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Vallejo's "Other": Versions of Otherness in the Work of César Vallejo

Author(s): Stephen M. Hart


Source: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 93, No. 3 (Jul., 1998), pp. 710-723
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3736492
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VALLFJO'S 'OTHER': VERSIONS OF OTHERNESS IN
THE WORK OF CESAR VATLLJO

Vallejo, 'el gran poeta maldito de America'

Cesar Vallejo (1892-1938) is, without doubt, one of the most enigmatic figures of
contemporary Spanish American literature; thus there are a number of unsolved
mysteries with regard to his work and also his life. In this essay I propose to review
some of these enigmas and, without attempting to bring closure on them, analyse
the ways in which they permeate the way Vallejo's work has been understood. The
theme I have chosen to study is Otherness, since, as I shall be arguing, it is the
central leitmotif of the Peruvian poet's work. Other themes, such as pain, religiosity,
the absurd, and politics, have been proposed as central,2 but I propose that these be
seen as subplots in the narrative of a life and work shot through with Otherness.
There have in the past been some studies of the double (Xavier Abril), alterity
(Antonio Melis), and 'otredad' (Guzman; and see below), but to date there has been
no substantive treatment of this issue as a methodological tool to assess Vallejo's
work as an evolution.3 This essay has four parts, (i) the Otherness of Vallejo the
man, (ii) Vallejo as the critic's Other, (iii) The Self as Other in his poetry, and (iv)
Vallejo as cultural Other.
When writing of the Otherness of Vallejo the man, I am alluding to the sense of
mystery that has surrounded certain crucial details of his life as they have gradually
emerged over the last fifty years or so. Some indication of what lay ahead emerged
when it became clear in the early 1940s, soon after his death, that nobody really
knew when he was born. Various documents, including passports, were bandied
about, notably by Juan Larrea, probably Vallejo's best male friend, and Georgette
de Vallejo, his widow, who were at odds right from the beginning, and claims were
followed by counter-claims. In 1954 Antenor Samaniego published a copy of
Vallejo's baptism certificate, retrieved from the local church in Santiago de Chuco,
dated 19 May I892, and deduced (since the document referred to the birth of the
child two months earlier) that Vallejo had been born on 19 March i892, although
this date was corrected to I6 March I892 by Andre Coyne in a study published
three years later in which he argued that Samaniego had taken the expression 'dos
meses antes' too literally.4 Thus, Vallejo was born on I6 March 1892, not in 1893 as

1 Roberto Garcia
Pinto, 'Actualidadde CesarVallejo',Sur,256 (1960),47-49 (p. 48).
2 Fora discussionof
pain, see Jose GarciaNieto, 'CesarVallejoo el dolor sobreel tiempo', CHA,229 ( 969),
I9-34, and ArmandoBazan, CisarVallejo: dolorypoesia(Lima:Edicionesde la BibliotecaUniversitaria,n.d.);
for religiosity,see EnriqueChirinosSoto, CisarVallejo: (Lima:Mejia Baca, 1969)and
poetacristianoymetafisico
Alejandro Lora Risco, 'Entrafia religiosa de la poesia de Vallejo', MundoNuevo, 26-27 (i968), 93- 05. For a
discussionof the absurd,see James Higgins, 'Experienciadirectadel absurdoen la poesia de Vallejo',Sur,3 12
(1968), 27-36; for a discussion of politics, see Robert Britton, 'The Political Dimension of Cesar Vallejo's
Poemashumanos',MLR, 70 (I 975), 539-49, and George Lambie, Elpensamientopolitico de Cisar Vallejoy la guerra
civil espafola (Lima: Milla Batres, 1993).
3 Xavier Abril, 'La idea del "doble" en Vallejo', in CisarVallejoo la teoria
poitica(Madrid:Taurus, i962),
pp. 85-92; Antonio Mellis, 'Hacia la alteridad de Cfsar Vallejo', Insula, 43.50 ( 988), I 7- 8; Jorge Guzman,
'Laotredad',in Contra
elsecreto lectura
profesional: mestizadeCisarValleo(Santiagode Chile:EditorialUniversitaria,
1991), pp- 30-32.
4 Vallejo's
passportlisted him as being born on 6 June 1893: see iAlli ellos,alli ellos,alli ellos!Vallejo
(Lima:
Zalvac, 1978), pp. 153-54; Antenor Samaniego, Cisar Vallejo:su poesia (Lima: Mejia Baca & Villanueva, 1954),
pp. I4-15, I33-37; Andr6 Coyn6, Cisar Valleoy su obrapoitica(Lima: Letras Peruanas, 1957).
STEPHEN M. HART 7II

