismo 's world view.
Is this transgression and subversion of modernismo 's norms by exaggeration and overloading a completely conscious act on the part of Lugones? Given the context of his preceding and subsequent writings, this interpretation seems unlikely. All of Lugones' early writings, including the journalistic prose and the poetry of Las montañas del oro, exhibit the celebratory style and the overloading process that triggers its own parody.[2] By exalting the nature of his models, he overvalues their use for his own purposes and clings very tightly to culturally approved models. The awareness of the end result of this process, the dissolution of the image of the poet as vidente (prophet), although suggested in the poetic preface to Los crepúsculos del jardín, is acknowledged fully only later, in the preface to Lunario sentimental . And when he does bow to the image of the poet as simply a craftsman or maker, rather than a prophet or seer, Lugones replies with a vengeance and, in effect, retreats instead of advancing farther into new territory.
Evidence of the presence or absence of intentionality in creating the parodic effect is given by the opinions of Lugones' contemporaries. The excesses of Los crepúsculos del jardín created an impact lost to later readers. Within its frame of reference, the poetry of the surrounding epoch, Los crepúsculos del jardín strained but did not destroy modernismo 's conventions. A nonironic reading of its poetry would presuppose a stability of contexts, that is, a reading without a parodic double imposed by an explicit knowledge of the poetic code it illustrates.[3] Since Los crepúsculos del jardín was produced within a transition period, not only of literary conventions but of Lugones' society as a whole, it must be remembered that many of the codified signs still carried their evocative power, without being perceived as out of context.[4]
Contrasts with Las Montañas Del Oro
Los crepúsculos del jardín contrasts in many ways with the messageoriented Las montañas del oro . Not structured as an allegorical
progression, as is Las montañas del oro, its divisions are based more on internal thematic unity than on their relationship to the volume as a whole. There are, however, two main unifying elements of the collection. First, it is characterized by the attention to visual aspects, especially those associated with the volume's title. Its formal or rustic gardens and the play of fading light on static scenes serve as settings on which to project emotion or memory. The second element is the highlighted presence of the woman, an ideal the modernistas transformed into a special symbolic code. These two elements are present in most modernista poetry and usually suggest nostalgia and sensuality within a self-contained world far removed from that of everyday objects and trite settings. Their recurring presence in Los crepúsculos del jardín gives an apparent unity to the collection; however, some variations in treatment constitute a departure from established modernista patterns, even to the point of dismantling modernismo 's common precepts.
The preface of Los crepúsculos del jardín, in contrast to the introduction to Las montañas del oro, stresses the volume's lighter nature. Offered to reader as a ramillete (collection), its aim is diversion rather than instruction:
Pasatiempo singular
Tal vez, aunque harto inocente,
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Epopeya baladí
Que, por lógico resorte
Quizá sirva a tu consorte
Para su five o'clock tea . . .
(OPC, 107)
Singular pursuit
Perhaps, although quite innocent
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Trivial epic
That, as a logical resort
Might be of use to your consort
For his five o'clock tea . . .
A mixture of levels is signaled early in the Preface by the use of deflationary adjectivization, such as "fiaqueza vencedor" ("victo-
rious weakness"), and the use of everyday words. The role of the poet is no longer a godlike or martyred one; he is but a simple worker who expects earthly rewards:
Mas yo sudé mi sudor
En mi parte de labranza.
Y el verde de mi esperanza,
Es primicia de labor.
Obrero cuya tarea
Va sin grimas ni resabios,
Mientras a flor de sus labios
Un aria vagabundea . . .
(OPC, 108)
(But I have toiled in my sweat
At my part of the cultivation.
And the green of my hope,
Is the first fruit of my labor.
Worker whose task
Goes on, unresisting,
While upon his lips
An aria idly meanders . . .)
Gigantism, present in Las montañas del oro, is replaced in Los crepúsculos del jardín by watercolor landscapes and formal gardens. It is poetry ostensibly in the tradition of Verlaine or of Rubén Darío's Prosas profanas, whose search was for musicality in verse and the suggestive nuance instead of overt comparison. Figures from Greek mythology, swans, ephemeral twilights,femmes fatales, and exotic coloration—the unmistakable stamps of modernismo —are clearly present. There are derivations from Albert Samain's Au jardin de l'infante, and the precision of detail follows Gautier's Parnassian precept, "Sculpte, lime, cisèle" ("Sculpt, polish, chisel"). Character, like that of the poet-speaker in Las montañas del oro or of the beautiful woman prized by the modernistas, is dispersed in a series of functions that negate total identity. The metonymical description of the woman ranges from vague suggestion to fetishistic contemplation. At times religious language expresses eroticism, similar to the practice of many fin de siglo poets, and most importantly, the poetry
of Rubún Darío. The treatment of eroticism, always linked with darkness, punishment, and wounding in Las montañas del oro, is much less consistent here. Lugones sometimes changes the femmes fatales into laughing schoolgirls and the ardent young suitors into aging bachelors.
The function of nature's imagery has a different purpose in Los crepúsculos del jardín, for no coherent structure in nature is traced. Although natural settings are favored, they are viewed from a fragmented perspective. Leaving the tableau presentation in favor of a close-up focus on individual elements, the vision of the poetic eye is narrowed. No longer does nature serve as an ordered symbolic background from which an allegory can be constructed, as it did in Las montañas del oro . The favored scene is an interior space, a garden, a landscape reflected in a mirror, or moonlight gazing back from the water. The extension of the twilight moment aids in giving a nebulous quality to the scenes, which are usually detached from an historical frame of reference.
Los Crepúsculos Del Jardín: A Visual Perspective
With the close-up focus, it is difficult to keep in view a hierarchy of nature. Just as the temporal scheme is broken, the panoramic gaze breaks into fragments, with special emphasis on objects seen out of context, especially luxurious or exotic materials. Baudelaire's remarks on pictorial art have special relevance for a discussion of Los crepúsculos del jardín, for attention is shifted more to visual elements in this volume. In his art criticism, Baudelaire remarks on the results of this shift of focus: "Plus l'artiste se penche avec impartialité vers le détail, plus l'anarchie augmente. Qu'il soit myope ou presbyte, toute hierarchie et toute subordination disparaissent"[5] ("The more the artist tends impartially toward detail, the more anarchy increases. Whether he is near-sighted or far-sighted, all hierarchy and all subordination disappear"). An important change within Los crepúsculos del jardín is the inversion of the practice of landscape/emotion reflection. The mirror image, which catches a fragment of a landscape and contains it within an enclosed space, restructures the relationship of human reflection in nature. It points up the
mechanical manipulation of scenic space, and provides a visual image for the poetic process of duplication and refraction of sight. The use of reflection, either in pools of water or mirrors, is an important element that repeats on a visual level the process of authorial duplication by refraction from many angles. The sky, the water, and human eyes participate in this merging, identification, and subsequent awareness of dissimilarity.
