a-vallejo-1

BHS LXXIII (1996)

299

Vallejo The Poetics of Dissent

NICOLA MILLER

University College London

no estaacute en manos de nadie ni en las miacuteas propias el controlarlos alcances poliacuteticos que pueden ocultarse en mis poemas

(Ceacutesar Vallejo [1892-1938])1

The elliptical and often obscure poems of Ceacutesar Vallejo have provoked twobroad types of critical response This article argues that both approachesare flawed because they are based upon false assumptions

Some critics mostly British or North American treat Vallejorsquos poetryas an exotic example of Modernist alienation and regard its politicalcontent as secondary to his concern with the absurdity of manrsquos existentialplight The premise underlying this interpretation is that Vallejorsquos workshould be understood in the context of the Western literary traditionOther critics most of them Peruvian reverse the emphasis they castVallejo in the role of national redeemer and play down any images ofindividual suffering which intrude upon what they claim to be hisexpression of the collective soul of Peru For them Vallejo voices aspecifically non-Western Indo-American identity

This basic distinction between Vallejo as either a depoliticized poet oras a poet-propagandist is a persistent feature of most criticism of hispoetry however much the debates may have shifted their groundWhereas in the 1940s existentialists disputed with Communists forVallejorsquos soul in the 1990s post-Modernists are pursuing the project ofdepoliticization to its limits whilst nationalists too have become moreextreme in their claims

As Pierre Bourdieu and others have shown the idea that poetry isseparate from politics is in itself a European one originating with the earlyRomantics who saw poetry as the highest expression of individualconsciousness in opposition to society But Vallejo wrote his first twocollections of poetry (which ironically enough are often referred to as hislsquopre-politicalrsquo verse) in Peru where culture and politics have beenintertwined since colonial days The European assumption that poetry can

1 Vallejo lsquoLiteratura proletariarsquo [1928] in La cultura peruana (Croacutenicas) ed

Enrique Ballon Aguirre (Lima Mosca Azul Editores 1987) 127-30 at p 128

300 BHS LXXIII (1996) NICOLA MILLER

be (and the implication often is should be) an apolitical genre is aninappropriate starting point for interpreting the work of a PeruvianSpanish-American critics have recently offered convincing evidence thatthe Spanish-American avant-garde was not simply the result of imitationof the European movements but emerged independently in response to thedistorted process of modernization in the region2 Vallejo may haveabsorbed European poetic influences but his poetry cannot be understoodsolely within a European framework As a poet Vallejo cannot bedepoliticized

But this does not mean that cultural production can be reduced tohistorical circumstance as Marxist critics argue Post-Modernists havedemonstrated how complex and elusive language can be By now we areall aware that language moves in mysterious ways But unreconstructedpost-Modernists err when they discard history to convert language itselfinto a god History cannot simply be finessed out of existence Likewisesupporters of historical determinism should take on board the insights ofpost-Modernism about the complexity of the ways in which people readliterary texts In this light the image of Vallejo as poet-propagandist isevidently quite false too As Vallejo himself acknowledged (the epigraph tothis article) no poet can control the political ramifications of his poetryBoth history and language must be taken into account when readingVallejo

Like many of his contemporaries Vallejo introduced references toMarxism Christianity and nation into his poetry This article focuses onwhy Vallejo a Peruvian did this and suggests why some critics havesought to deny the significance of some or all of these references It alsoexplores a theme which preoccupied Vallejo throughout his four collectionsof poetry and which helps to explain some of the tensions therein namelythe role of the poet

lsquoFrom the Vatican to the Kremlinrsquo3 Vallejo and Marxism

The received wisdom amongst critics is that Vallejorsquos poetry falls into twodiscrete periods Firstly there is the so-called lsquopre-politicalrsquo poetry Losheraldos negros (1919) and Trilce (1922) published before he left Peru forEurope in 1923 and before his conversion to Marxism in the late 1920sSecondly there are two collections of lsquopoliticalrsquo verse written during the1930s Poemas humanos (1939) and the Spanish Civil War poems Espantildeaaparta de miacute este caliz (1940) One of the reasons behind disputes about

2 See for example Saul Yuacuterkievich A traveacutes de la trama (Barcelona Muchnik

Editores 1984) and Hugo Verani Las vanguardias literarias en Hispanoameacuterica (RomeBulzoni Editore 1986)

3 This is an article title that Vallejo had jotted down in a notebook See GeorgetteVallejo Allaacute ellos allaacute ellos allaacute ellos (Lima Editorial Zalvac 1978) 71

VALLEJO THE POETICS OF DISSENT 301

the role of politics in Vallejorsquos poetry is that the last two works werepublished posthumously The manuscripts were unclear about when someof the poems were written in what order they were to be published orwhat the collections were to be called The dating of these poems isparticularly controversial because critics have focused on this issue eventhough it cannot be resolved in order to draw different conclusions aboutthe relationship between Vallejorsquos politics and his poetry If certain poemswere written at certain times so the argument runs then Vallejo could notpossibly have believed that art could serve the revolution4

The argument is fallacious It is used to dismiss Vallejorsquos politicalengagement on the grounds that this was patchy at best But it offers onlyan extremely limited definition of political commitment and assumes thatonly the most overt and sustained (party) political activity matters

Vallejo was converted to Marxism in 1928 and joined the SpanishCommunist Party in 1931 but his activism lapsed from 1932 until theoutbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 He then became involved inwriting and fund-raising for the Parisian Committee for the Defence of theRepublic and attended the International Congress of Anti-Fascist Writersin July 1937 The French Communist Party sent an official representativeto address his funeral There is not much dispute about any of this Eventhe Spanish poet Juan Larrea who in the 1950s led a crusade to freeVallejo from what Larrea saw as the taint of Marxism acknowledged thatlsquoRacionalmente Vallejo era un marxista maacutes que convencidorsquo5

The most important word in that quotation is the first one rationallyVallejo was a Marxist But Larrea argued there were many parts of apoet that Marxism could not reach Marxism might have offered solutionsto material questions but it could not help to resolve the metaphysicalissues wherein genuine poetry lay6

This is the central point around which the disputes revolve what wasthe impact of Vallejorsquos Marxism on his poetry Vallejo did not writelsquoprogammaticrsquo poems glorifying tractors or intoning the inevitable triumphof the revolutionary forces Attempts by orthodox Communists to claimhim as a poet who wrote to serve the Marxist-Leninist cause do notconvince7 Even so in Poemas humanos and Espantildea aparta de miacute estecaliz the many references to proletarians and Bolsheviks cannot be

4 See especially Juan Larrea lsquoLos poemas poacutestumos de Ceacutesar Vallejo a la luz de su

edicioacuten facsimilarrsquo Aula Vallejo (Revista del Instituto del Nuevo Mundo UniversidadNacional de Coacuterdoba Argentina) V (1974) Nos 11-13 55-172 Stephen Hart discusses thedating of the poems in detail in his book Religioacuten poliacutetica y ciencia en la obra de CeacutesarVallejo (London Tamesis 1987)

5 Juan Larrea lsquoDiaacutelogo de la primera conferenciarsquo Aula Vallejo VI Nos 8-10 446 Ibid7 See for example Luis Hernaacuten Ramiacuterez El Marxismo-Leninismo en la poesiacutea de

Ceacutesar Vallejo (Peru Editorial Eco del Buho 1985)


ignored and Marx himself is mentioned twice8 The texts themselves forcethe reader to confront Marxism which undermines the arguments of thosewho assert that Vallejorsquos Marxism was something which did notsignificantly affect his poetry

