Selected Writings (Dario, Ruben) (37 page)

Then comes the part of the volume devoted to verse. In the poems, I followed the same method as in the prose: the application to Spanish of certain verbal superiorities from other languages, in this case mainly French. The pieces evidence an abandonment of the usual rules and regulations, the sanctified clichés; an attention to interior melody, which aids in the success of the rhythmic expression; a novel use of adjectives; a concentration on the etymological meaning of each word; an application of timely erudition, lexical aristocracy. In “Springsong” (
“Primaveral”
)—in the section titled “The Lyrical Year”—I believe I added a new note to the orchestration of the romance, even acknowledging such illustrious predecessors as Góngora and the Cuban poet Zenea. In “Summersong” (
“Estival”
), I attempted to render a piece of force. . . . In “Autumnsong” (
“Autumnal”
) the influence of music returns—an intimate music, chamber music, containing the pleasant yearnings of my salad days, the nostalgia for what had yet to be found—and is almost never found as one dreamed it, anyway. Then immediately—clashing with the poems that went before—there comes a version of “Autumn Thought” by Armand Silvestre. It is well known that despite his Rabelaisian particularities and his excessive
galoiserie,
Silvestre was a poet who could be delicate, refined, and sentimental.

“Ananké” is an isolated poem, which has little patience with my Christian foundations. Valera quite rightly censures it, and it has no possible
raison d’être
save a moment of disenchantment and the bitter taste of certain readings not likely to raise one’s spirit into the light of the supreme truths. The most intense theologian could rip to shreds the poet’s reflection in that pessimistic moment, and demonstrate that the hawk and the dove are equally necessary elements of the Oneness of the universe. . . . The little book concludes with a series of sonnets: “Caupolicán,” which introduced the alexandrine sonnet
à la française
into Spanish, at least so far as I know. A similar experiment, a formal poem of fifteen-syllable lines, may be found in “Venus.” Another very French sonnet, with a Parisian theme, is “On Winter.” Then come some lyrical portraits, “medallions” of poets I admired at the time: Leconte de Lisle, Catulle Mendès, the Yankee Walt Whitman, the Cuban J. J. Palma, the Mexican Díaz Mirón, whom I imitated in certain poems added to later editions of
Azure . . .

And that was my first book, the origin of several that came after, which has come to me on this bright spring morning to awaken the most pleasant, fragrant memories of my past life, there in the beautiful land of Chile. If my
Azure . . .
is a production of pure art, with nothing of a pedagogical or moralizing purpose, it is also not
elucubrated
in any way that might cause even the slightest morbose delectation. With all its defects, it is among my favorites. It is a work, I repeat, that contains the flower of my youth, that externalizes the most inward poetry of the first dreams and yearnings, and it is impregnated with both love of art and love of love.

It would be futile to attempt an exegesis of my book
Prosas Profanas,
(Profane Prose Pieces), after the painstaking study by José Enrique Rodó in his masterful, celebrated essay, reproduced as an introduction to the Paris edition by Veuve C. Bouret, though an oversight by the publisher caused the omission of that illustrious author’s name. But I hope, nonetheless, that I may be permitted to express my personal sentiments, to speak for a brief while about my methods and the genesis of the poems contained in this volume. They belong to a period of hard intellectual labor that I was to go on pursuing, along with my companions and followers, in Buenos Aires, in defense of new ideas, the freedom of art, the anarchy—or, looked at rightly, aristocracy—of literature. In a few words of introduction I have concentrated the scope of my intentions.

Azure . . .
had already appeared in Chile;
Los Raros, (The Misfits)
had already appeared in the Argentine capital. The publication of manifestos was much in vogue back then, in the Symbolist struggle for recognition and existence in France, and many young friends of mine asked me to do in Buenos Aires what Moreas and so many others were doing in Paris. I replied that we were not in Paris, and that such a manifesto would be neither useful nor opportune. The atmosphere and culture of that ancient Lutetia
⁶
was hardly the same as that of our continental state. If in France there were so many Rémy-Gourmonts, “celui-qui
ne comprend-pas,”
⁷
how could our situation be any different. The type abounded in our ruling class, in our general bourgeoisie, in letters, in our social life. There was, then, only an “élite” and above all the enthusiasm of young persons yearning for reform, for a change in their way of conceiving of and cultivating beauty.

