“Juan Ramón Jiménez: Piecing Together a Poetic Identity”

Juan Ramón Jiménez’s poetry takes his readers on a journey through the inner landscapes of his consciousness onthe road to his becoming. Turning his poetic focus away from the distractions of external reality, he creates a new self-referential universe that gives form to the nature of his soul.1 He explicitly articulates his desire to give poetic form to his soul in the Eternidades when he comments inpoem 2 of the collection: “mi alma ha de volver a hacer/ el mundo como mi alma (307).”2 Although Jiménez attempts to retreat inward in order to create his own private universe, the external world influences his poetic vision. It is precisely the clash between these two forces, the internal universe and the external world, that shapes his poetry and that simultaneously fragments the poetic self and the poet’scoming to consciousness. In what follows, I intend to explore the inner landscapes of the collection of poems of Estío, the Díario and Eternidades in order to examine the fragmentation of the poetic self that dominates the poetic voice (s) within these collections.3

I. Stripping Away Material Layers: Uncovering the Soul.

In the poems of Estío, the negation of the external world in exchange for the inner landscape of the poet’s soulis symbolically expressed in terms of a stripping away of the material world. For example, in poem 25 the poet exclaims:

¡ Qué alegre, en primvavera,ver caer de la carnedel invierno el vestido…. (285)4

The changes of the season are metaphorically depicted in terms of a disrobing, an uncovering.5 First the dress fallsfrom the body of winter and in the second part of the poem the speaker watches the flesh fall from the spirit of summer. These material transformations of the external

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world mirror the metamorphosis of the poetic self, shedding his bodily flesh in exchange for the landscape of his soul.

He needs to shed the body because it restricts him. For example, the reader is made aware of this need in the poem that follows the one discussed above. The speaker comments: “¡ Saltaré el mar, por el cielo!/ ¡Me iré tan lejos […] que no se acuerde de mi cuerpo” (285). The stripping away of the old material self, the desire to leaveone’s body, resembles the same idea expressed in poem 25 discussed above. Like the seasons that disrobe and shed their material skin, the poet too desires to shed his outer body, let his flesh fall from his spirit in order to relievehis soul from the weight of the corporeal world. However, while he rejects the outer world, he needs to find a form that will give expression to a world that has no physical manifestation. The result is Jiménez’s symbolic universe which internalizes the external world in order to embody theincorporeal.

In Time and Space, Jiménez comments “I see the whole of nature as something that is mine, but nature looks at me as an alien thing […]” (18). In order to alter the feeling of alienation, the poet converts the cold, exterior reality into a highly subjective universe that communicates with hissoul. His poetic inner landscapes, therefore, construct a personal universe that responds and changes to his spiritualstate. These landscapes are charged with emotion representing the various spiritual changes of the poetic voice. For example, in poem 19 the poetic voice comments:

Por doquiera, flechas de oromatan el verano. El airelleva penas diluidas,como venenos la sangre. Todo-las alas, las flores,la luz- se va de viaje.¡Qué de despedidas tristes!El corazón al mar sale. (285)

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The transforming seasons communicate the changing emotional state of the poet. With the summer’s retreat, the light fades, the happiness of the summertime gives way to loss andsadness: “todo- las alas, las flores,/ la luz- se va de viaje.” The elements and the transformations that occur within the landscape represent the physical expression of the soul’s pain: “el aire lleva penas diluidas,/ como venenos la sangre […] el corazón al mar sale.”

By enclosing himself within his private universe, the poet is able to converse with his inner self in search of answers to his ontological questions. And in turn, the natural world articulates and echoes his inner concerns, establishing a dialogue between the poetic self and his private universe. For example, the reader is made aware of this in poem 21 of Estío when the poetic voice exclaims:

Sin ti, no, ¡conmigo! El alma,como el mundo, sola y grande.Dirán los vientos: ¿Sin quién?Y mi corazón: ¡Sin nadie! (283)

The struggle to escape from the pain of the external world causes a fragmentation in the poetic voice noticeable in theabove poem. In the poem that follows, poem 22, the poet speaks to an anonymous subject, tú:

Lejos tú, lejos de ti,yo, más cerca del mí mío;afuera tú, hacia la tierra,yo hacia adentro, al infinito. (284)