Larrearsquos way round this problem was to claim that Vallejorsquoscommitment to Marxism involved him in the adoption of a false personalitywhich cut him off from his true poetic voice Larrea asserted that Vallejowrote no poetry only prose during his years of Communist activism butthat ultimately truth found its outlet lsquoen septiembre de 1937 lagenialidad reprimida en eacutel por su personaje socioloacutegicomdashautor de paacuteginasbastantes inferioresmdashexplotoacute exabrupto y por finrsquo9 Larrea claimed thatVallejo then wrote Espantildea aparta de miacute este caliz and most of the Poemashumanos in a burst of frenetic creativity This assumes that the dates(October-November 1937) on the manuscript copies of Poemas humanosindicate their original drafting But Vallejorsquos widow Georgette isadamant that the dates indicate revision of earlier drafts and that Vallejowrote poetry throughout his period of Communist militancy

Larrea flatly denied that lsquoel fenoacutemeno de Ceacutesar Vallejorsquo could beunderstood lsquodentro del dominio de la sociologiacutearsquo and insisted upon thelsquoautenticidad metafiacutesica de nuestro poeta sudamericanorsquo10 The first wordto notice here is lsquonuestrorsquo Larrea was Spanish-born and did not adoptArgentina as his homeland until 1956 The inflexibility of his position mayhave been a consequence of the fact that he was fighting for an adoptedcausemdashHispanoamericanismo which was perhaps overlaid with a certainresidual guilt for a Spaniard such as he Larrea saw the Spanish Conquestthrough orthodox Eurocentric eyes that is as the historic opportunity forEuropeans to purge themselves of original sin in the pure virgin lands ofthe New World11 In this scenario Vallejo was given the role of a Spanish-American messiah (prophet and witness) who redeems the sins of theconquerors by sacrificing himself on the cross of the European-imposedWord of God (Logos) which stifles the creative potential of America In thelight of his mystical vision of Vallejo as a redemptive force for SpanishAmerica and even for all humankind it is not hard to see why Larreafound his Peruvian proteacutegeacutersquos interest in Marxism-Leninsm somewhatinconvenient

It is also important to remember that Larrea was writing in the mid-

8 See lsquoEn el momento en que el tenista rsquo and lsquoY no me digan nada rsquo in Obrapoeacutetica completa (Madrid Alianza 1989 [4th ed]) pp 196 248 References for all poemscited are from this edition hereafter OPC which is based on the 1968 Moncloa versioncompiled by Georgette Vallejo

9 Larrea Ceacutesar Vallejo o Hispanoameacuterica en la cruz de su razoacuten (Coacuterdoba ArgentinaUniv Nacional de Coacuterdoba 1957) 48

10 Ibid 3111 Ibid 52


1950s at the height of the Cold War when there was a tendency on bothsides of the ideological divide to see any expression of interest in Marxism-Leninism as an absolute commitment to Communism Today in the post-Marxist 1990s it is easier to acknowledge the simple facts that Vallejobecame enthused by Marxism for a while let his activism lapse and thenwas galvanized anew by the battle for Spain None of this was unusual foran intellectual of the 1920s and 1930s particularly one living in Paris andMadrid The Marxism-Leninism of the 1930s had not yet acquired thehistorical legitimacy gained by the Soviet Unionrsquos role in the defeat ofFascism in the Second World War the 1949 Revolution in China and thepost-war extension of Communism into Eastern Europe But neither wasit beleaguered by the doubts and disillusionment aroused by laterrevelations of Stalinist terror As Europe in the 1930s rapidly fell prey tonationalism and demagoguery many intellectuals were persuaded that theSoviet Union was building a new and more worthwhile society Events inSpain presented intellectuals with a stark ideological choice It wasFascism or Socialism if you were against the murder of Lorca12 effectivelyyou were with the Republic Many intellectuals whose privileged Europeanbackgrounds gave them far less reason to promote revolution than a petty-bourgeois poet from an underdeveloped Catholic country made the samepolitical choice as did Vallejo

In addition Vallejo came from Peru where Marxismrsquos impact in the1920s was greater than in any other Spanish-American country He wasalso a lapsed Catholic Although Marxism is an atheistic philosophyparallels between it and Catholicism have often been remarked uponcomparable concepts of orthodoxy heresy and dogma For Vallejo as formany other intellectuals who rejected Catholicism a move towardsMarxism was a logical step Like the Church Marxism offered an all-embracing explanation of the world and a comparable outlet for the need tobelieve in something Looked at in this historical and cultural context it iseasier to understand why Marxist ideas were powerful enough to find theirway into some of Vallejorsquos poems even though his Communist activismwas clearly neither sustained nor especially militant

lsquoOnce a Catholic rsquo Vallejo and Christianity

Vallejo rejected Catholicism but all four collections of his poetry containfrequent biblical references and images Early Vallejo criticism expendedconsiderable energies trying to determine whether or not his use ofreligious metaphor was indicative of a broadly Christian albeit notspecifically Catholic commitment But here again it is helpful to consider

12 The Spanish poet Federico Garciacutea Lorca was murdered on the orders of the local

Falangist militia chief in Granada in mid-August 1936


the historical and cultural context in which Vallejo was writingIntellectual life in nineteenth-century Peru was dominated by the

Catholic Church which had enjoyed a virtual monopoly of education underSpanish colonial rule In Peru the Catholic Church did not face the strongpost-Independence challenge from anti-clerical modernizing liberals whicheroded its influence in many other parts of Spanish America Whereas inMexico for example separation of Church and State was achieved in 1859that very same year the government of Peru linked Church and State inthe most fundamental way possible decreeing that cathedral clergy wereto be paid out of the national treasury13 It was not until 1933 that a newconstitution made provision for full freedom of conscience and religion inPeru

In this context it is hardly surprising that there was a strong traditionof Catholic clerical influence in Peruvian politics and education Althoughall Peruvian schools including those run by the Church were controlled bya state curriculum the law stipulated that all primary and junior schoolsshould instruct in the Catholic faith A minority (under ten per cent) ofchildren (mostly upper-class) attended the fee-paying Catholic schoolsThe Churchrsquos opponents associated it with the continuing gap between richand poor and the prolongation of mass illiteracy They also accused theChurch of failing to disseminate a genuine spirituality Few Peruviansentered the clergy many of those that did were not particularly committedForeign priests mostly Spaniards were brought in adding a nationalistdimension to the already highly politicized issue of the role of the Churchin Peru

By the late nineteenth century Peruvian intellectuals were debatingthe distinction between organized religion and true religiosity Positivismwas the first major intellectual rebellion against the doctrines of theChurch in Peru By the end of the First World War it was the leadingintellectual discourse at Limarsquos University of San Marcos Yet Positivismwith its assertion of scientific progress and rationality and its completedenial of religious feeling failed to answer the spiritual needs aroused butnot fulfilled by Church doctrines

Vallejo was not the only Peruvian intellectual of the 1910s and 1920s toreject Catholicism embrace Marxism and then try to sustain a religiouslyinspired conception of revolution We find exactly these concerns in thewritings of his contemporaries Joseacute Carlos Mariaacutetegui (lsquoa revolution isalways religiousrsquo)14 and Viacutector Rauacutel Haya de la Torre who tried to redefinethe term lsquoreligionrsquo to mean a passionate belief The Catholic Church had

13 If Vallejo had pursued his youthful ambition to become a bishop he would have

been in the pay of the Peruvian government14 Joseacute Carlos Mariaacutetegui Siete ensayos de interpretacioacuten de la realidad peruana