As the images of nature in Los crepúsculos del jardín are dispersed or fragmented, the all-encompassing poetic voice that frames the diverse poems of the volume dissolves. Instead of possessing grandiloquence, the lyrical voice is diminished and dispersed in a variety of functions. The run-on alexandrines separated by dashes of Las montañas del oro disappear, and the sonnet form dominates the collections. Although verse forms are often mixed, rhyme always remains. Owing to the conciseness the sonnet requires, extended similes (as in Las montañas del oro ) virtually disappear, and the syntax becomes more fluid with the extensive use of enjambment. Neologisms and unexpected modifiers transmit a playful, more humorous tone; and the formal gardens grow in complexity until they become a mockery of themselves. Comments inserted about the construction of these scenes give some of them a conversational tone, as in "New Mown Hay." Lugones treats not only the love theme more lightly, but comments implicitly on the type of poetry that he and others had been writing.
Desdoblamiento and the Subject's Role
The process of double vision, or desdoblamiento of the braided helix of signifier and signified, rests on the interruption, or découpage, of the construction process. Los crepúsculos del jardín is not only an assemblage of different sets of icons; as a representation of the process of textual production, it presents as well an act that metaphorizes its own procedures. If we hunt for revealing signs of the fissure of a poetic text, the narrow entrance that helps us understand the shrouded mechanics of construction, what we find in Lugones is an anticipation of this intrusion. Rather than be discovered, with the startled look over the shoulder, by the intruder who peers into the circle, Lugones makes great whacks in the circle, jolts that open it wide. He invites the
voyeur to enter the circle, like the circus barker who drums up business. The defined poetic voice stands back as interpreter or summarizer, the parodist who breaks the identification between the representation of the scene and its observer. This interruption, or distancing, may be caused not just by parody but by the insertion of the deflating or disquieting moment, the wrong word, the colloquial turn of phrase into the fixed scene.
The directing speaker's voice, although not necessarily identified as such, may be present in the binding and encircling presence of rhyme and meter, a note of knowing irony, an outlining of scenic space, or the way it parcels out the presentation of the body. In the case of the presentation of the female figure, an image prized for possession, status, and, above all, rich possibility, a fetishistic or metonymical dispersion of the figure invites a destructive gaze, an invitation to participate in dividing it up, and therefore in a total possession and directing dominance on the part of the observer. The challenge is to sort out the shifting relationship of this subject—object pattern, to show when the directing hand loses control and allows, consciously or unconsciously, another subversive voice to enter on its own terms. As Gilles Deleuze defines this relationship in writing, it is language's reflexive nature that parallels the physical and creates analogies between speaking, seeing, and hearing:
Si le langage imite les corps, ce n'est pas par l'onomatopée, mais par la flexion. Et si les corps imitent le langage, ce n'est pas par les organes, mais par les flexions. Aussi y a-t-il toute une pantomine intérieure au langage, comme un discours, un récit intérieure au corps. Si les gestes parlent, c'est d'abord parce que les mots miment les gestes.[6]
(If language imitates the body, it is not by onomatopoeia, but by flexion. And if bodies imitate language, it is not by the organs but by flexions. Thus, there is a whole interior pantomime to language, like a discourse, an interior narrative to the body. If gestures speak, it is first because words mime gestures.)
The introduction of prosaic or urban elements in the tableau presentation of a crepuscular landscape, so favored by the modernistas, threatens its enclosure. The presence of prosaic ele-
ments invites metonymical displacement, breaking the circle of metaphoric enclosure, leaving the emblematic scene open to multivalent interpretations. For Lugones the emblem (icon, gathering together, metaphor, composure) is coded in terms of the evocative power of language in relation to its place in the heritage of literature, important as a social institution. Enclosure, or closure, must always be reasserted by an identification of the speaking subject. In an individual poem this assertion may be present as a narrative voice, the binding and encircling presence of rhyme, or the deflationary movement of conscious parody. More generally, within the structure of the volume itself, this reassertion may take the form of an attached prologue, an arrangement of poems in a thematic progression, or knowing titles and dedications. Yet given the verbal mastery of a poet such as Lugones, the binding process must be strong to contain deviations inherent in the nature of language itself with its multivalent associations and resonance. For us as modern readers, therefore, Lugones is only interesting when he steps outside the circle, when encircling repression snaps and the body of language reasserts its primal will.
In the poetry of Lugones the coded thematic systems of eroticism, the night, and urban living provoke this slip and fall. Whenever introduced, these elements are either parodied, transformed into a larger didactic text, or linked very carefully with the obvious imitation of another text, such as those of Samain and Laforgue. Yet in Lunario sentimental, Los crepúscuios del jardín, and parts of Las montañas del oro, the figure of the representing subject loses ground. In each case meter, rhyme, and metaphoric progression are distorted and never totally recaptured. The rhyme scheme and sound patterns become agitated, calling attention to themselves as a distancing countermeasure to the introduction of these themes.
The Heritage of Symbolism
Au Jardin de l'infante by Albert Samain is considered to be the direct inspiration of Los crepúsculos del jardín, as well as of Julio Herrera y Reissig's Los éxtasis de la montaña . There are similarities, especially thematic ones. The toning of colors, the settings,
and a frequent presence of malevolence associated with eroticism are common to all three works. The first and last stanzas of "Dilection" from Au Jardin de l'infante illustrate Samain's poetic preferences:
J'adore l'indécis, les sons, les couleurs frêles,
Tout ce qui tremble, ondule, et frissone, et chatoie.
Les cheveux et les yeux, l'eau, les feuilles, la soie,
Et la spiritualité des formes grêles:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Et tel coeur d'ombre chaste, embaumé de mystère,
Où veille, comme le rubis d'un lampadaire,
Nuit et jour, un amour mystique et solitaire.[7]
(I adore all vagueness, sounds, fragile colors,
All that trembles, undulates, shivers, shimmers.
Hair and eyes, water, leaves, silk,
And the spirituality of slender forms;
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And such a heart of chaste shadow, embalmed in mystery,
Where a mystical and solitary love,
Keeps vigil, like the ruby of a candelabrum.)
Robert M. Scari cites three procedures he considers to be derived from Samain's poetry: animistic adjectivization, metaphors created by means of prepositional phrases, and verbs that end in -izar (iser ) which create instantaneous metaphor, for example, histerizar .[8] Although there are indeed unmistakable thematic similarities, Samain uses explicit equivalences that are found much less frequently in Los crepúsculos del jardín and he adheres much more closely to the landscape/emotion equivalence:
Mon coeur est un beau lac solitaire qui tremble.
Hanté d'oiseaux furtifs et de rameaux frôleurs . . .
("Invitation")[9]
(My heart is a beautiful, solitary lake that trembles.
Haunted by darting birds and rustling branches . . .)
La vie est une fleur que je respire à peine.
("Extrême Orient, II")[10]
(Life is a flower that I scarcely breathe.)
Mon coeur, tremblant des lendemains,
Est comme un oiseau dans tes mains,
Qui s'effarouche et qui frisonne.