The need to establish a clear distinction between the outer world, “hacia la tierra,” and the inner world, “hacia adentro,” causes a split within the poet’s identity. Jiménez communicates the fragmentation of his poetic identity by establishing a dialogue with himself, between túand yo which represent different facets of his identity. The tú that the poet addresses represents his old self, the self that belongs to “la tierra,” the corporeal world. The

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old self will stay on the outside, while a different self turns inward, “hacia adentro, al infinito” in order to be reborn in the new and separate universe of his soul. The split consciousness becomes further marked when the poetic speaker tells the old self:

Los soles que tú veras,serán los soles ya vistos;yo veré los soles nuevosque sólo enciende el espíritu. (284)

As the former self, tú, watches the same sun of the externalworld, the new self, yo, will discover a different sun “yo veré los soles nuevos.” Consequently, the sun of the soul’suniverse remains separate and protected from the external world.

Although the final poems of this collection seem to express elation on the part of the poetic speaker because hehas managed to break away from the outer world, the battle between the outer world and the inner consciousness of the poet continues to plague the poetic identity throughout the Díario and Eternidades. For example, in the Díario the poet is fragmented between the changes of his external world (his eventual departure from his native Moguer and his marriage to Zenobia) and his need to retreat within his inner landscape. Initially, the reader witnesses the poet retreating further and further inward, when the external landscape overwhelms him. As Michael Predmore has shown, the fragmentation of identity that these outer forces cause in the Díario manifests as the battle between the poet’s inner child and his adult self that must deal with the changes in the outside world.6 The retreat within the innerlandscape of his soul will compensate for the poet’s inability to deal with the external forces that threaten hisidentity. In the first poem of the Díario, the poet’s internal landscape becomes a safe haven that will fragment but simultaneously protect him from the external world:

Y se hace la vidapor dentro, con la luz inextinguible

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de un día deleitosoque brilla en otra parte. (103)7

The eventual departure from his native land forces the poet to retreat within himself in an attempt to ignore the changes that are disturbing his inner peace. He finds moments of repose when he shuts out the threatening exteriorworld. For example, in poem XIV, “Tarde en ninguna parte,” the poet abandons the outside world and experiences a momentof tranquility:

…¡ Este instantede paz-sombra despierta-,en que el alma se sume hasta el nadir del cielo de su esfera! (111)8

While lost within his interior territory, the poet can momentarily find self unity, having left the external world below. Free from the chains of the body, which belongs to the material world, the soul soars:

-…Todo lo inunda el alma,y ella se quedaalta, solafuera- (111)

Interestingly, these lines that describe the soul’s flight and freedom from the body structurally are also different and separate from the other stanzas or rather the body of the text. For example, the soul’s flight marks a clear separation because it breaks away from the structure of the other stanzas that all begin with “¡Este instante…!” The textual body, therefore, functions to mirror the soul’s breaking away from the material body that binds it.

In contrast to the vision of flight and escape described above, in the poem “Amanecer,” the awakening of the physical body brings the poet down from his spiritual flight. As a consequence, the intrusion of the outside world causes distress and confusion:

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…¡ Qué malestar, qué sed, que stupor dentro,entre esta confusión del sol y nube,de azul y luna, de la auroraretarda!Escalofrío. Pena aguda… (111)

The demands of the physical body distract the poet. The coming of the new day, the transition between night and day,metaphorically symbolizes the poet’s own transformation and identity struggle that he faces in the Díario. He describes the coming of the new day in terms of his own birth:

Parece que la aurora me da a luz,Que estoy ahora naciendo,Delicado, ignorante, temorosoComo un niño. (112)

The symbolic birth described here distresses the poet and hecommunicates a desire to return to the space before being thrown into the cold external world. For example, he later comments in the same poem “vuelvo a lo otro-, al sueño, al no nacer-¡qué lejos!” Once again, the pain of the outside world pushes the poet further within “al sueño, al no nacer.”

Central to the identity struggle of the poet within theDíario is the poem “¡Dos Hermanas!” It serves to further highlight the external forces that fragment the poetic psyche. Like two trains moving in opposing directions, thepoet’s journey in the poem is twofold: physically he travelsforward toward New York; yet mentally he retreats backward: “…el tren no va hacia el mar, va hacia el verano verde de oro y blanco (114).While the train stops at “Dos Hermanas,” the poetic self attempts to close himself off from the outside world. Consequently, the structure of the poem mirrors the poet’s fragmentation between his external and internal worlds.