(Santiago de Chile Editorial Universitaria 1955) 196


established for itself a monopoly over the meaning of spirituality Anyonewishing to challenge this was obliged to produce an alternativeinterpretation of the Holy Scriptures and in doing so defy the socialpolitical and intellectual status quo Vallejorsquos incorporation of Catholicdogma into his poetry can best be understood as an attempt to subvertChurch doctrine as part of his broader rejection of a Peruvian classstructure in which the Church was deeply implicated

Vallejo and Peru

Just as Vallejorsquos poetry cannot be read without reference to Marxism andChristianity so his nationality has to be taken into account Criticswishing to insert Vallejo into a European tradition have noted with somerelief that Vallejorsquos Andean upbringing rarely intrudes into his poetryfolkloric lsquolocal colourrsquo is mercifully thin on the ground Admittedly a fewllamas and indians litter Los heraldos negros and there is a smattering ofPeruvian references in Trilce Once he had arrived in Europe howeverthe more conservative Western critics find themselves dealing almostexclusively with reassuringly lsquouniversalrsquo concerns They have tried to raiseVallejo above his native circumstances as lsquoone of the few great poets tohave emerged from Latin America in our centuryrsquo15 Once he has emergedfrom his obscure origins they argue his nationality can be discarded aslightly as an old raincoat he can be clothed in the appropriatelycosmopolitan garb required to take a place as an honoured guest albeit nota full member at the high table of Western culture The fact that Vallejowas Peruvian can be dismissed as merely an accident of birth with nonecessary implications for an understanding of his poetry

Western critics on the Left have simply rewritten the above argumentin positive terms In the 1960s there was a reaction against the idea thata select group of white middle-aged men in European and US universitieshad the right to arbitrate on what made great literature This was thedecade in which the Third Worldmdashits causes its customs and its clothesmdashbecame fashionable among the liberal Western intelligentsia LatinAmerica was particularly popular because of Castrorsquos defiance ofimperialist Uncle Sam In this context Vallejorsquos birth in the cold bleakPeruvian sierra leant him cachet a mark of the authenticity that had beenlost in the glitzy consumerist West The German poet Hans MagnusEnzensberger typified this romanticism when he asserted (contrary tomost of the evidence) that Vallejo lsquono era un cosmopolita se llevoacute su Peruacutea cualquier exiliorsquo that he had undergone his period of imprisonment lsquoconel profundo fatalismo de su razarsquo and that his poetry was imbued with lsquoel

15 Vallejo Spain Take this Cup from Me bilingual edition and trans Clayton

Eshleman and Joseacute Rubia Barcia (New York Grove Press 1974) back cover


pesimismo del indiorsquo16 Western readers can hardly be blamed for feelingconfused should they pay attention to Vallejo because he was Peruvian orbecause he was not (really)

Peruvian intellectuals who prefer to emphasize their nationrsquosdifferences from Europe try to present Vallejo as a nationalist poet This isnot easy Neither Vallejorsquos life nor his work offer much succour for thosetrying to appropriate them for the cause of Peruvian nationalism Vallejohimself rejected the concept of nationalist poetry In Paris where he wasto die he refused to assume the role of cultural ambassador for Perushunned a lsquoliteraryrsquo lifestyle and publicly attacked Spanish Americansliving in Paris who behaved in this way17 Attempts to claim Vallejo forthe nationalist cause are therefore obliged to resort to a level of vaguenessand abstraction (invoking some ill-defined but quintessentiallsquoPeruvian-nessrsquo) which make them totally unconvincing Interpretations ofthis sort have little to do with Vallejo or his work and everything to dowith the divisions among Peruvian intellectuals about how to definelsquoPeruvianrsquo national and cultural identity Should they emphasize theEuropean or the indigenous origins of the nation

Debates about what constituted peruanidad began in the aftermath ofthe War of the Pacific (1879-83) when defeat by Chile plunged Peruvianintellectuals into a lengthy and anguished exploration of lsquoel problemanacionalrsquo These discussions intensified during the 1920s when Peruvianintellectuals first began to think seriously about their nationrsquos place in themodern world Augusto Leguiacutearsquos dictatorship (1919-30) was embarking ona piecemeal modernization process The after-effects of the First WorldWar Perursquos tightening integration into the world economy and a rapidupsurge in US investment combined to produce real social and politicalchanges This period saw the emergence of a middle class and the start ofthe migrations from the sierra to the coast which have transformed Peruduring the course of this century As Leguiacutea opened the door wider to theUnited States disaffected intellectuals tried to identify lsquoPeruacute comonacioacutenrsquo18 Many of them were from the provincial petty bourgeoisie andwere reacting against the derivative European-style culture of an elite inLima which despised and excluded them

One of their weapons in this battle against the Lima elite wasindigenismo the promotion of the Inca era as an elevated culture andcivilization in a glorious Peruvian past Ironically as is so often the case

16 Enzensberger lsquoVallejo viacutectima de sus presentimientosrsquo originally published inVisioacuten del Peruacute (July 1969) in Ceacutesar Vallejo ed Julio Ortega (Madrid Taurus 1974)65-74

17 Vallejo lsquoUna gran reunioacuten latinoamericanarsquo [1927] in La cultura peruana edBallon 88-90

18 See Charles Walker lsquoLima de Mariaacutetegui los intelectuales y la Capital durante elonceniorsquo Socialismo y Participacioacuten (Lima) XXXV (Sept 1986) 71-88


when the past is idealized19 the image of the Inca empire as an extensiveAndean community is largely false and itself the creation of Europeans20

As one Peruvian historian recently suggested lsquoLo indiacutegena era lo histoacutericolo prehispaacutenico lo milenario lo tradicional Cuando estos teacuterminos nocoincidiacutean se recurriacutea a la ldquoinvencioacutenrdquo rsquo21

Indigenista intellectuals have made much of Vallejorsquos Indian bloodMariaacutetegui a major voice in the indigenista movement insisted onemphasizing the lsquonota indiarsquo in Vallejorsquos work He asserted that lsquoVallejo esel poeta de una estirpe de una raza En Vallejo se encuentra por primeravez en nuestra literatura sentimiento indiacutegena virginalmente expresadorsquo22

In fact Vallejo was of mixed race (mestizo or as it is usually called inPeru cholo) his Spanish grandfathers had both married Indian womenThe small Andean village where he grew up was almost exclusivelymestizo and was particularly noted for speaking only Spanish not theindigenous Quechua Even Mariaacutetegui had to acknowledge that Vallejowas no indigenista lsquoEl sentimiento indiacutegena obra en su arte quizaacute sin queeacutel lo sepa ni lo quierarsquo23 But Mariaacutetegui was campaigning against the ideathat a process of mestizaje could solve Perursquos problems and was thereforereluctant to acknowledge that Perursquos leading poet was a mestizo For thecritic Luis Alberto Saacutenchez who was convinced that mestizaje did offer away forward for Peru the author of Trilce was lsquoel cholo Vallejorsquo24

The question of Vallejorsquos lsquoindigenousrsquo credentials re-emerged in the1980s when the guerrillas of the Sendero Luminoso movement werethreatening to make pre-Columbian life a contemporary reality in Peru Aseries of articles appeared once more trying to insert Vallejo into anindigenous tradition He was hailed as the founding father of Peruvianculture the voice of his race and in one particularly ingeniousinterpretation the modern expression of the spirit of pre-Columbiancivilization25 This identification of Vallejo with the pre-conquest peoples

19 See The Invention of Tradition ed Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger

(Cambridge Cambridge U P 1992 [canto ed])20 Alberto Flores Galindo lsquoDemonios y degolladores el discurso de los colonizadosrsquo

Maacutergenes (Lima) III (Dec 1989) Nos 5-6 121-3321 Manuel Burga lsquoDesconocidos inventores de tradicionesrsquo Maacutergenes (Lima) I (March