his wife had thought. (The fact that his wife did not know his birth date gives some
immediate indication of the mystery surroundinghis life; Georgette de Vallejo even
went as far as to have his tomb stone made with the wrong date on it.)5 It has since
emerged that some of the blame for this ought to be attributed to Vallejo himself,
since according to one account, he asked, when a small boy, to have his birthday
celebrated on a different day from the official day, and his family accepted this
rather bizarre arrangement.6
If the confusion surroundingVallejo'sbirthdatewere not enough, it later emerged
that the exact cause of his death (he died prematurely on 15 April 1938 at the age of
forty-six)was not known. It is fair to say that, even today, it is still not known exactly
why he died. The reasons suggested, some based on medical evidence from the
Maison de Sante Villa Arago clinic where he died, have ranged from the sensible
(he died of physical and/or mental exhaustion), to the plausible (Xavier Abril's
suggestion that he died of syphilis, or Georgette de Vallejo's thesis that the cause
was a disease he contracted while working in insalubrious conditions in Peru in the
early I920s:), to the frankly bizarre (he died on Good Friday and was therefore a
resurrectedChristlikefigure, or he died 'of Spain', a remarkabledisease if ever there
was one).7 Discussions on Vallejo's death range from the sublime (what was his
contribution to humanity and the Latin-American peoples?) to the ridiculous (was
it raining when he died?; what were his last words? 'Me voy a Espafa' or 'Palais
Royal'?). For the critic of the late twentieth century, questions of this kind will seem
bizarre and rather frustrating,since a review of the evidence is often not conclusive.
There are a number of versions of the truth from differentindividuals.8There is yet
another hypothesis: the putative reason why someone would prevaricate. Vallejo's
widow would logically have fought tooth and nail to quash any rumour that he
suffered from syphilis, since this would have had implications for her own sexual
health. And, given the rumours and invective that had surrounded Vallejo's life
since the early I940s, Georgette de Vallejo would have seen the admission as very
dangerous. There are some grounds to believe the claim that he died of syphilis to
be substantive. He visited brothels during his days as a young man in Peru, and he

