La vuelta al origen : el ensayo "El caracol y la sirena (Rubén Darío)" de Octavio Paz

Abstract

Although this is one of Octavio Paz’s most significant literary essays, criticism to date has paid it little attention. This paper engages in a detailed philological study of the different versions, beginning with that of 1964, and highlights its contributions. In the first section, Paz deals with the characteristics, origin and significance of Modernismo for Hispanic literature, and in the second he addresses the life and work of Rubén Darío. In both Paz makes innovative and insightful observations. He locates the birth of Modernismo in Hispanic America, seeing it as a sui generis movement and not connected to English-language Modernism; following an idea of Achim von Arnim, Paz links Darío’s poetry with the Romanticism of the early nineteenth century and with the poetic gift of clairvoyance. He sees Darío as the founder of modern Spanish-language poetry and as the one who returned Hispanic poetry to its true essence. He also goes over a number of Darío’s themes, including eroticism, the Pythagorean vision of the world, and the idea of death.