("Viole")[11]
(My heart, trembling with tomorrows,
Is like a bird in your hands,
That flutters and shivers.)
In contrast to Samain, Lugones often condenses this process of creating explicit equivalences, or provides enough elliptical expressions to leave any such equivalence ambiguous, as in "Hortus deliciarum" in which the night, the woman, and the flowers are united and compared by a transposition of attributes. Or a mere listing of objects may suffice to create a setting by contiguity, rather than by an outline of its contours, as in the attention given the fading state of different fabrics in "El solterón."
The influences of poets such as Verlaine, Samain, and Rubén Darío are clearly apparent among the wide and eclectic range of techniques and themes of Los crepúsculos del jardín . Lugones, however, seems to resist the maintenance of mystery and musicality, choosing to deflate patterns of suggestiveness and intrigue with the unexpected term or the incongruous image. In his critical writings, Lugones even presents ambivalent views about theories and practices of symbolism. In the prologue to Castalia bárbara by Jaimes Freyre in 1899, Lugones applauds the poet's production because he demonstrates the most important of poetic talents, an individual poetic rhythm.[12] Lugones discusses also the poetic concept behind Jaimes Freyre's poetry, where solitude and contemplation reveal the innate correspondences between man and the universe. This concept determines the techniques of his poetry; specific figures are not presented since the poems' subjects are collective:
Es poesía enteramente subjetiva la suya y sólo aspira a producir estados de alma, dejando que el lector se coloque en el medio más apto para cultivarlos o refinarios, una vez producidos.[13]
(His poetry is entirely subjective and only aspires to produce spiritual states, letting the reader place himself in the most fitting me-
dium so that once these spiritual states are produced he may cultivate or refine them.)
According to Lugones this method also has disadvantages: "la primera una completa inaccesibilidad para el público, y la segunda, entre otras, una vaguedad lindera a veces de la confusión y del extravío"[14] ("the first is its total inaccessibility for the public, and the second, among others, a vagueness that occasionally borders on confusion and deviation"). He notes, however, that its primary advantage is the force of its powers of evocation.
Lugones' main objection to the theories and practices of the symbolists is not so much a question of technique, but a more basic issue, the essential lack of unity that it reflects: "He aquí lo que este poeta practica. Yo no estoy conforme ni con sus ideas ni con sus tendencias en general . . ."[15] ("Here is what this poet practices. I do not agree with his ideas nor with his tendencies in general . . ."). For Lugones the essential poetic elements are rhythm and harmony, which are reflections of the unified conscience that produces them: "Sentir la Belleza es percibir la unidad del Universo en la armonía de las cosas. De este postulado se desprende una consecuencia que antes de ahora tengo expresada así: el estilo es el ritmo"[16] ("To feel Beauty is to perceive the unity of the Universe in the harmony of objects. From this postulate one can derive the consequence that I have previously expressed in this manner: style is rhythm"). In theory as well as in practice, Lugones shows himself to be resistant to many of symbolism's practices. Thus, despite the fact that Los crepúsculos del jardín has usually been judged as Lugones' most typically modernista work, and the one that most clearly approximates the techniques of symbolism, it is impossible to view it as consistent in this respect. It does include many modernista traits, but its mixture of levels, including parody and satire, violates the symbolist canons of self-enclosure and the primacy of suggestiveness. Despite the strength of visual aspects, Lugones' tendency toward depersonalization disrupts the harmony of scenes and sounds.
Even with its departures from modernismo, Los crepúsculos del jardín most closely resembles the work of the modernistas by its exhibitions of spectacular accumulations and learned allusions.
It shows its author's knowledge and mastery of specialized forms, poetic treatments, and current standardized images. By varying and combining so many types of poems, it flaunts its erudition and then dismisses it by satire and comedy, a process that will be extended and heightened in Lunario sentimental . Alternating with modernista sonority is disruption into cacophony and comic play.
One of the major aims of symbolism, to suggest and not to explain, is carried to extremes by Lugones, for he forces into view the possibilities of manipulation of the signs themselves. The inclusion of vocabulary outside the modernista code—such as a colloquial turn of phrase "así fue el caso," ("that's how it was") of "Tentación"—points up the special code in contrast to everday usage. Although in some poems the trivialization of caricature of established practices can only be viewed as authorial intention, as in "Los cuatro amores de Dryops," in others the search for novelty and accumulation may be the unconscious process that leads to parody. Many poems, to varying degrees, include distancing signals that interrupt the progression of scene—emotion correspondence. "Romántica," which is tightly united by parallels of the loved woman with the beauty of the afternoon and flowers, includes unlikely combinations such as:
Fúnebre es tu candor adolescente
Que la luna sonámbula histeriza,
Y el perfume de nardo decadente
En que tu alma pueril se exterioriza.
(OPC, 138)
(Funereal is your adolescent candor
Which the sleepwalking moon excites to hysteria,
and the decadent perfume of the tuberose
in which your puerile spirit manifests itself.)
The melancholy progression of memory follows many traditional paths, but there are departures even in the most unified poems.
By exalting convention Lugones undermines it. The focal points of his perspectives dissolve as he focuses in on his models
with an ever-narrowing gaze. Metaphors are sustained to such an extent that their center is displaced, while words and sounds are used like objects whose original function has been forgotten. Here the convention of modernismo intersects with that of realism, where the actual naming of objects, a fascination with filling up spaces in an effort to evoke the presence of a certain mood or personality, goes unrestrained. As pointed out earlier, even the most closely unified poems suggests a deflationary intent by their excesses. In a poem such as "El solterón," parody makes the model obvious and the new creation has its own strength.
Division of Los Crepúsculos Del Jardín
Although somewhat arbitrary, the following classification of poems in the work Los crepúsculos del jardín allows for a discussion of its poetic construction, based on the degree of deflationary or parodic elements within each poem. The first group includes poems that proceed by means of progressive imagery development beginning with a landscape scene. These poems are "Cisnes negros," "El buque," "Hortus deliciarum," "Romántica," "Melancolía," "El crepúsculo de los cóndores," and "Ave Mía, gratia plena." Along with specific visual detail of the landscape their symbolic nature is at least partially explained by explicit comparison. The second strophe of "Ave Mía, gratia plena" presents the formula for such scene and memory equivalents:
El paisaje, algo adusto en su atonía,
De nuestro grave amor fue el emblema;
Los crepúsculos visten todavía
Un raso gris de distinción suprema.
(OPC, 182)
(The landscape, somewhat austere in its lassitude,
was the emblem of our grave love;
The twilights still don
A grey satin of supreme distinction.)
The extended length of many of these poems allows also for the fuller development of a narrative.
In the second group (including the twelve sonnets of "Los doce gozos" and the three sonnets of "Ramillete") there is more condensation due to the use of synecdoche and metonymy instead of more complex metaphors created by parallel constructions. The narrative element is much less pronounced because of the emphasis on separate details, and because of the poems' brevity. Although there is no blatant mocking of poetic conventions here, there are still some digressive and disrupting elements. This is usually due to the use of a single term out of context or to unusual juxtaposition of key elements. The major part of the discussion of Los crepúsculos del jardín will concentrate on this second group.