5 See Georgettede Vallejo,iAlldellos!,p. 167,for a photographof the grave.Vallejowas originallyburiedin


the CimetiereMontrougein Parisin 1938, and, despite a strugglewith the Peruviangovernment,his remains
were keptin Paris;theywere moved to the CimetiereMontparnassein I970: see ReynaldoNaranjo,'De C6sar
Vallejoa Cesar Vallejo',NuevaEstafeta,13 (I979), 43-47 (p. 47). The tombstonehas the wrong date on it to
this day. When I visitedthe gravein 1983, it was clearthat it stillenjoysa steadyflow of visitors.
6 Oswald D. Vasquez Vallejo, Vasquez Vallejo, CesarAbrahamVallejo:ascendencia y nacimiento (Trujillo:
UniversidadNacional de Trujillo,1992), p. 52. Oswaldis Cisar Vallejo'snephew.
7 Larreabelieved that Vallejo died of tuberculosis:see his two essays 'De Re Pathologica',Aula Vallejo II,
374-403, and 'De re paludica',AulaVallejo v, 395-42 ; Abrilproposedsyphilisas a cause ('La enfermedadde
Vallejo',in CesarVallejo
o la teoriapoitica,
pp. 143-5 ). Georgettede Vallejobelievesthat it was a tropicaldisease,
and criticizes the doctor for not testing for evidence of tropical disease (jAlli ellos!,pp. 123, 128). See also
Georgette de Vallejo, 'Secuales del paludismo', Caretas,471 (11-25 January 1973), and the anonymous
newspaperarticle, 'Vallejo:ede qu6 muri6?',El Comercio (I9 February1972). Jaime Peraltahas stated that
Vallejodied of Spain:'De C6sarVallejopodra decirse,sin ningunaexageraci6nverbal,que muri6 crucificado
en la cruz de Espafia,que muri6 de y por el dolor de Espafia'('Espaia en tres poetas hispanoamericanos:
Neruda, Guilleny Vallejo',Atenea,45. 170 ( 968), 37-49 (p. 45)).
Juan Larrea'sversion is: '"jMe voy a Espafia!"repetia horas antes de su muerte' ('Profeciade America'
(May 1938), in Al amorde Valljo(Valencia:Pre-Textos, I980), pp. 19-28 (p. 27)). Georgette de Vallejo has
categoricallystated that Vallejo said 'Palais Royal' just before dying (iAlldellos!,p. 133). D. P. Gallagher
comments on the two versions:'To judge from his poetry, the latter version is the more likely, and [Vallejo]
would no doubt have been grateful- and perhapsamused- that his widow would have correcteda legend
whose banalityhe would surelynever have allowed himself' (ModemLatinAmerican Literature
(Oxford:Oxford
UniversityPress, 973), p. 38).
7I 2 Versions in CesarValljo
of Otherness
continued to do so after he arrived in Paris. There is an account of Vallejo reading
his poems to a Parisian prostitute and being told 'il faut que tu evolues, espece de
fetus', not a very endearing assessment of his work, to be sure.9In addition, there is
the plausible reading provided by Xavier Abril of some of Vallejo's posthumous
poems in the light of his syphilis theory and the fact that Georgette had some
abortions (children of syphilitic parents were typically born blind in the era before
the Second World War, and this would have persuaded any parents to contemplate
abortion). This claim is hotly contested.10 However, even despite these premises,
the evidence is not incontrovertible; it is what the logician would call a cogent
(ratherthan valid) inductive argument.
There are other mysteries surroundingVallejo's biography, mainly to do with his
character. These are often highly contradictory. According to most biographers, he
would seem to have been a lugubrious, solemn, gloomy individual;certainly Larrea
and others remember him like this, and even a quick reading of Vallejo's poetry
would seem to confirm this impression.1' His emphasis upon pain, suffering,
anguish, and the absurd, might indicate this type of character. However, some
recent evidence suggests that he was a happy-go-lucky individual. For instance, in a
recent book Juan Domingo C6rdoba Vargas, who knew Vallejo extremely well in
Paris, remembers him as having a love of life: 'Vallejo, hombre que gozaba
plenamente de la vida', an assessment markedly at odds with previous character
studies.12There is also some indication that on occasions Vallejo was not adverse to
pulling the wool over other people's eyes. There is recent evidence, for example,
that he deliberately hoodwinked the gullible clients who came to his house in Paris
to participate in his seances in which, for a fee, he would contact their dead
relatives.'3 Does this have any implications for how we view Vallejo's work? I think
it does. Since letter-writing is by definition the biographer's tool par excellence
for
'discovering' the soul of the biographee, it was only natural that a number of early
biographers concentrated on this aspect of his writing. This was unfortunate for
Vallejo, since as a letter-writer,he came to be known in the I97os as an impecunious
scrounger who had nothing better to do than to write to Pablo Abril de Xavier
asking him for money when he was broke.14 But if these letters are looked at from a
different point of view (Pablo Abril de Vivero is a rich diplomat with time and
money on his hands, and clearly in awe of Vallejo's literary gifts) then there is a
possibility that Vallejo used these circumstances to his advantage. Certainly the
letters to Abril de Vivero are a curious mix of importunate requests for money and