For example, the poet’s interior monologue serves to contrast the outside voices that interrupt the inner voice. The voice that announces the station, “¡Do Jermaaaana! ,”

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and the voices of the two children, “una niña pregona: ‘¡violeeetaa!’/ un niño: ‘¡Aguitiita frejca! ,’ ” form part of the outside world. These voices help to establish two separate realities within the poem, hinting at the fragmentation of the poetic identity. While these voices scream out, the poetic voice converses within:

Yo, en un escalofrío sin salida,sonrío en mi tristeza y lloro de alegría.

-Dos cables:”Madre, Novia: Moguer, Long-Island; Flushing; Naufragué, en tierra, en mar de

amor.”

According to Predmore, “aquí el poeta señala claramente su dilemma, su lucha interior entre niño el hombre, entre madrey novia, entre Moguer y Nueva York” (114, footnote 8, 1998).It is interesting to notice how Jiménez mirrors his divided self structurally in the poem. For example, the opening lines of the poem which indicate his physical arrival to “Dos Hermanas” serve to contrast his mental journey in the final lines of the poem. The foreign voice that screams out“¡Do Jermaaaana!” in the beginning of the poem transforms into his inner voice which announces the stations on his mental journey.

II. Affirmation of the Soul and the External World.

While in the first part of the Díario the changing landscape and the external pressures divide the poetic identity, in part 5, the return to Spain provides the poet with a sense of unity and peace. The poet no longer negatesthe landscape of the exterior world and the reader notices areturn to the body, a reawakening and affirmation of the physical world. Although the poet still retreats within hisinterior landscape, now he looks to the external landscape for inspiration. In contrast to the other parts of the Díario, therefore, now the contemplation and internalization

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of the landscape liberates rather than entraps his soul. For example, in the first poem of the section entitled, “Cádiz,” the coming of the dawn metaphorically represents the awakening and the affirmation of the soul:

¡ Hoy sí que amenece!¡Hoy sí que vas saliendosol violeta, que salescon rueda de albos radios infinitos,sobre el mar detenido por España!

¡Hoy sí que te ve el alma amanecer, sol sobre el alma! (262)

The external landscape that the poet contemplates alters hisinner landscapes, which explode with colors and sensations. Upon returning to Spain, his body, which has been numb to the external landscape of his reality, awakens. Unlike the first part of the collection, the reminder of the body does not entrap the soul or cause distress. For example, he comments in poem CXCIX “este fresquito de Cádiz es el fresquito más alegre, más abierto, más alto que ha sentido mi carne nunca en el varano” (262). His encounter with external reality shapes the poet’s consciousness because theinternalization of the exterior landscape enables him to unveil his soul:

que estamos en un airea-rio ideal, dentro del aire, que fuera como el alma

del aire,cuya vestidura, desnuda ella, se le hubiera caído

al suelo. (262)

The vestidura that uncovers the soul serves to echo the disrobing of the seasons that the reader first witnessed in the collection of poems entitled Estío. Here the soul personified as a woman metaphorically disrobes and exposes her true poetic self. His return to Spain elicits the

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rebirth of his soul because symbolically it also represents a return to a time before his fragmentation and split consciousness, provoked by his journey to a foreign landscape.

For example, in the poem “Semper,” which he writes as he travels from Sevilla to Moguer, he writes:

Vuelvo una vez y otra del mundomi pensamiento cada vez más ricode almas de años muertos,de renovado espíritu. (266)

These dead souls, dead years, are revived upon his return, they awaken his spirit.

III. The Poetic Self in Time

The past and the function of time upon the poetic identity is another external force that is central to the poet’s struggle and formation of identity. Time plays a keyrole in the development of the poet’s consciousness as he fragments himself between the past, the present and the future.9 Although time brings about a split consciousness of the poetic identity, it also enables him to step outside of his “self,” by shedding his old self and view from a distance, giving him an objective standpoint from which to observe and explore his identity.

For example, in the poem XXXIX, in the second part of the Díario, the poetic self turns his attention to his past and recognizes his need to flee from the outside world. Hisretrospective glance, therefore, gives him a heightened sense of awareness, allowing him to see his past self through the changed perspective of his present self. Time fragments the poetic conscious but enables him to discover that:

Más fuera estoyde todo, estando más adentrode todo. ¡Yo era solo, yo era solo

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- ¡ oh mar, oh amor!- lo más. (129)

The poet’s coming to consciousness becomes manifest because he is able to observe his past self and realize his need to escape, to turn “más adentro,” which, in turn, allows him todiscover his mistake “yo era solo, yo era solo.” The fragmentation of the poetic identity that characterizes thispoem transforms into a plethora of voices and selves that speak to the reader in Eternidades.