The third group (including "Endecha," "Aquel día," "Coqueta," the poems of "Los cuatro arnores de Dryops," "Las loas de nuestra servidumbre," and "El mal inefable") resemble the first by their similarities in theme and imagery development. Parallelisms, however, are overemphasized to such an extent that they clearly present examples of caricature. The greater length of most of these poems also allows for the development of comic scenes.
The poems of the fourth group ("El solterón" and "Emoción aldeana") are quite different from the other poems. Although the outline of modernista topics and treatments is still visible, they widen perspectives and begin to include themes and terms from other poetic codes. The inclusion of provincial and urban settings is no longer for parodic effect, but for its own sake. "Emoción aldeana," which closes the volume, illustrates the complete transformation of the modernista code. These two poems are especially important because they suggest the new directions taken by the later sencillista and even vanguardista poets.
"Los Doce Gozos":
Voyeurism and the Speaking Subject
The role of seduction, not only in Los crepúsculos del jardín but in modernismo 's creations in general, offers a focal point that provides an almost infinite array of stances for the speaking subject. In Los crepúsculos del jardín, the role of voyeur is often domi-
nant. In the work of later female poets, for example, Delmira Agustini and Alfonsina Storni, the constructive apparatus of the poem is redesigned so as to negate the authority of the voyeuristic gaze.[17]
What creates the impact in Lugones' poetry is the physicality of the language itself, its very malleability, as in the abundance of esdrújulos (that is, words with stress on the antepenultimate syllable), and of difficult and often cacophonous rhyme. The dense verbal texture is paralleled by an emphasis on the physical, tangible aspects of imagery. A physical detail often spins out all its possibilities. In Lugones' work there is also a thematic emphasis on physical violence, especially in connection with eroticism. With the cutting apart of the imagery system, the dismembered parts of language's evocative structure float to the surface. Violence is apparent first by fetishism—the extreme metonymical dispersion of the figure of the female in "Los doce gozos," and is followed in Lunario sentimental by a violent dissection of the lunar imagery of dreams, poetry, and the feminine image. The nexus of contiguity in "La alcoba solitaria," for example, is a closed one. The gestures that might provoke further reflection, such as the "gota de sangre" ("drop of blood"), are blocked, just as the reflection from the mirror is stunted: "El espejo opalescente / Estaba ciego" (OPC, 122–123) ("The opalescent mirror / Was blind"). The distracting and jarring rhyme, along with the presence of the "corsé de inviolable raso" ("corset of inviolable satin") which does not fit smoothly into the elements of the room and clashes in its pairing with "una magnolia" ("a magnolia"), tips the poem so off balance that the web of suggestiveness is torn through by the attention-getting gestures of the not-so-distant speaking subject, the interrupter, the summarizer.
In defining the "speaking subject," Gilles Deleuze in Logique du sens asks the question, "Who speaks?" In his answer he describes the subject's wayward appearance, for we find it where we do not seek it:
Ce qui est irapersonnel et pré-individuel, ce sont les singularités, libres et nomades. Ce qui est plus profond que tout fond, c'est la surface, la peau. Ici se forme un nouveau type de langage ésotér-
ique, qui est à lui-même son propre modèle et sa réalité. Le devenir-fou change de figure quand il monte à la surface, sur la ligne droite de l'Aiôn, éternité; de même le moi dissous, le Je fêlé, l'identité perdue, quand ils cessent de s'enfoncer, pour libérer au contraire les singularitiés de surface.[18]
(That which is impersonal and pre-individual, these are the singularities, free and nomadic. That which is deeper than all depth, is the surface, the skin. A new type of esoteric language is being formed here, which is its own model and its own reality. The figure of madness changes when it rises to the surface, on the straight line of Aiôn, eternity; likewise the dissolved me, the cracked I, the lost identity, when they stop sinking, in order to free, on the contrary, the surface singularities.)
The static landscapes of "Los doce gozos," which seem to offer the reader a single, directed point of engagement, are engineered with other possibilities. With their constant reshuffling of a received idiom and visual icons, these scenes are less a mimesis of prized commodity pleasures, the "bazares de cosmos" in Lugones' term, than an invitation to intrusiveness and the temptation of dismantling and destruction.
"Los doce gozos," a grouping of twelve sonnets, is dedicated to José Juan Tablada. The dedication is significant, for the subject: matter of the sonnets resembles Tablada's collection "Hostias negras" from Florilegio . More clearly than in the other poems of Los crepúsculos del jardín, with the possible exception of the three poems joined in "Las loas de nuestra servidumbre," eroticism is emphasized in its relationship to mystery. The temporal setting for these poems is twilight or night, and scenes of silence and isolation dominate the section. The most famous section of the volume, "Los doce gozos," is notable for its striking, largely static imagery and for its thematic uniformity.
The titles of the individual poems—"Tentación," "Paradisíaca," El astro propicio," "Conjunción," "Venus victa," "En color exótico," "El éxtasis," "Delectación morosa," "Oceánida," "La alcoba solitaria," "Las manos entregades," and "Holocausto"—suggest different stages of a mysterious rite. Frequent mention of God, death, suspension, crucifixion, along with the emphasis on eroticism, links sexuality to mystery, transgression, and to
the night. The presentation of the female figure, never in fully outlined form, heightens the feeling of mystery. Nevertheless, the combination of scenic setting, mythological references, and fleeting glimpses of human form does not completely enmesh to sustain the air of mystery, for the creation of mystery seems to invite its own deflation. The use of a term out of context, the overspecific description down to cataloguing of every fabric, the introduction of domestic animals in a love sonnet, or the occasional use of colloquial phrases, strike discordant notes in these sonnets.
The essential development of the poems is the movement toward unification—nature interpenetrates with the yo and the tú, as well as the sexual union. By a nexus of contiguity, the feminine elements are entwined with nature's forms. Whereas in the first cycle of Las montañas del oro the eyes of the woman are transposed onto the night and the forest, here the night is described in terms of the woman, moon, and stars. In "Los doce gozos" subject matter loses primary importance; the treatment of the scene takes priority over any message.