1987) No 1 174-82 at p 18122 Mariaacutetegui Siete ensayos pp 234 23123 Ibid 23224 Luis Alberto Saacutenchez La literatura peruana cited in Horst Nitschack lsquoEl

indigenismo como condicioacuten para una literatura nacionalrsquo Lexis (Lima) XIV (1990) No 2221-39 at p 235

25 Miguel Paz Varias Vallejo formas ancestrales en su poesiacutea (Lima EditorialMarimba 1989) See also Enrique Ballon Aguirre lsquoLiteratura y poliacutetica en el pensamientode Ceacutesar Vallejorsquo Socialismo y Participacioacuten XX (Dec 1982) 43-59 and Edgar MontiellsquoCeacutesar Vallejo la prosa matinal de un poeta ldquoatenido a las viacutesperas eternas de un diacuteamejorrdquo rsquo Socialismo y Participacioacuten XLII (June 1988) 1-12


is a way of rejecting the impact of European colonization of PeruThe idea of a return to the Incas and the attribution of all Perursquos ills to

Spanish conquest was a prominent feature of Peruvian politics in the run-up to the quincentenary in 1992 Once again Vallejo became a pawn in thegame A telling example of this was the publishing history of Vallejorsquosjournalism In 1987 two collections appeared in Peru their titlesillustrating the fault line (Europe versus Indo-America) in discussionsabout Peruvian identity One was called Desde Europa croacutenicas yartiacuteculos (1923-1938) the other La cultura peruana (Croacutenicas)26

Ironically La cultura peruana included an article in which Vallejocategorically denied that any such thing existed

In his journalism Vallejo was consistently critical of both Peruvian andSpanish-American culture arguing that it could only suffer fromcomparison with the European canon Spanish America he argued lackedlsquono soacutelo de personalidad literaria sino de mayor edad intelectualrsquo27 ForVallejo this failure to achieve cultural independence was precisely thereason not to seek refuge in European cultural influences and not to seeklsquosuccessrsquo in European terms He was under no illusions about the trueattitude of the European cultural elite towards Latin America Soon afterhis arrival in Paris reporting on a fiesta de peruanidad held at TheacuteacirctreChameacuteleacuteon in Paris he had railed against European contempt for andmisunderstanding of Latin America

iquestSolidaridad iquestComprensioacuten No existe nada de esto en Europarespecto a la Ameacuterica Latina Nosotros en frente de Europalevantamos y ofrecemos un corazoacuten abierto a todos los noacutedulos de amory de Europa se nos responde con el silencio y con una sordezpremeditada y torpe cuando no con un insultante sentido deexplotacioacuten28

Why then demanded Vallejo did Spanish Americans insist on trying toimitate Europeans One of his most famous polemics lsquoContra el secretoprofesionalrsquo (1927)29 was written in response to Jean Cocteaursquos lsquoLe Secretprofessionelrsquo It is often quoted particularly by those anxious to presentVallejo as the human face of Modernism for its attack on the stylisticobsessions of the avant-garde lsquoCasi todos los vanguardistas lo son por

26 Desde Europa (Lima Fuente de Cultura Peruana 1987) was edited by Jorge

Puccinelli La cultura peruana (see footnote 1) by Enrique Ballon Aguirre For a discussionof the controversy in Peru surrounding these two editions see Rauacutel Hernaacutendez NovaslsquoDesde Europa un libro imprescindiblersquo Casa de las Ameacutericas XXVIII (1988) No 170 122-30

27 lsquoUna gran reunioacuten latinoamericanarsquo in La cultura peruana ed Ballon 89-9028 lsquoCooperacioacutenrsquo originally published in El Norte (Trujillo) (26 February 1924) in La

cultura peruana ed Ballon 45-4629 In La cultura peruana ed Ballon 93-95


cobardiacutea o indigencia En la poesiacutea seudonueva caben todas lasmentirasrsquo30 What often goes unmentioned is that Vallejo was attackingthe role of the avant-garde as a European formation in Spanish AmericaThe article was a rhetorical blast against not only the Spanish-Americanobsession with European norms but also the knee-jerk response ofembracing lsquoindigenousrsquo culture in the process of rejecting EuropeanismVallejo argued that to assert nation continent or race as legitimators ofliterary identity was to fall into precisely the same trap of defining oneselfby European standards

Vallejo warned that Peruvian artists should not place limits onthemselves their work was already liable to be labelled contained andimplicitly dismissed as lsquoPeruvianrsquo or lsquoLatin Americanrsquo that is lsquoforeignrsquo andlsquootherrsquo Being born a Peruvian inescapably complicated any claim touniversality In lsquoContra el secreto profesionalrsquo Vallejo complained

Lorca es andaluz iquestPor queacute no tengo yo el derecho a ser peruano Paraque me digan que no me comprenden en Espantildea Y yo un austriaco oun ingleacutes comprendemos los giros castizos de Lorca y Co31

Why was it Vallejo wanted to know that people were prepared to makethe effort to understand Lorca on the assumption that as a Spanish poethe would be worth understanding Vallejo feared that if a reader could notunderstand Lorca the reader would blame himself but if he found Vallejoobscure the reader would blame the poet

One feature common to all the varying strands of criticism of Vallejo isthe way that they start from the fact that he is Peruvian and then proceedto the argument that in spitemdashor becausemdashof this (it matters little whichas Vallejo himself recognized) he was a great poet But few would arguethat Rimbaud was or was not a great poet simply because he was Frenchor Rilke because he happened to be German Nothing comparable in scopeor obsession has been produced on T S Eliotrsquos North-American birth norYeatsrsquo Irish origins

But Vallejo cannot escape being Peruvian His countryrsquos colonialheritage impeded any authentic expression by a Peruvian writer as ahuman being rather than as lsquoa Peruvianrsquo Peruvian minds had beencolonized their growth stunted by the dilemma between plagiarism of theEuropeans on the one hand and the parochialism of peruanidad on theother Vallejo knew this simply talking about condors or llamas wouldnot he argued solve the problem any more than would trying to imitateEuropeans

30 La cultura peruana ed Ballon 9531 lsquoDel carnet de 193637rsquo Contra el secreto profesional (Lima Mosca Azul Editores

1973) 98


According to Vallejo Spanish Americans urgently needed toacknowledge that they had created nothing authentic as an essentialprerequisite for enabling themselves to do so

Nuestro estado de espiacuteritu exige un pesimismo activo y una terribledesesperacioacuten creadora Pesimismo y desesperacioacuten Tales son porahora y para empezar nuestros primeros actos hacia la vida32

Vallejorsquos lsquodespairrsquo should be seen not as the Eurocentric anguish oflsquomodern-man-in-search-of-a-soulrsquo but as the expression of a far morepoliticized sense of emptiness which was the result of his origins in a post-colonial society This context also provides a framework for assessingVallejorsquos use of language

In Peru the role of language is deeply ambivalent and highlypoliticized The official language Spanish is after all the language of theconquerors It is an imposed language the very use of which implies adenial of indigenous identity33 In Peru the Indian languages had nowritten culture they were and largely still are the languages of oralsocieties The Graeco-Roman tradition regards the spoken word as moreauthoritative than the written (because of its immediacy) but this is notthe case in Spanish America where as the Peruvian critic Julio Ortegapoints out

al reveacutes de las denuncias de Derrida lo oral representa en AmeacutericaLatina no el lenguaje de la autoridad sino el de la marginalidad Lapalabra escrita corresponde a la ley y bajo su poder se establecen loscoacutedigos de la racionalidad social dominante34