9 Quoted in
EdgarMontiel, 'Confidenciasde Luis Cardozay Arag6n.Vallejo,soledadllena de mundo', CA,
34:4 (1992), 27-34, (p. 32). For an example of one of his amorousexploits as a young man, see Juan Espejo
Asturrizaga,CesarVallejo: delhombre
itinerario (Lima:Mejia Baca, I965), p. 85; Georgettede Vallejo,however,
has contestedthis image of Vallejo,statingthat he 'era de un ascetismoque envidiariaun monje' (/Alldellos!,
p. 27).
10Georgettede Vallejo quotes Larrea'swordswhen he statesthat Georgettehad eight or nine abortionsor
miscarriages,and then rejectsthis (iAlldellos.,pp. 57-60). She says that Vallejodid not want to have children
becausethey would have been a hindranceto his politicalactivity(p. 58).
1 Larreaoften
presentsVallejo in mythicalterms as a prototypeof the tragic soul of the Americas;others,
such as Armando Bazan, have seen him as a prototypicallysad person (CisarValljo:dolorypoesia,passim).
Neruda, for his part, said of Vallejo: 'Tenia un hermoso rostro incaico entristecidopor cierta indudable
majestad'(Confiesoquehevivido:Memorias (BuenosAires:Losada, 1974), p. 93).
12 CisarValleodelPeri
13 Profundoy (Lima:Campod6nico, 995), p. 37.
Sacrificado
EdgarMontiel,'Novedadesvallejianas',CHA,496(I991), 143-47 (p.145).
14An uncriticaland
unanalyticalstudy of Vallejo'sletters to Vivero appearsin Carlos Garcia Barr6n, 'La
angustiavital de CesarVallejoa travesde su epistolario',BH, 88:3-4 (1986),457-63.
STEPHEN M. HART 7I3

pompous sermonizing about the direction that Bolivar,the review they coedited in
the early I930s, should take in the future. I am not proposing that Vallejo was
deliberately deceiving Abril de Xavier, but simply suggesting that he could have
been using the special circumstances of the relationship to his advantage. What
would tend to support this hypothesis is that Vallejo was simultaneously writing
letters to others in which the issue of his impecuniosity did not appear. In fact, a
letter he wrote to Gerardo Diego around this time is that of a hard-nosed
businessman trying to extract everything he can out of a contract.15Vallejo the
chameleon? Vallejo the manipulator? Perhaps. This type of double-guessing can
also be applied to other letters written by him. Juan Larrea, for example, took great
pride in showing to all and sundry the letter he received from Vallejo in which the
latter implied that he had a political commitment but also had his own personal life
('he cambiado seguramente, pero soy quizas el mismo. Comparto mi vida entre la
inquietud politica y social, y mi inquietud introspectiva y personal y mia para
adentro'), and yet Georgette has stated that she received a letter from Vallejo
written from Spain on the very same day (29 January 1932) in which he said: 'Estoy
corrigiendo El arteyla revolucion. Me parece un libro muy, muy bien.' Georgette has
not produced this letter, but it seems convincing evidence to suggest that Vallejo
offered a different image of himself to different people.16 The intimation to Larrea
that his interest in politics has not destroyed what he once was would have pleased
Larrea, and Vallejo must have known this. Indeed, there are indications (again,
from Georgette) that Vallejo believed that Larrea thought very highly of himself,
and that in private Vallejo poured scorn on his literary ambitions. Georgette quotes
a letter written by Vallejo to her in I932, knowing that she was seeing only Juan
Larrea and his wife at that time, in which he warns her: 'No seas tan franco con
ningun amigo, con ninguno.'17When comparing and contrasting evidence of this
kind, one arrives inescapably at two possible conclusions: either Vallejo was a
schizophrenic who was unaware that he was presenting different versions of his
character to different people or he consciously presented different faCadesof his
character to suit his own purposes. I believe the second is far more likely, since
Vallejo was a highly intelligent individual. While they may be unlucky, writers are
always smart.
Given the above, it is perhaps not surprisingthat the image of Vallejo captured in
the work of various critics should have been so varied; its diversity in fact mirrored
that of the biographers. The mould of bitter in-fighting was set by the vitriolic
relationship between Juan Larrea and Georgette de Vallejo in the I940S and
continued until their respective deaths. If one were to see this as a contest, it is clear
that Larrea was winning the truth stakes early on; his setting up of the Aula Vallejoin
the Universidad de Cordoba, Argentina, which managed to publish thirteen large
volumes of exegesis on Vallejo during the I96os and I970S made him a clear