Even among some who had put aside, a bit, the former ways, the value of study and constant application was not well understood, and it was believed that with nothing more than effort, talent might be persuaded to yield up the prize. An aesthetic of individualism was proclaimed, the expression of the concept, but what was also needed was a grounding in knowledge of the art to which one consecrated oneself, an indispensable erudition, and the necessary gift of good taste. I stepped forward to prevent prejudice against all imitation, and holding at arm’s length especially the young catechumens who wished to follow in my footsteps. . . .

Disgusted and horrified by the social and political life that kept my original country in a deplorable state of embryonic civilization—nor were things better in the lands most closely neighboring mine—I found the Republic of Argentina to be a wonderful refuge, and its capital, though filled with commercial bustle, to have an intellectual tradition and a more favorable environment for the broadening and expansion of my aesthetic faculties. And though the lack of a basic fortune obliged me to labor in journalism, I was able to devote my free moments to the exercise of pure art and mental creation. But abominating that democracy which is poisonous to poets (
pace
such worshipers of it as Walt Whitman), I looked toward the past, toward ancient mythologies and splendid histories, and incurred the censure of the nearsighted. For in all the Spanish Americas no one held any end or object for poetry save the celebration of
native
glories, the events of Independence, the
American
nature: an eternal hymn to Junín, an endless ode to the agriculture of the torrid zone, and stirring patriotic songs. I did not deny that there was a great treasure trove of poetry in our prehistoric times, in the Conquest, and even in the colony, but with our subsequent social and political state had come intellectual dwarfism and historical periods more suitable for the blood-dripping penny dreadful than the noble canto. Yet I added: “Buenos Aires—cosmopolis! And tomorrow!” The proof of this prophecy can be found in my recent “Canto to Argentina.”

As for the ideological and verbal question, in the face of the most sonorous Spanish glories—Francisco de Quevedo’s, Santa Teresa’s, Gracián’s—I proclaimed an opinion that would later be seconded and upheld by egregious geniuses on the Peninsula. There is one phrase that must be commented upon: “Grandfather, I must tell you: my wife is from my homeland, my mistress is from Paris.” In the depths of my spirit, despite my cosmopolitan outlook, there lies the inextirpable vein of the race; my thought and my feeling continue a historical, traditional process—but from the capital of art and grace, of elegance, of clarity and good taste, I had to take those things that might be used for beautifying and decorating my autochthonous productions. And I made that clear to one and all. Adding, by the way, that essences were drawn not just from the roses of Paris—but from all the gardens of the world.

Then I set forth the principle of
inner music
: “Since each word has a soul, there is, then, in each line, in addition to verbal harmony, an ideal melody. Music comes, many times, from simply the idea.” Then I professed disdain for criticism by blind hens, for the honking of geese, and I stirred up the fires of stimulus for work, for creation: “Let the eunuch snort: when one Muse gives you a child, the other eight get pregnant”—a phrase quoted recently in a production by a young Spaniard and attributed to Théophile Gautier! . . .

In “Era un aire suave . . . ,” which is itself a soft air, I follow Verlaine’s precept of Poetic Art:
“de la musique avant tout de chose.”
Landscape, characters, tone: they are presented in an eighteenth-century ambience. I wrote as though listing to the king’s violins. My senses were possessed by Rameau and Lully. But the young abbot of madrigals and the blond viscount of defiant challenges, faced with laughing Eulalia, maintain an ages-old feminine felinity against the surrendering male: Eve, Judith, Ophelia, worse than all the suffragettes. In
“Divagación”
there is a course in erotic geography: an invitation to love under any sky, a passion for all colors and all times. There I made the hendecasyllable as flexible as I possibly could. “Sonatina” is more rhythmic and musical than the rest of these compositions, and has received the warmest response in Spain and the Americas, perhaps because it contains the cordial dream of every adolescent woman-child, of every woman who awaits the moment of love. It is the most private and inward desire, yearning melancholy, and it is, thus, Hope. In
“Blasón”
(“Coat of Arms”) I praise the swan, for those lines were written in the album of a lovely French marquise with a fondness for poets. In
“Del Campo”
(“On the Country”) I stood in the shadow of Banville, for a “nativist” subject and atmosphere. In the song of praise titled
“A los ojos negros de Julia”
(To Julia’s Black Eyes), I madrigal’d most whimsically.
“Canción de Carnaval”
(Song of Carnival) is also
à la Banville,
an ode to tightrope-walking, of Buenos Aires flavor. Two gallantries follow, posies for a Cuban lady. They were written in the presence of my ill-starred friend Julián del Casal, in Havana, more than twenty years ago, and inspired by a lovely lady, María Cap, today the widow of General Lachambre.