The written word became the embodiment of the law of the monarch andthe law of God the twin pillars of the Spanish colonization of America

In post-Independence Peru the role of literature developed from theneeds of different groups in an emerging society to establish their vision ofwhat the national identity and destiny should be The issue of nationalidentity also became a class question as Perursquos integration into the worldeconomy from the mid-nineteenth century onwards encouraged theformation of elites whose interests were closely tied to Europe

It is and was impossible for a Peruvian poet to escape the fact that the

32 lsquoLa juventud de Ameacuterica en Europarsquo [1929] in La cultura peruana ed Ballon 161-

6333 The Peruvian writer Joseacute Mariacutea Arguedas saw Vallejo as the first poet to express

the conflict felt by the Andean mestizo lsquoentre su mundo interior y el castellano como suidiomarsquo (lsquoEntre el Kechwa y el castellano la angustia del mestizorsquo in Nosotros los maestros[Lima Editorial Horizonte 1986] 31-33)

34 Julio Ortega Luis Rafael Saacutenchez teoriacutea y praacutectica del discurso popular ResearchPaper I (London Centre for Latin American Cultural Studies Kingrsquos College London1989) 11


kind of poetry he writes is a political issue in itself Is the poetrynationalist Is it indigenista If it is hermetic supposedly lsquoapoliticalrsquo thenit is an attempt to opt out of the prevailing discourse a decision which hasits own political implications Peru has a very different culturalatmosphere from the developed Western cultures where art can beperceived as an apolitical activity

In his poetry Vallejo explicitly raises these issues of the role of the poetand the act of writing which for him had political as well as artisticimplications He introduces a litany of writersrsquo names mostly poets andphilosophers of the Western canon into the texts35 He inscribes his ownname into four poems36 forcing the reader to confront the relationshipbetween the name in the poem and the name on the cover For whom is hewriting What is the value of the act of writing in the context of povertyand injustice What authority does the poet have Is that authority basedon knowledge or power

lsquoForja alliacute tu perdoacuten para el poetarsquo Vallejo and the Role of thePoet37

1 lsquoWho knows Not me rsquo The Voice of Authority in Los heraldos negros

Vallejo obliges his reader to confront traditional assumptions about theauthority of the poet on the very first page of his first collection Losheraldos negros The epigraph is a quotation in Latin from the Gospellsquoqui potest capere capiatrsquo (lsquoLet he who can understand understandrsquo) Theirony is that a message challenging the reader to understand is inscribedin a language that only a minority of highly educated Peruvians wouldknow Vallejorsquos use of the Latin of the original Catholic Bible reminds hisreader of the relationship between language and power in Peru

After that epigraph it is no accident that the first and title poem of Losheraldos negros begins with the line

Hay golpes en la vida tan fuertes iexclYo no seacute

35 Los heraldos negros lsquoRetablorsquo OPC 104 (Dariacuteo) Trilce XV 128-29 (Daudet) LV158-59 (Samain) Poemas humanos lsquoFue domingo en las claras orejas de mi burrorsquo 209-10(Voltaire) lsquoLos nueve monstruosrsquo 222-23 (Rousseau) lsquoMe viene hay diacuteas una ganaubeacuterrima poliacuteticarsquo 224-25 (Dante) lsquoTengo un miedo terrible de ser un animalrsquo 264 (LockeBacon) lsquoUn hombre pasa con un pan al hombrorsquo 266-67 (Socrates Andreacute Breton) lsquoEl almaque sufrioacute de ser su cuerporsquo 268-69 (Darwin) lsquoAl reveacutes de las aves del montersquo 272-73 (WaltWhitman) Espantildea aparta de miacute este caliz I 282-86 (Calderoacuten Cervantes QuevedoTeresa de Jesuacutes)

36 Trilce LV OPC 158-59 Poemas en prosa lsquoVoy a hablar de la esperanzarsquo 187Poemas humanos lsquoPiedra negra sobre una piedra blancarsquo 233 lsquoEn suma no poseo paraexpresar mi vidarsquo 249-50

37 lsquoYesorsquo Los heraldos negros OPC 79


The poet denies that he has any special knowledge which could offer asolution or even an explanation for lifersquos devastating blows But therhetorical device of the emphatic lsquoYo no seacutersquo38 is effective precisely becauseof the assumption made by a reader that the poet as a poet possessesprivileged knowledge and therefore should be in a position to enlightenBy saying that he does not know Vallejo chooses to subvert that authoritybut it is none the less an lsquoauthoritativersquo subversion of authority There isno escaping that position and the tensions it creates are central to all fourcollections

The question of authority is the main theme of the last poem in Losheraldos negros lsquoEspergesiarsquo which has often been read as the anguishedoutpouring of a poetic soul who knows far more about the pain of life thanlesser mortals But there are arguments for reading lsquoEspergesiarsquo as a moresubtle exploration of the relationship between the poet and society

Firstly consider the title One critic has pointed out that lsquoEspergesiarsquowas lsquoan archaic legal term signifying the passing of a sentencersquo39 Thearchaism immediately recalls once again the function of the Spanishlanguage in Peru as the word of law lsquoEspergesiarsquo is not in itself a legalsentence it is the passing of a sentence So the question arises who ispassing this sentence It cannot be God for Godrsquos powers are weakened inthis poem He is not active He is passive because He is ill The poemrsquosrefrain lsquoYo naciacute un diacutea que Dios estuvo enfermorsquo has usually been read asa version of the theme of blighted destiny But these lines lack convictionas an existential lament The image is slightly comical and its fivefoldrepetition diminishes rather than enhances its seriousness above all whenthe reader arrives at the wry bathos of the final variation lsquoYo naciacute un diacutea que Dios estuvo enfermo graversquo The implication is that when Godrsquosauthority has been weakened a poet is born Is the poet then the heir toGodrsquos role This idea is also strongly implied in the earlier poem lsquoDiosrsquo inwhich the poetic voice assumes the power of consecration lsquoYo te consagroDiosrsquo

In lsquoEspergesiarsquo everyone knows (lsquoTodos sabenrsquo) that the poet exists andthat he is made of flesh and blood lsquoTodos saben que vivo que mastico rsquoBut the poet is also known to be bad lsquoTodos saben que vivo que soy malorsquoThis is a reference to the European tradition of the poegravete maudit the poetcast out from society and condemned to solitary anguish as representedmost typically by Baudelaire But the key word here is lsquosabenrsquo it is notthat everyone thinks he is bad they know that he is By granting his ownbadness the status of established fact the poet implicitly accepts societyrsquosjudgment Indeed throughout Los heraldos negros the poet is presented

38 The personal pronoun is usually omitted in Spanish39 James Higgins Ceacutesar Vallejo An Anthology of his Poetry (Oxford Pergamon Press

1970) 172


as someone who has done wrong (lsquoYo soy un mal ladroacuten iexclA doacutende ireacutersquo)is in need of forgiveness (lsquoiexclForja alliacute tu perdoacuten para el poetarsquo) and who fallsshort of full humanity (lsquoY madrugar poeta nomada al crudiacutesimo diacutea deser hombrersquo)40