Although the poetic self is severed between time, between the past and the present, in Eternidades, the reader notices a deliberate manipulation of the divided self that enables the poet to come to consciousness. His handling of the fragmented self allows him in poem 44 to transcend time and discover his eternal self, his true self:

Yo no soy yo.Soy este

que va a mi lado sin verlo;que, a veces, voy a ver,y que, a veces, olvido.El que calla, sereno, cuando hablo,el que perdona, dulce, cuando odio,el que pasea por donde no estoy,el que quedará en pie cuando yo muera. (318)10

Here the poet intentionally divides his identity in order toliberate his true “self” from the grips of time by defining his true slef with “el que quedará en pie cuando yo muera.” Therefore, his true identity is an eternal self that remainsprotected from the destruction and fragmentation of time upon the corporeal body. When he sheds his mortal flesh, his true self will remain untouched by the fragmentation of time.

While time serves to divide the poetic identity, it also functions to liberate the poetic self from remaining fixed in it. The past self, for example, does not remain closed off from the present. It continually transforms and

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reasserts itself in the present, shaping the poet’s present state of consciousness and providing insight into his identity. For example, in poem 41 of Eternidades, the poet returns to the picture (el cuadro) that he initially hangs inpoem IV of the Díario. With the changed perspective of his present self, he turns his focus on the painting of the pastin order to reinterpret it:

Te hice pintar, esperanza,con la sangre de mi alma,en una gloria sin mancha.-La vida torció la tabla-.…Quedé solo, las entrañasen las manos, en la bajatierra del cuadro, que sangra… (317)

The doubling of the poetic voice in the poem highlights the fragmentation of the poetic self in time who converses with his former self, “te hice pintar…,” in search of answers to questions asked in the past. Consequently, his inner dialogue with his past self enables him to come to consciousness because his failure is revealed to his presentself: “quedé solo, las entrañas/ en las manos.” Only through the eyes of his present self can he step back and interpret the painting hung in the gallery of his past.

The reader initially sees the “painting” hung in the Díario, in poem IV:

Clavo débil, clavo fuerte…Alma mía, ¡ qué más da!fuera cual fuera la suerte,el cuadro se caerá. (104)

The poem discussed above in the Eternidades returns to this “cuadro” hung in the gallery of the past. Juxtaposing the two representations of this “painting,” illuminates the poet’s growth and coming to consciousness. The interpretation of the painting in the Eternidades confirms theapprehension of the past self who anticipates that “el

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cuadro se caerá.” However, the reader is not given a reasonfor the fall until the Eternidades, and perhaps the poet does not discover this reason until this moment when he can make sense of the past with the knowledge acquired from his altered perspective.

The representation of the self in time that defines Jiménez’s poetry provides insight into how to read Jiménez’spoetic works. For example, his development of the poetic identity in the three works being discussed resists a chronological reading of his poetry. Past themes and problems resurface and reappear in later poetry, thereby forcing readers to return to his earlier works in search of answers to questions posed in the past by a poetic self divided in time. The reader’s search for answers, therefore, reflects Jiménez’s own poetic coming to consciousness, mirroring the poet’s own searching for answers in the past.

IV. The Language of a Poetic Identity.

Although the poet deliberately and consciously divides himself, returning to the past in search of answers that will provide insight into his present self, his reassessmentof the past in Eternidades results in disillusionment. For example, in poem 48 he realizes that “¡todo era falso!” Central to the poet’s struggle is his discovery that he has dressed up his soul and hidden it beneath disguises. He hasattempted to articulate the truth of his soul with a language that conceals rather than reveals it. While the retrospective focus fragments the poetic self, more specifically the fragmentation can be attributed to the language of the past. The poet consciously reevaluates his own language and aesthetics in these poems. He struggles toexpress his truth in Eternidades but realizes that he does notknow the language that will articulate the truth of his soul. The first poem highlights a frustration that will plague the poetic identity throughout the work: 11

No sé con qué decirlo

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porque aún no está hechami palabra. (307)

His disillusionment with the past self stems from using a foreign language to describe the nature of his soul. He wants to invent his own language that will enable his soul to manifest with the articulation of this new language. In “¡Intelijencia, dame!” he articulates the desire to find:

¡el nombre exacto de las cosas!… Que mi palabra sea la cosa mismacreada por mi alma nuevamente. (307)

According to Young, the line “Que mi palabra sea/ la cosa misma’ urges the abolition of the subject-object breech; themeans to bring about this end are predictable: the poet’s soul (his unique talent) will recreate this object” (216). And as a result he will create a language that speaks the discourse of his soul.

