Liverpool Monographs in Hispanic Studies 1

The Poet in Peru. Alienation and the quest for a Super-Reality

James Higgins

 LMHS 1. ISBN 978-0-905205-10-6. Cloth. x+166pp. 1982.

James Higgins here studies, with many illustratave quotations in the original Spanish, the work of six very diverse twentieth-century Peruvian poets. Of these poets, José María Eguren, César Vallejo,  Carlos Germán Belli, Antonio Cisneros, César Moro (Alfredo Quispez Asín), and Martín Adán (Rafael de la Fuente Benavides), only Vallejo has won true international fame, but the others, relatively little known outside Peru, also deserve wider recognition. They have been selected for detailed discussion in this volume both because of the quality and significance of their work, and because it illustrates the manifestation in Peru of two tendencies of contemporary Western poetry: the experience of alienation; and the perception of a higher reality in a visionary, surreal world.

Contents

Part One: Poetry of Alienation:

1. José María Eguren

2. César Vallejo

3. Carlos Germán Belli

4. Antonio Cisneros

Part Two: Visionary Poetry

1. José María Eguren

2. César Vallejo

3. César Moro

4. Martín Adán

Reviews

Hispanic Review 1984 254-6 (Frank Dauster): Higgins has set himself a difficult task in this intriguing volume, and to say that it perhaps raises more questions than it answers is in no way anything but an appreciation of the way in which he has carried out a complex and difficult undertaking.

Romanistisches Jahrbuch 35 (1984) 332-4 (Thomas Scheerer)

Center for InterAmerican Relations 66 /Review 32

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 60 (1983) 163-4 (W.W. Rowe): ... the interpretations of all the poets are provocative and will provide a basis for further discussion of this important area of Spanish-American literature.

Revista de Critica Literaria Latinoamericana 17 (1983) 236-40 (David Sobrevilla)