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Classic tradition in Aníbal Núñez

a. the concept that Reality and Sense are different things,

b. the idea that history is swallowed up by language,

c. and the knowledge that each poem is an open work and enables each reader to make his/her own Interpretation of the poem.

These three aspects seem very complicated, so that we need one clarification which we can only give through Aníbal Núñez's poems.

The fact that Reality and Sense are different things can be observed in the following verses:

«Triste

belleza —nunca es triste la piedra en su lugar, nunca fue triste la maleza en el suyo— la del simbolo.» (I,301¹)

(«Sad beauty —the stone in its place is never sad, thicket was never sad in its— the symbol's one.»)

The word (i.e. the «symbol») can't reach beauty and this is a tragic sentiment.

The fact that history may disappear in language is clear in these verses:

«Remontar no pudisteis la corriente
del deterioro: tantas cosas y pocos nombres
para darles.» (I,334)

(«You couldn't go up deterioration's stream: so many things and few names to give them.»)

There aren't enough words so as to describe the past, and, because of this, History may disappear.

We can see, in the following verses that each poem raises an open work and gives to each reader the opportunity of making a new story of the poem.

«Recompón los pedazos si no sale
la misma escritura, no importa
que se sigue leyendo
la luz en las palabras.» (I,377)

(«Mend the bits, if the same writing does not reappear, it does not matter, light can go on being read in words.»)

It is an invitation to mend the story of the poem.

These three points can also be observed in the way of using the classic tradition. We have analyzed several points in which this is clear:

a. How he uses the myth in order to degrade and demythologize it,

b. Use of classic texts in order to make them disappear behind the new words of the     poem,

c. Use of classic reference to raise a love story that the reader can interpret.

«Oh nayade, nereida, ninfa, sirena, tía buena reproducida todo color tamaño casi natural...» (I,70)

(«Oh naiad, nereid, nymph, siren, reproduced smashing girl in full colour, almost life-size...»)

However, this concept of demythologizing has in Aníbal Núñez's books a more and more complicated development. We have here the same feeling that could be observed when we spoke on the differences between Reality and Sense. Such split is the same one than this one here between high sentiments and disappointment.

The use of classic texts in order to make them disappear behind the new words of the poem may be the most difficult and interesting aspect of the classic tradition in Aníbal Núñez. He shows preference to didactic poetry, for example: Lucretius, Virgil, Hesiod. A fragment from Hesiod's Works and days is translated by Aníbal Núñez in such a way that the translation reads the reverse to the actual text. for the classic reference to raise a love story, we have an interesting example in Casa sin terminar (Uncompleted house,l974). Here, through several poems the reader can build up in his mind an idea of what kind of feeling Aníbal Núñez's poetry forms. The classic reference is used in such a way that a tragic sentiment can be observed. Firstly the love story is broken into different poems and each poem has a classic reference such as Pandora, a quotation from Catull, the mention of Icarus, a new version of Euridice and Orpheus, and an interpretation of Alkeion's story. Secondly, each mythologic character loses his/her heroic position and receives a new dimension dominated by disbelief, ache, and absence. They could not be heroes on such a human plane.

There is also room for a fine, sharp and bitter smile in these poems. For example in the following verses:

«No voy a darte cuenta de Pandora
del senuelo fatal e irremediable:
basta con que te mires al espejo
y no te reconozcas, inocente,
esparciendo la lluvia de mis males
al levantar la tapa del  estuche
                                    de
sombra de ojos celeste
bóveda en la que queda la esperanza
pozo de lejanisimas estrellas.» (I,181)

(«I am not going on give an account of Pandora, about the fatal and irremediable lure: it is enough if you look at yourself in the mirror and do not recognize, innocent, spreading the rain of my misfortune's as you take the lid off the sky blue eye shadow case, vault in which hope remains, well of remotest stars.»)

In short, tragic sentiment, ache and absence (reproduced through the several broken poems), can raise an open work that takes place through the classic tradition in the poetry of Aníbal Núñez.
 

Notes:

¹ Obra poética l, Hiperion: Madrid, 1995.

Source: Muñoz Morcillo, Jesús, <a href="index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=99&Itemid=101&lang=es" title="Fragment">“Tradición clásica en Aníbal Núnez”</a> , in: The survival of the greco-roman antiquity in the european culture of the second half of the twentieth century (Literature, Art, Political Thought), Thessaloniki 2000, S. 334

>> Related Link: Aníbal Núñez' poems translated into german on Convivia Literaria.