Vicente Aleixandre Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Paul Ilie

Critical Essay by Paul Ilie

SOURCE: A review of Poesía superrealista, in Books Abroad, Vol. 46, No. 3, Summer, 1972, pp. 455-56.

An American educator and critic specializing in Spanish literature, Ilie is the author of The Surrealist Mode in Spanish Poetry (1968) and Documents of the Spanish Vanguard (1969) and has published book-length studies of Camilo Jose Cela and Miguel de Unamuno. In the following excerpt, Ilie comments on the surrealist qualities of Aleixandre's poetry.

After more than a generation of denials that a surrealist mode of poetry and fiction existed in Spain, an important breakthrough seems to be taking place. Vicente Aleixandre himself, who once wrote that he was never a surrealist, has published an anthology [Poesía superrealista] designed to demonstrate the secuenica irracionalista of his poetic career. The reason for his change of heart is a radically revised definition of surrealism which Aleixandre formerly conceived of as automatic writing "and the consequent...
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