The process of developing this new language is expressed in terms of a stripping away of material layers, of disguises that conceal the thing itself. The removal of these exterior layers and the shedding of false skin that conceals the true self is a central motif that metaphorically defines the poet’s coming to consciousness throughout his poetry discussed here. For example, in poem 5 of the Eternidades the poet personifies poetry in terms of awoman who puts on various layers of clothing.12 Representing poetry in these terms enables the poet to uncover his true poetry, separating it from the impostors that disguise themselves in various “ropajes”

Vino primero pura,vestida de inocencia…luego se fue vistiendode no sé qué ropajes;y la fui odiando, sin saberlo

Llegó a ser una reina,

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Fastuosa de tesoros… (308)

These “ropajes” create a barrier between the poet and his true poetry; in order to uncover his true poetry, he must strip away these false layers that conceal it. However, as long as he dresses up his poetry in different “ropajes,” or a false language, he will not recognize it. By creating hispoetry with the language of his soul, he sheds the false layers that hide it and discovers his true voice:1 Many critics have highlighted this self-reflexive element of Jiménez’spoetry. For example, see Richard A. Cardwell identifies Jiménez’s self-critical gaze when he comments: “one of the most striking features of Jiménez’s art is its ‘self-reflexiveness’ (Shattuck’s word) in which thepoet not only explores the inner self but also comes to regard it with ruthless self criticism” (5). John P. Devlin highlights this self critical phase as being especially noticeable within the collection of poems of the Eternidades. According to this critic, the theme of Jiménez’spoetry between 1916 and 1923 will become:

its self-reflexiveness, its obsessive concern with the process of poetic creation, with the state of mind, with inspiration. The communication of objects or people in the real world is relegated to a secondary position. The coming into being of the poem is often the only theme (168).

It is precisely the “coming into being” of the poet that will become thefocus of this examination of Jiménez’s poetry and poetic self. However,my focus will examine not only the inner landscape of the poetic self but how this inner world clashes and is formed by the intrusion of the external forces that mold and shape the poetic vision. 2 All references to the Eternidades are taking from Jorge Urrutia’s SegundaAntología Poética.3 In his Self and Image in Juan Ramón Jiménez, Wilcox argues that there are three particular phases and poetic masks (personalities) that define Jiménez’s Work (Obra) (17). According to this critic, the “middle phase,” which dates from 1912 to 1936, marks what Wilcox defines as the poet’s “modern voice” and it is characterized by a poetic self that is, as Wilcox explains, “fully integrated; he has total faith in his ideals;he believes utterly in his goals and is supremely confident in his deployment of language” (18). Wilcox characterizes Jiménez’s poetic voice fragemented between various phases of darkness (in the early period) and light (middle phase) and eventually returns to a darker phase in the later years. In opposition to Wilcox, I would argue, however, that the middle phase, which is the period of poems covered in this examination, does not reveal a “fully integrated” poetic self. Theantithesis is true. The reader still discovers a poetic self fragmentedbetween various “selfs,” a poetic self still trying to find a voice.

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Y se quitó la tunicay apareció desnuda toda…¡Oh passion de mi vida, poesíadesnuda, mía para siempre! (308)

With this poem Jiménez creates a material barrier that separates his own aesthetics from other poets who dress up their poetry, hiding it beneath layers of tradition. For example, reading this poem in light of his comments in Time There are also moments of sadness and lament that cast a shadow over thepoetic landscapes in the poems of the “middle phase” of Jiménez’s poetry. Michael Predmore’s reading of these collections of poems, however, seems more viable because it points to the fragmentation of thepoetic self by addressing the function of time upon the poetic voice. For example, Predmore argues that:

En Estío y en el Díario, el temor y ansiedad del poeta surgen de la presión del futuro sobre el presente, la presión de un futuro que es a la vez deseado y temido. En Eternidades, la fuente mayor de ansiedad y fufrimiento procede de la presión del pasado sobre el presente: la presencia de las imagines pasadas, la conciencia intensificada de la diferencia entre el antes y el ahora, el borrarse de las imagines pasadas, la existencia simultánea de muchos ‘yos’ en lo interior del poeta que identifican con diferente imagines del pasado y presente, una fragmentación y disolución de su yo que contrasta con la personalidad unificada que se ve al final del Díario (197, 1973).