In lsquoEspergesiarsquo everyone (lsquotodosrsquo which Vallejo repeats three times) hasaccess to knowledge while the poet does not Everyonersquos knowledge isuncomplicated and direct Ultimately it is open-ended as indicated by theellipsis in the first line of the last stanza lsquoTodos saben rsquo Everyone (byimplication everyone else apart from the poet) simply knows certainthings But not everyone knows (lsquono sabenrsquo) about images which are thepreserve of the poet lsquono saben del diciembre de ese enerorsquo lsquono saben quela Luz es tiacutesica y la Sombra gorda rsquo Nor do they know lsquopor que en miverso chirriacutean luyidos vientos desenroscados de la Esfinge preguntona del Desiertorsquo The sphinx is one of the most clicheacuted Romanticimages of the enigma of existence Vallejo hardly ever uses this kind ofimage even in Los heraldos negros when he was still influenced bySpanish-American Modernismo a movement which promoted the myth ofpoet-as-aristocrat-of-the-spirit and tended to adorn its verse with swansclassical statues and other supposed manifestations of Beauty and PurityThe verb lsquochirriacuteanrsquo hardly casts the sphinx image in a positive light Allthe standard clicheacutes of Modernista poetry are echoed in the lines lsquomusical ytriste que a distancia denuncia el paso meridiano de las lindes a lasLindesrsquo But Vallejo attaches all these mellifluous phrases to a distinctlyunaesthetic hump

In lsquoEspergesiarsquo Vallejo challenges the pretensions of art-for-artrsquos sakepoetry and not as is often suggested the inability of the common herd toattain the elevated heights of Romantic intensity The complex and uglyimages in the last two verses contrast starkly with the plain language ofthe first part of the poem In the central third stanza where the poet istrying to reach out to another human being he uses very simple wordslsquoHermano escucha escucha rsquo He accepts that there is no response(lsquoBuenorsquo) for why should there be As he has already acknowledged in theprevious stanza nobody is obliged to pay attention to the poetrsquos concernslsquoHay un vaciacuteo en mi aire metafiacutesico que nadie ha de palparrsquo (myemphasis) Vallejo suggests that it is up to himself as the poet to givesomething positive to the world lsquoY que no me vaya sin llevar diciembres sin dejar enerosrsquo (lsquoenerosrsquo represent new beginnings) In these lines of thethird stanza Vallejo unravels the concentrated image of the first lsquono saben del diciembre de ese enerorsquo In this core stanza the poet rejects anelliptic exclusive mode of expression in favour of a more direct language ofcommunication

40 lsquoEl pan nuestrorsquo OPC 96-97 lsquoYesorsquo 79-80 lsquoDesnudo en barrorsquo 99


Vallejo explores the wider implications of a challenging of authority inthe penultimate poem of Los heraldos negros lsquoEnereidarsquo where he makesexplicit the particular relationship between language and authority inPeru The title lsquoEnereidarsquo is thought to be lsquoa neologism combining eneroand Eneidarsquo41 both symbols of renewal and rebirth The poem is firmlyrooted in Peru there are references to lsquoel cementerio de Santiagorsquo to lsquolosantildeos de la Gobernacioacutenrsquo and to lsquoempanadasrsquo The father-figure is an imageof authority at one level the poetrsquos father at another level the politicalauthorities in Peru at another the authority of God the Father It is anauthority which has become extremely weak an authority which is a thingof the past His used to be the voice of the world and of power now he canoffer only memories and suggestions This is specifically linked in to thechanging political situation in Peru

Otras veces le hablaba a mi madrede impresiones urbanas de poliacuteticay hoy apoyado en su bastoacuten ilustreque sonara mejor en los antildeos de la Gobernacioacutenmi padre estaacute desconocido fraacutegilmi padre es una viacutespera

The loss of a fatherrsquos authority is partly a liberation and a cause forcelebration (witness the title also the fact that it is a lsquomantildeana pajarinarsquo alsquoDiacutea eterno diacutea ingenuo infante coral oracionalrsquo) But it is also theonset of deep longing and confusion the loss which is so yearned forpreviously and so much regretted subsequently Already the poet knowsthat paternal authority offers no protection against a sonrsquos loss ofinnocence lsquodepartieron mis siacutelabas escolares y frescas mi inocenciarotundarsquo and that this will leave him with a hunger which cannot besatisfied lsquoHabraacute empanadas y yo tendreacute hambrersquo He knows that allthings stem from the father (lsquosus senos de tiempo que son dos renunciasdos avances de amor que se tienden y ruegan infinitorsquo) He asks hisfather to leave something behind of himself lsquojirones de tu serrsquo But theWord of the Father (Vallejorsquos use of lsquoVerbosrsquo specifically invokes thereligious dimension) is no longer one and indivisible (lsquoel Verborsquo) it can onlybe lsquoVerbos pluralesrsquo

Authority has been lost and words have lost authoritative meaningThis is both a threat because of the confusion and responsibility it entailsand a great promise because it offers the chance to create new meaningsfree of the burden of the law What is the responsibility of the poet inthese circumstances In Los heraldos negros Vallejo goes no further thanthe posing of the question But the syntactical and semantic breakdownsin Trilce can be read as Vallejorsquos battle with the consequences of

41 Higgins An Anthology 172


challenging the authority of the Word of God brought by the Spanishconquerors How can a Peruvian poet give any meaning at all to hisinheritance of lsquoverbos pluralesrsquo

2 lsquoWhat can I sayrsquo Language and Authority in Trilce

In Trilce the issue of what the poet can or cannot say becomes far moreobtrusive than it was in Los heraldos negros In the largely nonsensicalpoem XXXII for example by far the least obscure lines are the poetrsquosdenial of the value of his own self-expression

Mejorno digo nada

Y hasta la misma plumacon que escribo por uacuteltimo se troncha42

The issue of poetic authority is even more prominent in poem LV which isoften omitted from anthologies even though it is central to anunderstanding of Trilce Vallejo opens the poem by comparing thesupposedly restrained language and imagery of the French symbolist poetAlbert Samain with his own convoluted metaphors

Samain diriacutea el aire es quieto y de una contenida tristezaVallejo dice hoy la Muerte estaacute soldando cada linderoa cada hebra de cabello perdido desde la cubeta de unfrontal donde hay algas toronjiles que cantan divinosalmacigos en guardia y versos antiseacutepticos sin duentildeo

Samain was one generation before Vallejo and at one level this verse canbe interpreted as Vallejorsquos rejection of the symbolistsrsquo approach to poeticsBut given the content of the subsequent stanzas this reading alone seemsinadequate A further contrast suggested by this juxtaposition of poeticstyles is of one poet lsquoSamainrsquo who is in a position to enjoy mastery over hislanguage and another lsquoVallejorsquo who is not Samainrsquos image of death asimagined by Vallejo is evocative precisely because it is understated Suchrestraint and control are the prerogative of those who are the masters asthe French were the cultural masters in nineteenth-century Peru lsquoVallejorsquoon the other hand feels forced into a proliferation of images because hecannot enjoy a straightforward relationship with a language which wasimposed upon him He can only make it his own by doing violence to it in asubversion of its conventions

But the poem goes on to ask what do these linguistic struggles over

42 See also LVII where he denies his capacity to pass judgment

iquestPuedo decir que nos han traicionado NoiquestQueacute todos fueron buenos Tampoco


how to express death have to do with the real experience of the terminallyill What is the relevance of what any poet says The sick man in thefourth stanza wants to know what is going on in the world for he is readinga newspaper This fourth stanza at one level is simply an image of deathbut it is different from many poetic metaphors because it cannot beunderstood without reference to a world outside the poem Vallejorsquos imageof a mirror of the world a newspaper has meaning only if the readerknows that there was a Peruvian newspaper called La Prensa And Vallejohas inserted his own name further complicating the fact that the poemrsquosmeaning is not self-contained As a Peruvian Vallejo cannot afford theluxury of a hermetic poetic world Even in Trilce the least overtly politicalof his four collections Vallejorsquos language is inescapably politicized