In "Tentación" natural elements express sexual ecstasy or union by displacement of modifiers from one category to another. The afternoon is identified with the woman by "suspiro" ("sigh"), "de amor" ("of love"), and "raso" ("satin"): "Se extenuaba de amor la tarde quieta / Con la ducal decrepitud del raso" (OPC, 117) ("The still afternoon wasted away in love / With the ducal decrepitude of satin"). Just as the light of the afternoon stretches out, the slow movement of the poem is reinforced by the associations with languorous quietness. The mention of "ducal decrepitud," "palidez dorada," and "silenciosa golondrina" ("ducal decrepitude," "golden paleness," and "silent swallow"), along with "éxtasis impuro" ("impure ectasy") establishes an ambiguous tone. The pairing of a noun with an unexpected but not completely contradictory modifier is one of the most important features of "Los doce gozos," and, like the presence of elements such as the "media negra" ("black stocking"), it contributes to a jarring and dislocating of the synthesis of mysterious elements. The mention of the sunset reinforces the association with the woman by its attribute "palidez dorada" ("golden pale-
ness"). In contrast to the evening skies, the countryside spies on and envelops the feminine element:
El campo en cuyo trebolar maduro
La siembra palpitó como una esposa,
Contemplaba con éxtasis impuro
Tu media negra; y una silenciosa
Golondrina rayaba el cielo rosa,
Como un pequeño pensamiento oscuro.
(OPC, 117)
(The countryside, in whose ripe clover
The seed trembled like a wife,
Observed with impure Ecstasy
Your black stocking; and a silent
Swallow skimmed the rose sky
Like a small, dark thought.)
Since the sky is already associated with the woman, the fetishistic contemplation of her as a transgression is reinforced with "pensamiento oscuro" ("dark thought") and "impuro" ("impure").
In "Paradisíaca" suspension and union are more explicitly expressed, as is the transgressive nature of the union. The poetic I enters in the first strophe, along with an invasive intent:
Cabe una rama en flor busqué tu arrimo:
La dorada sepiente de mis males
Circulé por tus púdicos cendales
Con la invasora suavidad de un mimo.
(OPC, 118)
(By a flowering bough I sought your affection:
The golden serpent of my evils
Slithered through your chaste silks
With the invading softness of a caress.)
The second quatrain adds another disquieting note: "Sutil vapor alzàbase del limo / Sulfurando las tintas otoñales / Del Poniente . . . " ("A subtle vapor rose from the lime / Sulphuring the autumn hues / of the West . . . "). In contrast to the prosaic
and nonlyrical "mimo" ("caress") and "sulfurando" ("sulphuring"), the third stanza returns to the title theme of paradise, and to union:
Sintiendo que el azul nos impelía
Algo de Dios, tu boca con la mía
Se unieron en la tarde luminosa.
(OPC, 118)
(Feeling that the blue thrust upon us
Something from God, your mouth with mine
Joined in the luminous, early evening.)
In the last tercet a statue of a satyr is introduced—"Bajo el caduco sátiro de yeso" ("beneath the decrepit, plaster satyr")—which cancels out the earlier "algo de Dios" ("something from God"), and the mythological reference resolves the ambiguity of the poem. In Darío's "Leda" of Cantos de vida y esperanza, the myth of Leda and the swan serves as the organizing principle. In Lugones' poem only a fragment of the mythological setting remains; his satyr is a decrepit one, a plaster cast of a once-vital image. As in all the poems of "Los doce gozos," here many elements are twisted and transformed to heighten their unusual or nontraditional placement. Whereas Darío organizes all the elements consistently within the natural setting, Lugones denaturalizes the setting with the clash of archaic ("Cabe" ["By"]) and colloquial ("mimo" ["caress"]) Spanish terms.
In other sonnets, a physical union or suspension is associated with natural elements by a metonymical process. In the first examples, distance and illusion are emphasized by the reflection in eyes:
Y desde el cielo fraternal, la misma
Estrella se miraba en nuestros ojos.
("El astro propicio," (OPC, 119)
(And from the fraternal sky, the same
Star gazed at itself in our eyes.)
Una resurrección de primaveras
Llenó la tarde gris, y tus ojeras,
Que avivó la caricia fatigada,
Me fantasearon en penumbra fina,
Las alas de una leve golondrina
Suspensa en la ilusión de tu mirada.
("Conjunción," OPC, 119)
(A resurrection of Springs
Filled the grey evening, and your deep-shadowed eyes,
That the tired caress revived,
Appeared to me in fine shadow,
The wings of a small swallow
Suspended in the illusion of your gaze.)
Here Lugones again overloads the poem with elements from different contexts. The woman's figure, described only by separate physical traits, is presented ambiguously. The "little white shoe," with its movement of "grace," suggests the lighter presence of a young innocent, especially in combination with "small swallow." Yet the mention of "deep shadows under the eyes," more appropriate to a worldly siren, abruptly changes the female's nature and confuses the impact of "the illusion of your gaze."
In "Venus victa," a personal article, "collares" ("necklaces"), replaces the female, and her violation is expressed in terms of her jewels, while her total identity is fragmented and displaced onto inanimate objects:
Pidiéndome la muerte, tus collares
Desprendiste con trágica alegría
Yen su pompa fluvial la pedrería
Se ensangrentó de púrpuras solares.
(OPC, 119)
(Asking me for death, your necklaces
You removed with tragic joy
And in their liquid pomp the jewels
Were blood-stained by purple suns.)
In the last two tercets, the violence of sexuality is presented in similar terms:
Y cuando por tu seno entró el estoque
Con agucia feroz su hilo de hielo
Brotó un clavel bajo su fina punta
En tu negro jubón de terciopelo.
(OPC, 120)
(And when through your breast the rapier entered
With fierce subtlety its icy thread
Sprouted a red carnation under its fine point
On your black velvet bodice.)
The last section of "En color exótico" also explicitly links the observer and the observed, even though the feminine figure is only seen in terms of synecdoche:
Se apagó en tu collar la última gema,
Y sobre el broche de tu liga crema
Crucifiqué mi corazón mendigo.
(OPC, 120)
(The last gem in your necklace died away,
and on the clasp of your ivory garter
I crucified my beggar's heart.)
Although in the two preceding stanzas definite persons are established, emotions associated with tú are projected onto the landscape.
Hería en los musgosos surtidores
Su cristalina tecla el agua clara,
Y el tilo que a mis ojos te ocultara
Gemía con eclógicos rumores.
Tal como una bandera derrotada
Se ajó la tarde, hundiéndose en la nada,
A la sombra del tálamo enemigo.
(OPC, 120)
(In the moss-covered fountains
The clear water wounded its crystalline key
And the lime tree that hid you from my eyes
Moaned with the murmurs of eclogues.
Like a defeated flag
The afternoon crumpled, sinking into nothing
Under the shade of the hostile marriage bed.)
Surrender involves repercussions of taboo and is shown as a defeat by the use of "Hería," "gemía," "derrotada," "Se ajó," "hundiéndose," "enemigo," and "se apagó" ("Wounded," "moaned," "defeated," "crumpled," "sinking," "hostile"). Taboo also extends to the yo, for "crucifiqué" ("I crucified") in the last strophe is in function of the musculine element.