Only at the end of the Díario does Predmore make claims of a “unified personality” of the poet. However, the rest of these poems are plagued by a fragmented poetic voice that speaks to us through many different selves. 4 All references to the Estío are taking from Jorge Urrutia’s Segunda Antología Poética.5 The stripping away of the material layers, of the excessive flesh of the winter also points to Jiménez’s new poetic focus and his naked poetry, which is a type of stripping away of excessive language, outer layers that cover his true poetic voice. See for example, Graciela Palau de Nemes who argues that Jiménez’s naked poetry refers to a type of“disrobing”(131), a stripping away of external layers but also it “signifies ‘to give up,’ ‘to deprive oneself,’ ‘to renounce’ ”(131). Itmeans to turn away from external reality in order to focus his poetic eye within. As Palau de Nemes argues, “Jiménez’s naked poetry is the result of a life of solitude, of renunciation of all external distractions. It also serves to rid himself of his obsession with flesh”(131).

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and Space, on the poetry of Pound and Eliot, provides another interpretation of the poem. For example, the poetrydisguised beneath various layers of clothing represents the aesthetics that Jiménez rejects practiced by Pound in his “Canto.” Jiménez comments:

It starts well…It is a pity Pound has to reach such descriptive extremes for as soon as he is able to quiet his need for ‘aesthetic’ superimposition, he produces beautiful ‘examples.’The same happens, in another style, with T.S.

6 Predmore argues that “el conflicto íntimo escencial de Díario de un poeta reciencasado: [es] la lucha entre el apego del niño a la tierra y el cielo de su temprana existencia y el impulse hacia el amor, la madurez del adulto y la liberación del pasado” (45, 1998).7 All references to the Díario come from Predmore’s edition.8 Predmore argues that the soul here is “sola, aislada, y sumida en su propia órbita” (40, 1998).9 See Predmore quote in note 3 of this paper.10 All references to Eternidades are taken from Urrutia’s edition. SegundaAntología Poética(1898-1918).11 See, Urrutia’s comments in his introduction to his edition. Also, see Rogelio Reyes Cano’s article “La ‘callada palabra’ de Juan Ramón: análisis e interpretación de un proceso textual.” Reyes Cano defines this poem that open the collection as a “poem-prólogo en el que se sustancia una auténtica poética a la que el autor quiere remitir el libro entero y que se complementa, como es obvio, con el famoso poema “¡Intelegencia, dame el nombre exacto de las cosas!” (472). 12 According to Palau de Nemes this poem represents an example of Jiménez’s poesía desnuda, his new way of writing poetry (50). Palau de Nemes reads the poem two separate levels. On one level, by pointing to the biographical reading embedded within the text she argues that: “La primera estrofa del poema […] representa tanto a la primera poesía como a la primera novia, la casta adolescente Blanca Hernández-Pinzón, blancade nombre, de apariencia y de carácter” (50). This critic also examinesthe poem as a testimony to Juan Ramón’s changing literary trends that dominate his poetic focus throughout the different stages of his life. She argues, for example, that the first few verses refer to the “sencilla poesía primeriza escrita bajo la influencia de Bécquer y parecida, por su melancolía, a de los poetas Gallegos y catalanes , comoRosalía de Castro y Curros Enríquez” (51). See also Herbert Ramsen’s discussion. Unlike Palau de Nemes he does not read the poem, “Vino primero pura,” as a “reliable guide to the chronology of the poet’s writing” (148-9).

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Eliot. What a beautiful poem ‘The Journey of the Magi.’ How many unnecessary classical quotations and how many allusions to countries more or less exotic in the whole of modern English poetry. Howmany echoes of others (33).

The “superimposition” and echoes of foreign voices that suffocate Eliot’s poetic voice are analogous to the “ropajes” in poem 5 of the Eternidades discussed above. However, Jiménez attempts to free his poetic voice from the intrusion of outside voices by creating his own unique and separate voice.