15 See
general,ed.byJose Manuel Castafi6n(Valencia:Pre-Textos,I982); letter to GerardoDiego,
Epistolario
6 January 1930, pp. 2 3-14.
16 This
quotationfromVallejo'sletterto Juan Larreacan be foundin Epistolario p. 244. ForGeorgette's
general,
rejection,see iAlldellos.,p. 5 .
17iAlld ellos.,p. 6i. This suggests that Vallejo was wary of Larrea. It is of course entirely possible that
Georgette de Vallejo is using this informationin order to attackLarrea,but, on balance, Georgette'sclaim
does not seem unjustified.
714 Versions in CesarValljo
of Otherness
winner.18Many of Larrea's 'disciples' (to use a singularly appropriate term in view
of Larrea'smessianic zeal) began publishing articles on Vallejo in which the latter's
relationship with Georgette was portrayed negatively.19However, in the late I960s,
Georgette dealt her winning cards; she published a facsimile version of Vallejo's
posthumous poetry (in 1968), and, in the early I970s, Vallejo's hitherto unpublished
political writings: Contrael secretoprofesionaland El artey la revolucion; she also
authorized the publication of Vallejo's theatre.20Larrea's publication in 1978 of
Vallejo's Obrascompletas with Seix Barral was a transparent attempt to reverse the
turning tide, but that edition has not stood the test of time.21The image captured
by vallejistashas followed the ebb and flow of these academic debates. As Americo
Ferraripointed out: 'El texto no es un ente inm6vil con un sentido fijo y dado de
una vez por todas, sino que evoluciona y se modifica con el tiempo con la diversidad
de las miradas que se fijan en el.'22Thus, while for the first twenty years after his
death, Vallejo was seen in Jungian terms as the expression of the collective
consciousness of Latin America, in the I96os, as a result of the influence of New
Criticism, he became seen as the master of linguistic paradox,23in the I970s, as a
result of the publication of a number of his political essays (which until then had
been unavailable), as the revolutionary thinker extraordinaire.24Structuralistand
Marxist readings of Vallejo's poetry ensued;25which were followed in the I98os by
a number of deconstructionist readings.26Ferrarimay be right to see the different
images of Vallejo thereby projected as part of an historical evolution, but this does
not help to elucidate some of the apparently irreconcilableversions of Vallejo. How,