"Delectación morosa" (OPC, 121) presents its message through decor. Nonnatural elements are weighted with iconic messages, and the human presence is reduced to the mention of "nuestro asilo" ("our asylum"), "tus rodillas" ("your knees"), and "nuestros pies" ("our feet"). Just as the female in other poems is metonymically represented by clothing or jewels, here the emphasis on the artificiality and rareness of the scene sets a tone of sterility and preciousness. A series of discordant effects links the "delicia inerte" ("inert delight") and the river's silent passage "hacia la muerte" ("toward death"). Perspectives are reversed by the mixture of detail and abstraction, and silence itself becomes the dominant force (as in "El solterón"). Lugones emphasizes the artificial nature of the scene's construction with the "ligera pincelada" (light brushstroke") of the afternoon light, the "matiz crisoberilo" ("greenish-yellow hue"), "una sutil decoración morada" ("a subtle purple decoration"), the subdued colors, and the "combo / Cielo, a manera de chinesco biombo" ("bent / Sky, like a Chinese screen") which shows the artist's hand. Here the manipulation and subduing of natural elements serve as significant decor rather than as univocal symbols.
Lugones' "Oceánida" carries the linkage of natural elements with masculine or feminine identification further than any other of the twelve sonnets. Here the explicit observer is absent, but the sea is clearly defined as masculine and the feminine presence is clearly drawn: "El mar, lleno de urgencias masculinas,/Bramaba alrededor de tu cintura . . . " (OPC, 122) ("The sea, full of masculine urgencies / Raged around your waist . . . "). Again, declining light and stars are reflected by feminine elements:
En tus retinas,
Y en tus cabellos, yen tu astral blancura,
Rieló con decadencias opalinas
Esa luz de las tardes mortecinas
Que en el agua pacífica perdura.
(OPC, 122)
(In your retinas,
And in your hair, and in your starry whiteness
Shimmered with opaline decadence
That light of fading afternoons
Which lingers in the peaceful water.)
"La alcoba solitaria" (OPC, 122–123) differs more from the other poems of "Los doce gozos" than any other. Its setting (an empty room) is not from nature, and the poem prefigures the more frequent juxtaposition of prosaic, static elements that will be used in poems such as "El solterón" and "Emoción aldeana," as well as in much of Lunario sentimental . Its consonantal rhyme is also more noticeable, moving to the forefront as an independent element. Reflected light here is not from the moon, but from a murky mirror—"El espejo opalescente / Estaba ciego" ("The opalescent mirror / Was blind"). Human actions are transferred to inanimate objects: "El diván dormitaba" ("the divan napped"); "un antiguo silencio de Cartuja / Bostezaba en las lúgubres rendijas" ("an ancient silence of Cartuja / Yawned in the dismal cracks"); "Sentía el violín . . . / Flotar su extraña anímula de bruja / Ahorcada en las unánimes clavijas" ("Felt the violin . . . / Floating its strange witch anima / Hanging by the unanimous pegs"). The only presence of the woman is "una gota / De sangre pectoral, sobre la rota / Almohada" ("a drop / Of blood from the breast, on the ripped / Pillow"). The feminine element is associated with fetishistic items: "Y en el fino vaso, / Como un corsé de inviolable raso, / Se abría una magnolia dulcemente" ("And in the fine glass, / Like a corset of inviolable satin / a magnolia opened sweetly"). The terms "fino vaso" ("fine glass") and "inviolable raso" ("inviolable satin") seem undefiled, yet are linked by contiguity with "oxidada aguja"
("rusty needle"), "gota de sangre" ("drop of blood"), and "rota / Almohada" ("ripped pillow"), not to mention the "corsé" ("corset"). The entire poem is structured around the injection of off-key elements, such as "corsé" and "magnolia." The static and lugubrious nature of the scene is thrown off balance by the diminution or deflation of its languorous elements. "Bruja" ("which") rhymes with "burbuja" ("bubble"), and the poem's final word, "dulcemente" ("sweetly") trivializes the poem's "prolijas sugestiones" ("prolix suggestions") in much the same way that the infelicitous floral analogy does. Elements of scenic decor dominate the poem's construction, and all the scene's conflicting suggestions are made to mingle in one setting.
Caricaturesque Poems and the Self-Reflexive Destruction of Lyricism
In contrast to "Los doce gozos," poems such as "Endecha," "New Mown Hay," "La sola," "A tus imperfecciones," "Las loas de nuestra servidumbre," and "Los cuatro amores de Dryops" often parody the exalted comparisons between the natural setting and human actions. Within the poems themselves Lugones deflates his comparisons, inserts comments about his metaphor construction, and judges their success and appropriateness. Here, in contrast to "Los doce gozos," dislocating elements make their models stand out, thus producing overt parody. The poetic vocabulary includes colloquial expressions and technical terms which deflate the sensuousness of adjacent lyric images.
In "Endecha" the inclusion of the trivial and the ridulous deflates the lament for lost love into a "parodia venusina" ("Venusian parody"), including even the worn rhyme tul / azul (tulle / blue ) and jumping fleas. The lilting rhyme and the presence of lighthearted elements (reminiscent of the poetry of Gutiérrez Nájera) give this remembrance of young love the tone of a nursery rhyme. The presence of "dulzura sin moscas" ("sweetness without flies"), "pulgas locas" ("crazy fleas"), "gatitos / enguantados" ("gloved kittens"), and "cosquillas" ("ticklings"), as well as a recurring use of diminutives, overcomes the listing of exotic flowers and jewels. The combination of the everyday,
with the vengeful disavowal of a former love, signals Lugones' growing attachment to blatant dislocation and destruction of idyllic scenes. In few other poems is the departure from a poetic style so explicit. The loved one is changing, and in maturity the wine "hipocrás" no longer attracts:
¿Por qué ya tu seno blando
No me atrae al suave arriendo
De otros días;
Y yo voy llora llorando
Y tú vas ríe riendo
Tus folías?
(OPC, 143)
(Why is it that your soft breast
No longer leads me on
As before;
And I keep on weeping
And you keep laughing at
Your trifles?)
No longer will the poetic quest be the same. The "dulce enemiga" ("sweet enemy") now provokes destruction: "A malquererte provoca / Tu desvío" (OPC, 140) ("Your indifference / Provokes me to hate you").
The subject of the love poem "A tus imperfecciones" diverges from the "canón adusto" ("austere canon") of the perfect beauty of convention. She is unlike the "literaria muñeca de los sonetos clásicos y postizos" ("the literary doll of the classical and artificial sonnets"), and even the moon shining on her refers to the act of writing. The deflationary motive in "La coqueta" is made clear by the commentary on the authenticity of her description:
A la frágil gracia de su figulina,
Une casi auténtico, un aire de esplín;
Y con incentivo carmín ilumina
La falacia irónica que huye en su mohín.
(OPC, 135)
(To the fragile grace of her figurine,
It joins, almost authentic, an atmosphere of spleen;
And with ruby incentive it illumines
The ironic fallacy that flees in its gesture.)
Diminutives and unexpected adjectives, as well as extensive use of esdrújulos emphasize the infidelity to convention: "breve seno" ("small bosom"), "sucinto prado de azucenas" ("brief field of lilies"), "poco fatuo" ("not foolish"), "leves insomnios de té" ("slight insomnias of tea"), and "abanico lánguido y burlón" ("languid and mocking fan") (OPC, 135–136).
