Feustle, Joseph A., Jr.

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Joseph A. Feustle, Jr. sobre John C. Wilcox: \u3cem\u3eSelf and Image in Juan Ramón Jiménez\u3c/em\u3e

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Inti: Revista de literatura hispánica Volume 1 Number 28 Article 26 1988 Joseph A. Feustle, Jr. sobre John C. Wilcox: Self and Image in Juan Ramón Jiménez Joseph A. Feustle Jr. Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/inti  Part of the Fiction Commons, Latin American Literature Commons, Modern Literature Commons, and the Poetry Commons Citas recomendadas Feustle, Joseph A. Jr. (Otoño 1988) "Joseph A. Feustle, Jr. sobre John C. Wilcox: Self and Image in Juan Ramón Jiménez," Inti: Revista de literatura hispánica: No. 28, Article 26. Available at: https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/inti/vol1/iss28/26 This Reseña is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Providence. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inti: Revista de literatura hispánica by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@Providence. For more information, please contact elizabeth.tietjen@providence.edu. RESEÑAS 193 John C. Wilcox. Self and Image In Juan Ramón Jiménez. Urbana and Chicago: The University of Illinois Press , 1987, 207 pages . In this thorough and insightful study John Wilcox applies critical techniques derived from Barthes, Culler, Derrida, Greimas, Iser, Lacan, and Hills Miller, among others, and more frequently used in the analysis of prose, to the poetry of the Nobel laureate Juan Ramón Jiménez. Wilcox offers critical "readings" of five "poetic texts" representative of the three phases or periods into which he divides Jiménez* work: the modernista-simbolista (1900-1913); the Modern (1914-1936), and the post-Modern (from 1936 on). The texts all have in common the enigma of desdoblamiento, "the multiplicity of poetic selves" and vary in length and complexity from the fourteen verse "Yo y Yo" from Piedra y cielo (1910) to the eight-hundred line prose-poem Espacio (1954), although only the last one hundred lines are pertinent to the analysis of the poet's enigmatic otredad. Others included are: "Soy yo quien anda esta noche...", "Golfo," and selections from poems of Jiménez' first literary period. Each reading begins with the structure and syntax of the text, moves on to figures of speech, and then to the "semanticization" of the features that analysis uncovers. Professor Wilcox correctly observes that traditional Juan Ramón Criticism has dwelled on the well-known and frequently anthologized Jiménez of the second period, the "poet of light," to the detriment of his darker early poetry. He remedies this imbalance by "re-reading" the early poetry with an emphasis on its negative symbols, the "dark" nouns that make up a lunar cluster of imagery. Among others are: perro, pájaro 194 INTI No 28 agorero, cuervo, corneja, sapo, troncos, hombre enlutado, fantasma, sombra, and mendigo. In the second period of Jiménez' work these nouns are either absent or positive in connotation; but they reappear in the third phase with negative meaning once again. Wilcox's critical readings reveal the alternation of a "Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde" personality in Jiménez' work: the solar poet of 1914-1936, "Dr. Jekyll," one with himself, confident of his Obra and his ideals, is flanked by "Mr. Hyde," the melancholic, languid and decadent lunar poet of the first phase who returns to haunt Jiménez, the animal de fondo, in his third period. The chapters of analysis are preceded by an introduction to the reader's role and relationship to Jiménez' poetry. Wilcox subjects each text to three readings, modern, post-modern, and specialist (xi). The modern reader, as Wilcox defines him, has been schooled by the insights of Anglo and American Formalists critics and by European structuralists. The post-modern reader is more the product of post-structural reading strategies developed over the last fifteen years (semiotic, psychoanalytic, deconstructionist); and the specialist responds principally to Juan Ramón's Obra and the criticism it has inspired (xi). Accordingly, this triad of readers amounts to a formalization of a reading "competence" (16). Citing Culler, he states that the application of three reading strategies attempts to advance [an] understanding of the conventions of [...] a mode of discourse (16). Wilcox also uses "modern" to describe certain literary texts that are distinguished by their air of perfection, faith and idealism and tight control of the intensity of feeling (19). Jiménez is aldo described as having a "modern" voice in his second phase. 1910 to the 1930's is a period of "high Modernism" in Western Culture. Jiménez is "modern" and "post-modern." There is also a "moderm aesthetics." While Professor Wilcox's desire to liberate the text from tradition and authorial domination is understood, the multiple uses of the word "modern" creates confusion. Is it the reader or Juan Ramón who is "modern"? Does "modern" refer to a period in the history of literature or to a period in the history of the criticism of literature? And what does one say about literary modernismo, the movement in which Jiménez had a prominent role? In a footnote to his opening chapter, Wilcox states that he purposefully avoids the term modernista because it connotes only a "fin de siécle" style of writing (173), which is characterized as mournful, decadent, and sentimental (ix). While this may well be the case with Juan Ramón's turn-of-the-century poetry, such a narrow view is hard to reconcile with Jimenez' later role in the evolution of modernismo, with his own writings on the subject, and even more so with the growing corpus of critical literature that is modernity. RESEÑAS 195 There are a few minor annoyances in this otherwise excellent reading of Juan Ramón Jiménez. It could do without such frequent intrusion of Professor Wilcox's "I": I shall argue, I would argue, I argued in the last chapter..., I am therefore arguing..., I proposed, I argue (65-73). It can also do without the cryptic jargon such as, figure on figure figured is writing's game (Hills Miller and de Mann), and Nothing. [...] is anywhere ever simply present or absent. There are only, everywhere, differences and traces of traces (Derrida), that does little to enhance the solid critical readings. And, God forbid that any reader, specialist, modern o post-modern should become enthralled by the commas (120). The poem "Yo y Yo" does not specify that a vertical [emphasis mine] jet of water is reflected in a horizontal pool (114). This spatial relationship is the "reader's" interpretation. Finally, why postulate Juan Ramón's otredad through Jacques Lacan when there already exists a rich Hispanic tradition for this theme that dates from Octavio Paz and Antonio Machado back to San Juan de la Cruz? Near the end of his book John Wilcox wonders aloud How might a specialist reader of the Jiménez Obra assess the modern and the post-modern reader's insights into language and self-hood? (170). As a specialist reader of Jiménez' Obra, I find the rigor of his analysis admirable. I hope that other critics will follow his lead and devote more attention to the essential heterogeneity of Juan Ramón's early poetry, to the poetic manifestations of "Mr. Hyde." I am not convinced, though, that one need rely so much on the current fads in literary criticism to do so effectively. Joseph A. Feustle, Jr. The University of Toledo 

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Joseph A. Feustle, Jr. sobre John C. Wilcox: \u3cem\u3eSelf and Image in Juan Ramón Jiménez\u3c/em\u3e

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