18 AulaVallejo (C6rdoba:UniversidadNacional,Facultadde Filosofiay Humanidades),I (1961), i44 pp.; II-Iv


(1961-62), 381 pp.; v-vI (1967),503 pp.; VIII-x(i97i), 524 pp.; xi -xm (1974),432 pp.
19Felix Gabriel Flores argues that Vallejo 'resumi6 en su vida todo el ser, denso y metafisico, el ser
indoamericanoy universala la vez' ('CesarVallejo:pasi6n de America', CHA,262 (1972), 77-104 (p. 77)),
althoughthis is unverifiable.Galo Ren6 Perez alludes,like Flores,to Larrea'sview of Vallejo as symbolizing
the soul of the Americas('CesarVallejo,expresi6nmaxima de la poesia de America', CulturaUniversitaria, 31
(1952), 39-54). He also says of Vallejo'smeeting with Georgette:'Un dia encuentraa Georgette,una oscura
muchachafrancesa,con quien se une sin presentirque ella se convertiraen uno de sus tormentosmas sutilesy
mortificantes'(p. 50).
20 CisarVallejo: Obrapoiticacompleta: Edicionconfacsimiles(Lima:Moncloa, 1968); Valleo:obrascompletas; Tomo
primero:Contra el secreto Tomosegundo:
profesional; El arteyla revolucion
(Lima:Mosca Azul, 1973);Teatrocompleto de
CesarVallejo (Lima:PontificiaUniversidadCat6licadel Peru, 1979), 2 vols (all ed. by Georgettede Vallejo).
21 CisarVallejo: edicioncritica,ed. by Juan Larrea (Barcelona:Barral, I978). The contentious
poesiacompleta:
point of this editionis Larrea'sdivisionof Vallejo'sposthumouspoetryinto a collectioncalledNdminadehuesos,
and another called Sermdn de la barbarie.This innovationhas not caught on, and the traditionalterm, Poemas
humanos, continuesto be widelyused.
22
'Vallejoy Vallejos:la recepci6n',LT, 3 (1989),70 I- 5 (p. 70 ).
23 In an
importantessaypublishedin 1968,James Higginsargued:'Parallegara comprendera un autor,hay
que acercarsea el desde dentroy no desde fuera, a travesde un analisisdetenidoy sistematicode los textos,y
no a travesde anecdotasbiograficas,influenciaso ideaspreconcebidas'('Vallejoen cada poema',MundoNuevo,
22 (1968), 21-26 (p. 2I)). Other importantNew Criticismstudieswere Giovanni Meo Zilio, Stilee poesiein
CisarVallejo (Padua:Liviana, 1960)and EduardoNeale-Silva,CesarVallejo ensufasetrilcica(Madison:University
of WisconsinPress, 975).
24 Examplesof worksthat concentratedon Vallejo'spoliticalthoughtincludemy own Religi6n, politicayciencia
enla obradeCisarValljo(London:Tamesis, 1987)and George Lambie, Elpensamiento politicodeCisarVallejoyla
guerracivilespaiola(Lima:Milla Batres, 1993).
25 Some of the best examples were Jean Franco, CisarVallejo:TheDialectics of PoetryandSilence(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1976), Guillermo Alberto Ar6valo, Cisar Vallejo.Poesiaen la historia(Bogota:
Valencia, 1977),and Victor Fuentes,El cdntico materialy deCisarVallejo
espiritual (Barcelona:Pozanco, I98 I).
26 Examples range from Bernard McGuirk, 'Undoing the Romantic Discourse: A
Case-Study in Post-
StructuralistAnalysis:Vallejo's TrilceI', Romance Studies,5 (I984-85), 9I-I0o, to Christianevon Buelow,
'Vallejo'sVenus de Milo and the Ruins of Language',PMLA,I04 (1989), 41-52, and Paul Julian Smith's
chapter,'Manin Poemas humanos', in TheBodyHispanic:Gender andSexualityin Spanish
andSpanish AmericanLiterature
(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1989),pp. 156-72.
STEPHEN M. HART 7I5

for example, are we to reconcile one critic's view of Vallejo as 'cifra anarquica,
amorosa, de la nueva humanidad hispanoamerica'with another of him as neglecting
(with theorists such as Lukacs and Althusser) 'woman's position in economic
relations'?27The images of Vallejo thereby projected are so different as to be almost
irreconcilable.
One of the keys as to why there have been so many versions of Vallejo, both in
terms of his life as well as in terms of the 'meaning' of his work, is surely in the work
itself. Just as his work as refracted through the image generated by other critics'
work varies, so the projection of human identity presented in his poetry is that of a
self that is not identical to itself, one in which the self is Other (to cite Rimbaud's
now famous phrase 'Je est un autre'). It is generally accepted, for example, by most
vallejistasthat one of the intrinsic qualities of Vallejo's poetry is its projection of the
self as divided. In what follows, I examine this notion carefully and suggest some
ways in which it can be analysed.
Vallejo'sprojection of a self divided against itself can take a variety of forms, some
more conventional than others. In an early poem from Trilce,for example, he
describes his new life in Lima (he had recently arrived from Trujillo, a sleepy
provincial town in the north), and he employs a form of expression (short truncated
sentences) in order to express his sense of alienation; as if he were surprisedthat this
is now his life:
Eseno puedeser,sido.
Absurdo.
Demencia.
Perohe venidode Trujilloa Lima.
Peroganoun sueldode cincosoles.
(OPC,p. 128)28
The apparently straightforwardnature of the statements belies the poet's sense of
unfamiliaritywith the components of his everyday life. Vallejo is at his best, indeed,
when he uses this technique of defamiliarization when referring to his own body
(there are few poets who lingered so long on the contemplation of and reflection
upon their own bodies).29In one of the best poems of Los heraldosnegros,'El pan
nuestro', he views himself as the 'bad thief' during the Crucifixion, who has robbed
his own bones: 'Todos mis huesos son ajenos; | yo tal vez los robe!' (OPC,p. 97).
Indeed, even when he uses traditional concepts such as the Christian notion of the
soul he defamiliarizes them. 'La violencia de las horas', for instance, concludes,
after its roll-call of death, with a line ('Muri6 mi alma y estoy velandola' (OPC,
p. 181)), which introduces difference into a relationship normally conceived of in
terms of identity. After all, in traditional Christian terms, the soul is the deepest