The caricaturesque elements in "El mal inefable" and "Aquel día" are based on an amplification of situations from "Los doce gozos." By extending a metaphor to ridiculous lengths, Lugones stresses the incongruity of his mixtures, as in the comparison of the day's passing to a melancholy state:
La certidumbre de tu amor lejano,
Que a fúnebres azares se encomienda,
Trocó a mi corazón, trivial Fulano,
En un excelso prócer de leyenda.
("El mal enfable," OPC, 163)
(The certainty of your far-away love,
Which gives itself over to funereal chance,
Changed my heart, a trivial Nobody,
Into an exhalted, legendary grandee.)
"Aquel día" presents now-familiar metaphors in abbreviated fashion. The "tarde de muaré" ("watered-silk evening") drowns in the fountain, and an extended metaphor, such as that of "El buque," is suggested by the mere presence of "muaré." The spill of tears that follows is likewise a drowning:
Y con mi alma lloré; y era tu encanto
Lo que lloraba en mí con ese llanto.
Y era mi alma el escuálido reflejo.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mojamos el silencio gota a gota
En esa angustia; . . .
(OPC, 165)
(And with my soul I wept; and it was your spell
That wept in me with that lament.
And my soul was the squalid reflection.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We wet the silence drop by drop
In that anguish; . . .)
Lugones mocks the poem's excesses not only with its "fácil agonía" ("facile agony") but also in the "neblinas impostoras" ("imposter mists"). The bleating of a lamb, being slaughtered with a "débil grito de agonía" ("weak of cry of agony"), stops the mourning process. Handkerchiefs are folded, the crying ends, and prosaic reality with love's "estériles consuelos" ("sterile consolations") stops cold the process of excessive "poetic" emotions.
The three poems of the "Loas"—"Canto de la vida y de la mañana," "Canto del amor y de la noche," and "Canto de la tarde y de la muerte"—are marked by a freer metrical scheme. Verses of different length are mixed without specific patterning, although the rhyme scheme is fixed. The first of the poems maintains a lyrical tone more consistently than the latter two. Irregular versification gives flexibility, and the luxuriant images surrounding the description of the dove offer an example of the extended image, painting a scene of radiant light:
En tanto el sol puebla de espejismos las dunas,
Inflama esmaltes carmesíes,
Y en las rizadas lagunas
Amoneda cequíes,
Devastador como
Una áurea fiebre, cae su rayo a plomo,
Esponjando la gola,
Sobre su chalet de una teja, el palomo
Bullente de arrullos gira y se tornasola.
(OPC, 169)
(While the sun peoples the dunes with mirages,
Inflames crimson enamels,
And in the rippling lagoons
Coins sequins,
Devastating like
A golden fever, its ray plummets,
soaking the gorge,
Over its linden tree chalet, the dove
Bubbling with murmurs, circles and iridesces.)
With the rhyme "como / plomo" Lugones accentuates his capricious methods. The contrast between the length of the two verses, the obvious rhyme filler "como" and the vertical plummet "a plomo" serve to point out the arbitrary, leaden touch that can destroy harmonious progression with acrobatic swings of movement. Later in the poem, the mention of the dove is returned to in relation to the female figure, while alliteration with l and n plays a role in the establishing of the sensory elements:
Esparce tal beatitud en torno,
Que en una laxitud llena de dicha,
Sin un delirio,
Sin un anhelo,
Se siente uno bajo el cielo
Como una mosca en un lirio.
(OPC, 169)
(It spreads such blessing all around,
That in a happy lassitude,
Without a delirium,
Without a yearning,
Beneath the sun one feels
Like a fly in an iris.)
The number of neologisms and rarely used words is striking in the second and third poems of this tryptich, for example, "histerizando," "sobrenaturalizando," "normalizáronse" ("hystericizing," "supernaturalizing," "normalizing"). In addition, elements outside the tradition of poetic sonority and preciosity, especially urban or technological terms, draw attention to the departures from previously established schemes, as in the following examples:
El musical insomnio de los casinosn . . .
(OPC, 172)
(The musical insomnia of the casinos . . .)
Tu corazón desborda, populoso
Como una metrópoli de fiesta.
(OPC, 172)
(Your heart overflows, populous
Like a metropolis of celebration)
Tu carne aguza su delicia
Con felina electricidad de terciopelo.
(OPC, 172)
(Your flesh quickens its delight
With feline, velvet electricity.)
El brillo carnicero de tus dientes.
(OPC, 173)
(The butcher brilliance of your teeth.)
Even the night, the moon, and the stars are trivialized by unexpected modifiers:
La luna, trivial como un plato. . . .
(OPC, 172)
(The moon, trivial like a plate . . .)
. . . el astro, con amarillez de pena
(OPC, 174)
( . . . the star, with the yellow of grief)
Tiende la Vía Láctea su malla gigantesca,
Como una red a la pesca
De pececitos de oro.
(OPC, 174)
(The Milky Way stretches out its gigantic coat of mail,
Like a net fishing
For little golden fish.)
"Los cuatro amores de Dryops" illustrates most clearly the fall into bathos created by extending to the utmost the same scheme. In alejandrinos (fourteen-syllable lines) with paired consonantal rhyme, the jaded expressions and the inevitability of rhythm and
rhyme lead to monotony. The four stories that compose the poem provide an essentially caricaturesque commentary on this poetic convention used by Darío in "Recreaciones arqueológicas." The lovers share "caricias inciertas" ("uncertain caresses"), "bocas inexpertas" ("inexperienced mouths"), "ilógico llanto" ("illogical lament"), and "estériles delicias" ("sterile delights"). The poetic process is commented on within the poem itself, as in "Rompía nuestro encanto como un hiato a un verso" ("It broke our enchantment like a hiatus breaks a verse") or by summary description: "Tal revive la escena de nuestro amor. . . . Y ya nada recuerdo de sus otros hechizos . . . / Nada sé de sus labios, nada sé de sus rizos" ("Such revives the scene of our love. . . . And now I remember nothing of her other charms / I know nothing of her lips, I know nothing of her curls").
"El Solterón" and "Emoción Aldeana"
The presentation of the afternoon in "El solterón" ("The Old Bachelor") does not serve as a panoramic background, but instead faintly glimmers in through the window as a "crepúsculo perplejo" ("bewildered twilight"). It does not overpower the scene, flooding it with color, but is weakly reflected in a tarnished mirror. As in "La alcoba solitaria" and "Emoción aldeana," the mirror diminishes the importance of the landscape and emphasizes, along with the loneliness and alienation of the old suitor, the self-reflexiveness in the poem. Nature scenes are replaced with descriptions of the musty room, and the fabrics of the furniture and clothing show the age and inefficacy of the old suitor. Instead of the decorative presence of richly colored and exotic materials found in much modernista poetry, the fabrics and other objects here illustrate a harsher reality. The "grandes años / con sus cargas de algodón" ("great years / with their cargo of cotton") are reflected in the "felpa azul" ("blue plush"), "crucificado frac" ("crucified frock coat"), "desusado cancel" ("unused partition"), "cretona centenaria" ("centenary cretonne"), "estufa precaria" ("precarious heater"), "otoño de gró" ("grosgrain autumn"), and "tenebroso crespón" ("dark and dismal crepe") which mark the passing of time.
