Forgiving Rubén Darío

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Notes

1 All translations throughout are mine.

2 The text is not in the 2000 edition. Carmen Alemany Bay traces Pacheco’s writings on Darío in “Versiones, Reversiones,” Anales de Literatura Hispanoamericana 36 (2007): 146-147.

3 Paz’s “The Siren and the Seashell” is an unforgettable essay on Darío and Modernismo.

4 The best example is César Vallejo, for whom the fragment and the broken word constitute the foundation stone of a new poetics whose metaphoric bones are retrieved from many of the same sources as Darío’s, the Bible, and the mastery of the caesura. Darío’s influence is clearly evident in Vallejo’s The Black Heralds but also in many poems of Trilce.

5 Rodó’s ambivalent critique of Prosas profanas leads Darío to fashion a self-defense in the first poem, “I Am the One” (dedicated to Rodó), of Songs of Life and Hope (1905). For a discussion of this dialogue, see Sylvia Molloy, "Ser, decir: tácticas de un autorretrato."

6 Jill Kuhnheim explores the importance of declamation in modern Latin America in Beyond the Page: Poetry and Performance in Spanish America (2014).

7 All citations from Darío are from this volume.

8 Carmen Ruiz-Barrionuevo delves into the formal and contextual aspects of this poem in her 2017 article.

9 Horacio Quiroga, the celebrated Uruguayan writer, younger than Darío, also suffered economic privations even as his fame grew. In a series called “Heroism” published in Caras y Caretas, he defends Darío from his critics: “He is deeply erudite, with a life fully suffered in emotions, purified in art, and above all dedicated, with humility and unequalled generosity, to compensate for the two pesos any one of us would request, without the least shame” (Garth 72).

10 Cited in Unamuno, Miguel de, “¡Hay que ser justo y bueno, Rubén!,” Revista Casa de las Américas 282 (enero-marzo 2016): 108-111. Unamuno eventually came round to Darío, praising him effusively and shedding tears as he read publicly Darío’s letter after his death.

11 Jiménez, Juan Ramón, Mi Rubén Darío (1900-1956), reconstrucción, estudio y notas críticas de Antonio Sánchez Romeralo, Moguer: Fundación Juan Ramón Jiménez, 1990, cited in Noel Rivas Bravo, “Tierras solares: Darío en la España de entresiglos,” in Rubén Darío, del símbolo a la realidad: Obra selecta (Edición conmemorativa de la RAE y la ASALE), Madrid: Grupo Editorial España, 2016.

12 Ramírez became Vice-President of Nicaragua in the first Sandinista government in 1985. Later, he broke with the Sandinista government.

13 Cathy Jrade explores in depth Darío’s Pythagorean beliefs in Rubén Darío and the Romantic Search for Unity (1983).

14 We cannot know if these last words are true. Darío did not want followers who copied him but poets who made their own path.

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Gwen Kirkpatrick

Gwen Kirkpatrick is Professor of Spanish at Georgetown University since 2004. Her writings have centered on Latin American poetry, gender studies, and the visual arts. Her most recent publications highlight the poetry of Marosa DiGiorgio, Rubén Darío, and nineteenth-century women's poetry.