“Bouquet” is another whimsical madrigal.
“El faisán”
(The Pheasant), in monorhymed tercets, is a product of Paris—conceived in Paris, written in Paris, filled with the air of Paris.

“Garçonnière”
(Bachelor Flat) speaks of artistic, fraternal hours in Buenos Aires.
“El país del sol”
(The Country of the Sun), formulated in the manner of Catulle Mendès’ “Lieds de France” and as an echo of Gaspard de la Nuit, makes concrete the nostalgia of a little girl from the isles of the tropics, animated by art, in the frigid, hard city of Manhattan, in imperial New York. “Margarita”—which has met the not incomprehensible fate of remaining in so many memories—is a melancholy recollection of passion, life, although in the true story, the sensual beloved was taken away not by death, but rather by mere separation.
“Mía”
(Mine) and
“Dice mía”
(He Says Mine) are sports for music, suitable for singing,
lieder
calling out for a voice.

In “Heraldos” I demonstrate the theory of inner melody. One might say that in this little poem, when one imposes the ideal notation, the line does not exist. The game of syllables, the sound and color of the vowels, the name cried out heraldically, evoke an Oriental, biblical, legendary figure, and tribute, and correspondence.

The “Colloquy of Centaurs” is another “myth,” exalting natural forces, the mystery of universal life, the perpetual ascension of Psyche, and then addresses the fatal, terrifying arcanum of our inevitable end. But in a renewal of a pagan concept, Thanatos is not presented as in a Catholic vision: a horrific figure, or a skeleton armed with his scythe, or the medieval queen of the plague and empress of war. Instead, she stands beautiful, almost seductive, smiling, pure, chaste, with no anguished visage, and with Love sleeping at her feet. And under a panic principle, I exalt the unity of the Universe on the illusory Island of Gold, before the vast ocean. For, as the divine visionary John has said:
“Et tres sunt qui testimonium dant in terra: spiritus, et aqua, et sanguis: et hi tres unum sunt.”
⁸

In “El poeta pregunta por Stella”
(The Poet Asks after Stella), the poet recalls an angelic being who is no longer with him, a sister to Poe’s lilylike women who has ascended to the Christian heaven. Then you will read a lyrical prologue, which I called “Portico,” written long years ago in praise of the excellent poet, the vibrant, sonorous, and copious Salvador Rueda, the glory and decorum of Andalucía. And since at about that time I visited what is all too popularly known as the Land of Holy Virgin Mother Mary,
⁹
and, finding myself infected with the joy of castanets, tambourines, and guitars, I could not but pay tribute to that enchanted sunny region. And I wrote, among other things,
“Elogio de la seguidilla,”
or “In Praise of the Seguidilla.”
¹⁰

In Buenos Aires, initiated into the secrets of Wagner by a Belgian musician and writer, M. Charles del Gouffré, I rhymed the sonnet titled
“El cisne,”
The Swan—eternal bird!—which ends in the following way:

 

“La página blanca”
(The White Page) is like a dream whose visions symbolize the effort, the anguish, the pains of existence, brilliant fate, hopes and disappointments, and the unpardonable epilogue of eternal shadows, the unknown Beyond. Oh! Nothing has brought more bitterness to the hours of meditation in my life than the tenebrous certainty of the End. And how many times, seized by the horror of death, have I sought refuge in some artificial paradise.