3 lsquoWho can sayrsquo Power and Knowledge in Poemas humanos

Vallejorsquos exile in Europe heightened his awareness of the authorityattached to European languages and culture Many of the Poemashumanos refer to European places or writers By contrast references toPeru are rare as has often been pointed out but their significancenevertheless needs to be reconsidered The key text on Peru indeed theonly extensive treatment of Peru in Poemas humanos is lsquoTeluacuterica ymagneacuteticarsquo43 This poem is much quoted albeit selectively by those whowish to cast Vallejo as a Peruvian nationalist This is because it containsthe only lines in his entire body of poetry which intone a patriotic spirit

iexclSierra de mi Peruacute Peruacute del mundoy Peruacute al pie del orbe yo me adhiero

Less avowedly patriotic souls should ask themselves how seriously thissentiment should be taken Consider the following points lsquoTeluacuterica ymagneacuteticarsquo is the only poem in Poemas humanos to include an almostbiblical incantation of Peruvian terms perhaps in mockery of thenationalist temptation to turn patriotism into a religion It is the only onein which Vallejo uses colloquial phrases of abuse which suggests that histone is not wholly serious It is also the only one in which every line ispunctuated by exclamation marks These in themselves warn the readernot to take this poem literally lsquoTeluacuterica y magneacuteticarsquo is not convincing aspatriotic poetry But it is rather more plausible as a satire on the style(declamatory) the symbolism (parochial) and the sentiment (chauvinistic)of the indigenista movement

Indigenista poets often used images of the Peruvian landscape torepresent what they liked to believe were quintessentially Peruvian values

43 OPC 210-12


In lsquoTeluacuterica y magneacuteticarsquo Vallejo satirizes this technique with a series ofincreasingly absurd images the lsquomecaacutenicarsquo is lsquosincerarsquo and lsquoperuaniacutesimarsquothe soil is lsquoteoacuterico y praacutecticorsquo the furrows are lsquointeligentesrsquo and the fieldsare lsquohumanosrsquo The rodents lsquomiran con sentimiento judicial en tornorsquo andthe donkeys are lsquopatrioacuteticosrsquo But they are not lsquoasnos patrioacuteticos de mividarsquo instead they are lsquopatrioacuteticos asnos de mi vidarsquo The displacing of theadjective from its normal position (after the noun) opens up the possibilityof a second meaning namely that those who are lsquopatrioacuteticosrsquo(lsquopatriotasrsquo) areasses Vallejo is sneering at the super-patriot

In his journalism Vallejo ridiculed the idea that Peruvian poets couldmake themselves more authentically Peruvian or express anythingsignificant about Peru by introducing snippets of Peruvian local colour intotheir verse He argued that these images created by intellectuals reflectedsolely their idealizations about Peru not Peruvian reality This surely isalso the implication of these lines from lsquoTeluacuterica y magneacuteticarsquo

iexclOh campo intelectual de cordilleracon religioacuten con campo con patitos

The bathos of lsquopatitosrsquo mocks the sentimentality (lsquoaah sweet littleducklingsrsquo) of much indigenista writing A few lines later Vallejo againuses bathos this time to satirize indigenismorsquos tendency to claim thateverything about Peru was marvellous

iexclLentildeos cristianos en graciaal tronco feliz y al tallo competente

Vallejo then introduces himself into the poem

iexclFamiliar de los liquenesespecies en formacioacuten basaacuteltica que yorespetodesde este modestiacutesimo papel

In these lines the voice of authority (the emphatic lsquoyorsquomdashlsquoI respectrsquo) comesfrom the act of writing (symbolized by the piece of paper) The absurdity ofthis supposedly authoritative judgment clearly casts doubt upon the poetrsquossubsequent statement of adherence to Peru Are lichens worthy of respectBy implication is unthinking support for Peru an appropriate attitude fora poet

Finally having rattled off a whole list of Peruvian flora and faunaVallejo introduces and at once rudely dismisses the most famous symbolof the Andes

(iquestCondores iexclMe friegan los condores)

He then attributes total understanding to the poetic voice (lsquoiexclLo entiendotodo en dos flautasrsquo) asserts an equally uncharacteristic confidence in his


own capacity for expression (lsquoy me doy a entender en una quena rsquo) andconcludes the poem with the vulgar and dismissive

iexclY lo demaacutes me las pelan

In these concluding lines Vallejo mocks the arrogance of the nationalistpoet who believes that he and he alone can express the soul of the nationlsquoTeluacuterica y magneacuteticarsquo is not about Peru it is about how Peru has beenappropriated by Peruvian intellectuals for their own self-glorification Thispoem so often cited by intellectuals to bolster the crude certainties ofnationalism represents the exact opposite It is a sustained critique ofthose Peruvian intellectuals who pursued what Vallejo saw as a simplisticidentification with their country

Throughout Poemas humanos Vallejo explicitly attacks the mythologysurrounding the poet and suggests an alternative version of the traditionalrelationship between power and knowledge44 In a development of ideashinted at in lsquoEspergesiarsquo (Los heraldos negros) and Trilce VI Vallejo nowattributes significant knowledge to the common man not the intellectualIn lsquoConsiderando en friacuteo imparcialmentersquo45 the distinction is again madebetween lsquoel hombrersquo and the poet but now it is the man who knows

Comprendiendoque eacutel sabe que le quieroque le odio con afecto y me es en suma indiferente

In lsquoSalutacioacuten angeacutelicarsquo the Bolshevik has the certainty that the lsquoyorsquo of thepoetic voice lacks and the Bolshevik knows things that the lsquoyorsquo is silentabout46

It is Marxism which has changed Vallejorsquos vision and this is why hispoetry cannot be read without taking it into account Although he neverfully resolved the issues around knowledge and power any partialresolution he did find was dependent upon Marxist ideas Marxism was achild of the Enlightenment and it lsquoremains a sort of Cartesian philosophyin which you have a conscious agent who is the scholar the learned personand the others who donrsquot have access to consciousnessrsquo47 But unlikeorthodox Catholicism Marxism argues that those who are thought of asignorant do in fact possess their own kind of knowledge and that the

44 The theme of knowledge is raised in lsquoLos mineros salieron de la minarsquo OPC 208-

09 lsquoOtro poco de calma camaradarsquo 218-19 lsquoConsiderando en friacuteo imparcialmente rsquo 227-28 lsquoParado en una piedra rsquo 230-31 lsquoQuiere y no quiere su color mi pecho rsquo 255-56 andlsquoEl alma que sufrioacute de ser su cuerporsquo 268-69

45 OPC 227-2846 See also lsquoParado en una piedra rsquo and lsquoLos mineros salieron de la minarsquo OPC 230-

31 and 208-0947 Pierre Bourdieu in conversation with Terry Eagleton New Left Review (JanFeb

1992) No 191 111-21 at p 113


political task is to make them aware of it so that they are empowered toact

In Poemas humanos Vallejo does not yet confront the issue of howthose who know from experience as distinct from those who know frombooks might be given the opportunity to express that knowledge Thiscollection contains more references to saying and speaking the only meansof verbal expression available to the illiterate than any of the others Butwriting remains the preserve of the poet and a series of poems resumesVallejorsquos questioning of the role of writing in the context of the suffering ofordinary men This culminates in lsquoUn hombre pasa con un pan alhombrorsquo48 where Vallejo states the dilemma of all intellectuals withstartling clarity

Un hombre pasa con un pan al hombroiquestVoy a escribir despueacutes sobre mi dobleOtro se sienta raacutescase extrae un piojo de su axila maacutetaloiquestCon queacute valor hablar del psicoanaacutelisis Otro tiembla de friacuteo tose escupe sangreiquestCabraacute aludir jamaacutes al Yo profundo