The lyrical voice is not included within the recounting of the
scene. Distanced, like an outside observer, it places the seeing eye at even another remove by commenting on the poem itself: "A inverosímil distancia / Se acongoja un violín . . . " (OPC, 130), ("At an unlikely distance / A violin sobs . . . ") References to the poem's literary convention within the poem itself, as well as the term "tragedia baladí" ("trivial tragedy") serve as deflationary techniques. Space and time cross categories as the coming of the night and the advance of death are presented from the perspective inside the room:
El crepúsculo perplejo
Entra a una alcoba glacial,
(OPC, 128)
(The bewildered twilight
Enters an icy bedroom)
En el fondo de sus días
Bosteza la soledad.
(OPC, 129)
(At the end of his days
solitude yawns.)
Sobre su visión de aurora,
Un tenebroso crespón
Los contornos descolora,
Pues la noche vencedora
Se le ha entrado el corazón.
(OPC, 133)
(Above his vision of dawn,
A dark crepe
Discolors the contours,
For the conquering night
Has taken over his heart.)
The transposition of the theme of unrequited love to the old bachelor allows for the parodic use of elements usually associated with the love theme. Contradicting all expectations of a love poem, the dislocation from one order to another parodies the
poetic conventions as well. A comparison of verses from "Hortus deliciarum" with those from "El solterón" illustrates the dislocation. On the one hand, in "Hortus deliciarum" the interpenetration of the elements of the afternoon, the decor, and the woman provide some disquieting notes, such as "La breve arruga de tu media lila" ("slight crease in your lilac stocking") and "Tu integridad estéril de camelia" ("your sterile integrity of a camelia"). However, most of the poem's elements are taken from a consistent context. In "El solterón," on the other hand, the delicacy and sterility of its heroine come into jolting relief by the addition of advanced age. Now the "integridad estéril" of "Hortus deliciarum" is transformed into "su leve/ Candor de virgen senil" ("her fragile / Innocence of a senile virgin"). In the selections from "El solterón" the use of rhyme and alliteration is obviously used for parodic effect also, for example senil/abril (senile/April). The exaggeration of the woman's descriptions invites laughter, not the slight questioning of "Hortus deliciarum." Nonetheless, despite the disparity between the poetic convention and its displacement in "El solterón," the elements are not totally heterogeneous but are derived from similar paradigms. True to the nature of caricature or parody, the poem resembles its convention in most ways. The combination of different elements is not a juxtaposition of fragments from different contexts. Patterning remains constant within a homogeneous spatial and temporal context. Only one context, that of old age and decrepitude, is substituted for a context of youth and beauty.
"Emoción aldeana" ("Village Emotion") closes the volume with a synthesis of many of the themes and techniques interspersed within the collection. It combines the delicate recounting of the first meeting of timid young lovers, the introduction of everyday scenes, internal commentary, irregular versification, and an expansion of the mirror image. The poetic I is faithful to the stated characterization, a country boy with "timidez urbana y ebrio de primavera" ("urban shyness and drunk with Spring"). No disruptive notes enter to provide parodic commentary. He surrenders himself to the barber's hands, leans back in the barber's chair, and sees the chipped mirror reflecting the landscape:
Absorbiendo el paisaje en su reflejo,
Era un óleo enorme de sol bermejo,
Praderas pálidas y cielos azules.
Y ante el mórbido gozo
De la tarde vibrada en pastorelas,
Flameaba como un soberbio trozo
Que glorificara un orgullo de escuelas.
(OPC, 187)
(Absorbing the landscape in its reflection,
It was an enormous oil canvas with a reddish sun,
Pale meadows and blue skies.
And faced with the soft pleasure
Of the evening vibrating with pastourelles,
It flamed like a magnificent fragment
That would glorify a pride of schools.)
Sounds and smells are mingled without an attempt to weave an explanatory pattern. Mixed with the conversational patter of the barber are other elements: "un perfume labriego / De polen almizclado las boñigas" ("a peasant perfume / Of pollen mixed with dung"), "una ráfaga de agua de colonia" ("a gust of eau de cologne"), "En insípido aroma de pradera pobre" ("In the insipid aroma of a poor meadow"), "Un maternal escándalo de gallinas" ("A maternal scandal of hens") (OPC, 187–188). The focus of his amorous dreams is the barber's daughter—"doncella preclara / Chrisporroteada en pecas bajo rulos de cobre" (OPC, 188) ("illustrious damsel / Sprinkled with freckles under copper curls"). Absent is the languid, exotic woman of "Los doce gozos." Rather than possessing the dangerous eyes of the siren, hers are "ojos de gata / Fritos en rubor como dos huevecillos" ("cat eyes / like two little eggs fried in her blush"). All exoticism of setting is experienced indirectly by means of the mirror. In the last stanza, the mirror image returns, and the metonymical interchange between the scene and the girl standing next to it resolves the disparate elements of the poem:
Sobre el espejo, la tarde lila
Improvisaba un lánguido miraje,
En un ligero vértigo de agua tranquila.
Y aquella joven con su blanco traje
Al borde de esa visionaria cuenca,
Daba al fugaz paisaje
Un aire de antigua ingenuidad flamenca.
(OPC, 188)
(On the mirror the lilac afternoon
Improvised a languid mirage,
In the faint whirl of peaceful water.
And that young girl dressed in white
At the edge of that visionary basin
Gave the elusive landscape
An air of old-fashioned Flemish ingenuity.)
"Emoción aldeana" stands in contrast to most of the other poems of the volume by its transformations of modernista elements. Their presence is faint; meanwhile another code of meaning, composed of provincial scenes and everyday characters, begins to take precedence. This new code is not used to point out the artificiality or constraints of another one. It establishes its own dominance and needs no exaggeration to make itself visible.
While Lugones generally operates in Los crepúsculos del jardín with several codes at once, other poets will concentrate more on this last-mentioned code of the provincial or the prosaic. As mentioned earlier, Ramón López Velarde's joining of eroticism with an often abbreviated inclusion of the prosaic shows a direct inheritance of part of Lugones' work. This use of the prosaic for its own sake also found development in poets such as Enrique Banchs and Baldomero Fernández Moreno. Their poetry in the sencillista current uses this element not simply as a method of providing contrasts. Their emphasis on the everyday, the colloquial, took a very different turn from that of Lugones' later works. Their calmer tone contrasts with his heightened use of shock elements within works such as the Lunario sentimental, where the contrasts are heightened to cacophony and stridency. While Lugones continues to manipulate several codes at once, the sencillistas develop this single element more consistently.