Entre el alef y la mandorla: Poetica, erotica y mistica en la obra de Jose Angel Valente
Description
Jose Angel Valente is unique among Spain's contemporary poets because of his singular dedication to the process of poetic creation. His work emphasizes the importance of regenerating the essential, original and vital capacity of language For Valente, the poetic, creative act, is a process of discovery, a way to acquire knowledge of man's existence and of universal principles. He assigns the reader an active role that is as creative as the poet's. Valente usually writes enigmatic, perplexing poems that acquire wider meaning through indirect reference to sources outside the text. These poems function like a code or system which permits the reader to view them not just as autonomous entities, organic wholes, but as intertextual constructs. The reader frequently has to perform rapid, unanticipated aesthetic 'adjustments' when confronting Valente's texts Valente's own preoccupation with the creative process especially that undertaken by the mystics, compels him to venture into linguistic spaces where he finds the greatest tension between unspoken and spoken content. Valente's concept of poetic creation brings to mind the kabbalist's perception of Scripture as an inexhaustible well. Just as the texts of the Kabbalah, Valente's work seek the cooperation of the reader who is already disposed to create a hermeneutics in order to discover meanings by himself/herself The object of this dissertation is to bring into the foreground Valente's theory of the creative process, his idea of writing as a constant movement of inquiry and experimentation. This study emphasizes the interconnections that exist between Valente's work and mysticism. This dissertation explores how poetic, erotic, and mystic elements appear in his poetry like three manifestations of a single, identical experience. This study also examines the influence on Valente's work of surrealism and of the aesthetics of other arts, particularly painting and music and their connection to Valente's idea of the poetic process