4 lsquoWho writesrsquo Espantildea aparta de miacute este caliz

In Vallejorsquos last collection there is a proliferation of images of writingmdashbooks papers words and writers49 Writing poetry about the Spanish CivilWar concentrated Vallejorsquos mind on the issues about the role of the poetwith which he had been struggling all his life50 In Poemas humanosVallejo had recognized that workers had their own kind of knowledge butstopped short of imagining a state of affairs where they had access toreading and writing In Espantildea aparta de miacute este caliz he went a stagefurther and gave the dispossessed the means of expression historicallyreserved for those whose knowledge was conventionally granted authoritynamely the educated In poem VIII he exhorted the peasant who hasturned soldier

iexclSalud hombre de Dios mata y escribe51

48 OPC 16649 See especially poems I III IX and XV50 For an interpretation which also emphasizes Vallejorsquos concern with the role of the

intellectual and discusses its implications for Espantildea aparta de miacute este caliz in far moredetail than is possible here see George Lambie lsquoPoetry and Politics The Spanish Civil WarPoetry of Ceacutesar Vallejorsquo BHS LXIX (1992) 153-70 See also James Higgins Ceacutesar Vallejoen su poesiacutea (Peru Seglusa Editores 1989)

51 VIII OPC 297


In poem III the railway-worker Pedro Rojas had begun to overcome hisilliteracy just before he lost his life in the war

Soliacutea escribir con su dedo grande en el airelsquoiexclViban los compantildeeros Pedro Rojasrsquo52

Pedro Rojasrsquo literal words set in quotation marks within a poem are ametaphor for the common manrsquos mastery of literacy Despite hisinaccuracy Rojas has authority he is lsquopadrersquo But his authority is notdivinely granted it arises out of his humanity he is lsquopadre y hombre marido y hombre ferroviario y hombre padre y maacutes hombrersquo Christ-likePedro Rojas is resurrected and it is his writing his capacity to expresshimself which endures

Pedro Rojas asiacute despueacutes de muertose levantoacute besoacute su catafalco ensangrentadolloroacute por Espantildeay volvioacute a escribir con su dedo en el airelsquoiexclViban los compantildeeros Pedro Rojasrsquo

In his essay El arte y la revolucioacuten Vallejo wrote lsquoHacedores deimaacutegenes devolved la palabra a los hombresrsquo53 In Espantildea aparta de miacuteeste caliz his final collection of poetry he created an image (albeit a ratherclicheacuted one) of just this transfer of power As a poet he believed that hecould do no more and no less than to create an image Vallejorsquos essays onart and politics reveal that he was convinced that poetry could beliberating politically as well as spiritually or emotionally But he also heldthat there were no short or smooth roads to freedom Unlike the ChileanCommunist and Nobel prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda Vallejo did notpresume to speak for the common man For Vallejo this was not the pathof the truly revolutionary poet because it could only reinforce the authorityof the poet and further limit the opportunities for lsquoordinaryrsquo people toexpress themselves Instead he chose to rewrite the language and theimages of authority provoking the reader to question any supposedlyauthoritative statement whatever its source lsquoHe aquiacute que hoy saludo rsquofrom Poemas en prosa ends with this line

(Los lectores pueden poner el tiacutetulo que quieran a este poema)54

With this Vallejo explicitly invited his readers to take what he believed tobe the most revolutionary step of all namely to think for themselvesThroughout his four collections of verse Vallejo tried to create a poetics ofdissent which challenged oppression in all its forms literary convention

52 III OPC 290-91 at p 29153 El arte y la revolucioacuten (Lima Mosca Azul Editores 1973) 6354 lsquoHe aquiacute que hoy saludo rsquo OPC 197


intellectual dogmatism cultural imposition political exclusion andeconomic exploitation More than many writers perhaps Ceacutesar Vallejohas been the victim of intellectual hijackingmdashby nationalists CommunistsChristians and existentialists among others Neither depoliticization ofhis work nor its appropriation for propaganda purposes is a criticalresponse which meets his challenge55

55 I would like to thank Maurice Biriotti Jason Wilson and an anonymous reader for

their many helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article


be (and the implication often is should be) an apolitical genre is aninappropriate starting point for interpreting the work of a PeruvianSpanish-American critics have recently offered convincing evidence thatthe Spanish-American avant-garde was not simply the result of imitationof the European movements but emerged independently in response to thedistorted process of modernization in the region2 Vallejo may haveabsorbed European poetic influences but his poetry cannot be understoodsolely within a European framework As a poet Vallejo cannot bedepoliticized

But this does not mean that cultural production can be reduced tohistorical circumstance as Marxist critics argue Post-Modernists havedemonstrated how complex and elusive language can be By now we areall aware that language moves in mysterious ways But unreconstructedpost-Modernists err when they discard history to convert language itselfinto a god History cannot simply be finessed out of existence Likewisesupporters of historical determinism should take on board the insights ofpost-Modernism about the complexity of the ways in which people readliterary texts In this light the image of Vallejo as poet-propagandist isevidently quite false too As Vallejo himself acknowledged (the epigraph tothis article) no poet can control the political ramifications of his poetryBoth history and language must be taken into account when readingVallejo

Like many of his contemporaries Vallejo introduced references toMarxism Christianity and nation into his poetry This article focuses onwhy Vallejo a Peruvian did this and suggests why some critics havesought to deny the significance of some or all of these references It alsoexplores a theme which preoccupied Vallejo throughout his four collectionsof poetry and which helps to explain some of the tensions therein namelythe role of the poet

lsquoFrom the Vatican to the Kremlinrsquo3 Vallejo and Marxism

The received wisdom amongst critics is that Vallejorsquos poetry falls into twodiscrete periods Firstly there is the so-called lsquopre-politicalrsquo poetry Losheraldos negros (1919) and Trilce (1922) published before he left Peru forEurope in 1923 and before his conversion to Marxism in the late 1920sSecondly there are two collections of lsquopoliticalrsquo verse written during the1930s Poemas humanos (1939) and the Spanish Civil War poems Espantildeaaparta de miacute este caliz (1940) One of the reasons behind disputes about

2 See for example Saul Yuacuterkievich A traveacutes de la trama (Barcelona Muchnik

Editores 1984) and Hugo Verani Las vanguardias literarias en Hispanoameacuterica (RomeBulzoni Editore 1986)

3 This is an article title that Vallejo had jotted down in a notebook See GeorgetteVallejo Allaacute ellos allaacute ellos allaacute ellos (Lima Editorial Zalvac 1978) 71





































Vallejo and Peru












































1973) 98































1970) 172
















Mejorno digo nada















43 OPC 210-12

























1992) No 191 111-21 at p 113










51 VIII OPC 297


















































Vallejo and Peru












































1973) 98































1970) 172
















Mejorno digo nada















43 OPC 210-12

























1992) No 191 111-21 at p 113










51 VIII OPC 297





















































1973) 98































1970) 172
















Mejorno digo nada















43 OPC 210-12

























1992) No 191 111-21 at p 113










51 VIII OPC 297












































1970) 172
















Mejorno digo nada















43 OPC 210-12

























1992) No 191 111-21 at p 113










51 VIII OPC 297





























Mejorno digo nada















43 OPC 210-12

























1992) No 191 111-21 at p 113










51 VIII OPC 297





















43 OPC 210-12

























1992) No 191 111-21 at p 113










51 VIII OPC 297






































1992) No 191 111-21 at p 113










51 VIII OPC 297























51 VIII OPC 297














a-vallejo-1

Documents

vallejo voices

obscure poems of csar

spanishamerican critics

poetry isseparate

twocollections of poetry

european movements

european assumption

european framework