Ultimately, it is his ability to define his soul with his own language, a language that comes from within, that enables him to finally transcend his fragmented self and discover an eternal self that will live on in his distinct language:

¡ Palabra mía eterna!¡Oh, qué vivir supremo-ya en la nada la lengua de mi boca-. (321)

In order to explore the poetic consciousness of Jiménez’s poetry I have pieced attempted here together the fragmented identity that informs it. Coming to consciousness explored within his poetry is depicted as a battle between the external forces that serve to fragment his inner self and the inner landscape of his soul. As the poetic self struggles to find his identity, however, the external forces that influence him threaten the stability ofhis inner landscape. In order to protect himself, therefore, Jiménez creates a barrier between the outside world and his inner landscapes. Although the external worldfragments the poetic identity, it is precisely the clash between the poet’s exterior and inner landscapes that enablethe poet to come to consciousness. Throughout his poetry Jiménez displays an acute awareness of the distinction between the different worlds that define his identity. Moreover, his ability to fragment his identity and transform

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himself into many different “selves” indicates his awarenessof the various identities that he appropriates and sheds. For example, in poem 13 of Eternidades the poet toys with thisidea of the fragmented self:

¡Cuán estrañoslos dos con nuestro instinto!…De pronto, somos cuatro. (310)

In order to transcend the fragmentation and find self unity,he discovers that he must create his own language that defines the nature of his soul, an inner language never articulated before, a language which is completely removed from the outside world.13 In Eternidades the reader discovers a heightened sense of awareness of his own poetics that comments on his earlier works and provides insight into the poetic identity that defines these works.

The representation of the poetic self within these works explores the transitory nature of identity that continually transforms and fragments between the external forces the shape it and the internal forces that define it. In order to better understand the poetic identity that informs Jiménez’s poetry, a dialogue must be established between the various forces that mold the poetic identity as a whole. The exploration of self within these works resistsa reading that treats each work as separate and distinct

13 According to Devlin, there is a danger associated with Jiménez’s retreat within because in his quest to find the inner language of his soul, the poet might retreat inward to such an extent that he no longer is able to communicate with the outside world, thereby cutting his soul and his language off entirely in his attempt to create his new poetic language. Devlin argues:

The poetic word as it aspires to go beyond the world of common experience and create new possibilities is made to reflect upon itself, upon its ability to communicate intuitions which can only be felt. It is for this reason […] that pure word will be drawn to the peril of absolute silence coming to rest in the mute stare of Narcissus (172).

While this may be true, the same silence that the poetry produces also is a means of expression, a means of going beyond language itself.

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from each other. Rather the opposite; each work is a fragment, a piece of a whole poetic identity.

Works CitedCardwell, Richard A. “Juan Ramón Jiménez: An Introduction” Renaissance and Modern

Studies 25(1981): 1-23. Devlin, John P. “Jiménez as Creator and Slef-Critic” Renaissance and Modern Studies

25 (1981): 166-185.Jiménez, Juan Ramón. Díario de un poeta reciencasado. Ed. Michael P. Predmore.

Madrid: Cátedra, 1998.__________________. Time and Space. New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1988.__________________. Estío in Juan Ramón Jiménez: Segunda AntologíaPoética. Ed.

Jorge Urrutia. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1975.__________________. Esternidades in Juan Ramón Jiménez: Segunda Antología

Poética. Ed. Jorge Urrutia. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1975.Palau de Nemes, Graciela. “Poesía desnuda : ruptura y tradición” Congreso

Internacional Conmemorativo del Centenario de Juan Ramón Jiménez I. Huelva: Instituto de Estudios Onubenses, 1983.

Predmore, Michael P. La poesía hermética de Juan Ramón Jiménez.Madrid: Gredos,

1973.Ramsen , Herbert. “Depuración and poesía pura in the Work of Juan Ramón Jiménez”

Renaissance and Modern Studies 25(1981): 121-154.Reyes Cano, Regelio. “La ‘callada palabra’ de Juan Ramón: análisis e interpretación de

un proceso textual” Congreso Internacional Conmemorativo delCentenario de

Juan Ramón Jiménez II. Huelva: Instituto de Estudios Onubenses, 1983.

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Sánchez Romeralo, Antonio. “En torno a la Obra última de Juan Ramón Jiménez”

Congreso Internacional Conmemorativo del Centenario de Juan Ramón Jiménez I. Huelva: Instituto de Estudios Onubenses, 1983.

Young, Howard T. “The Exact Names” MLN 96:2(1981): 212-223.

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