The Joyous Excess of Eugenio Montejo’s Heteronymy' / 'El exceso jubiloso de la heteronimia de Eugenio Montejo

Roberts, Nicholas

Abstract

Throughout the writing career of Eugenio Montejo, spanning some forty years – nearly fifty if we include the early and largely disowned Humano paraíso [Human Paradise] (1959) –, the figure of Orpheus is a constant. This is hardly a novel observation; numerous critics have commented on the importance of Orpheus to Montejo’s poetry: its aims, its emphasis on harmonious, lyrical construction, and its belief in the possibility of the Poet’s return in these poetically bereft times all point towards and are rooted in this cipher for the ultimate lyric voice. Sporadically, the figure makes a titular appearance, be it in the manifesto-like “Orfeo” [“Orpheus”] from the 1972 collection Muerte y memoria [Death and Memory], the mid-period “Orfeo revisitado” [“Orpheus revisited”] from Alfabeto del mundo [Alphabet of the World] (1988), or “Máscaras de Orfeo” [“Orpheus’s Masks”] in Montejo’s final collection of poetry, Fábula del escriba [The Scribe’s Fable] (2006), which looks back over the poet’s work, themes, and motifs. But name-dropping is not necessary, for the figure is a latent presence throughout Montejo’s verse, captured in the image of the poet working away by lamplight while the broken world of a broken humanity sleeps, an image which overarches and umbrellas Montejo’s entire corpus. In Orphic fashion, the poet of Montejo’s poetry is charged with the task of awakening humankind through his lyrical production, nourishing it spiritually and emotionally with his verse. It is an image and a task steeped in the personal, in Montejo’s memories of his father, a baker, in the essay “El taller blanco” [“The White Workshop”] from the 1983 collection of the same name, working before dawn to make the equally life-giving breads to greet and sustain those rising from their slumber. Montejo often reiterated his perception as a child of those breads – lined up on their shelves in his father’s bakery – as letters, words forming lines of flour-covered bread-poetry.

Citation

Roberts, N. (2018). The Joyous Excess of Eugenio Montejo’s Heteronymy' / 'El exceso jubiloso de la heteronimia de Eugenio Montejo. Latin American literature today, 1(7),

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 15, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Aug 1, 2018
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Aug 3, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 14, 2018
• Journal: Latin American literature today
• Publisher: The University of Oklahoma
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 7
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1318473
• Publisher URL: http://www.latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/en/2018/august/joyous-excess-eugenio-montejo’s-heteronymy-nicholas-roberts