27Juan Larrea,Al amorde CisarVallejo(Valencia:Pre-textos, 1980), p. 93, and Paul Julian Smith, 'Man in
PoemasHumanos' p. 161.
28 OPCstandsfor CesarVallejo: Obrapoetica ed. by AmericoFerrari(Madrid:Alianza, 1983).
completa,
29
Vallejo'sobsessivefiguringof his own body can legitimatelybe seen as part of the interfacebetween First
Worldand Third Worldcultures,as a symptomof an epidermicentrapmentexperiencedby the individualof
colourwhen subjectto the white gaze. FrantzFanonhas drawnattentionto this phenomenonwith wordsthat
may be applicableto Vallejo:'Le Noir n'a pas de resistanceontologique aux yeux du Blanc. [...] Dans le
monde blanc, l'homme de couleur rencontre des difficultesdans l'elaborationde son schema corporel. La
connaissancedu corps est une activit6uniquementn6gatrice.C'est une connaissanceen troisiemepersonne'
(Peau noire:masquesblancs(Paris: Seuil, I952), p. 89).
7i6 Versions in CesarVallejo
of Otherness
level of the self and, therefore, its death would normally signify the death of the self;
Vallejo here reverses the traditional paradigm. Many of his poems, especially of the
later period, give the impression of a poetic voice that is almost surprised to be
housed within a human body. In the chatty poem, 'Ello es el lugar donde me
pongo .. .', for example, the poet speaks at one point of how 'Ahoramismo hablaba
I de mi conmigo' (OPC,p. 275), in which there are identified two (possibly three)
identities answering to the name of 'me': the subject who says 'I was talking', the
subject to whom he is talking ('conmigo') and the subject of their conversation ('de
mi'). At times his sense of Otherness, especially of the human body, leads to images
of surrealistic power. Such is the case with the opening line of 'He aqui que hoy
saludo .. .', which runs: 'He aqui que hoy saludo, me pongo el cuello y vivo' (OPC,
p. 197). Vallejo is fusing everyday habits such as putting on one's clothes with the
act of waking up. The end result is one of defamiliarization that brings both
processes into sharpfocus. In 'Paris,Octubre 936', a poem almost certainly written
in October 1936 (that is, eighteen months or so before his death), he visualizes his
own death as a bodily absence expressed by means of a set of empty clothes:
Y me alejode todo,porquetodo
se quedaparahacerla coartada:
mi zapato,su ojal,tambiensu lodo
y hastael doblezdel codo
de mi propiacamisaabotonada.
(OPC,p. 247)

As one finds so often in Vallejo's poetry, the details are deliberately chosen: the shoe
because of its effectiveness as a visual symbol of emptiness, the 'ojal' because of its
resonance with a sight that is now lost (via the middle term 'ojo', a resonance which
is, of course, not to be found in the equivalent word in English, 'buttonhole'), the
'lodo' that is an image of the dust to which the body has now returned, and 'doblez',
which functions as a literal reference to the crease of the clothes but also, given its
proximity to 'coartada', to the duplicity of their appearance. In A lo mejor soy
otro .. .' (OPC,p. 262), not as successful perhaps as 'Paris Octubre I936', given its
abtruse imagery, a similar dialogue is enacted, in which the poetic subject weighs
up the feasibility of life after death, remaining dogmatically opposed to any solution
on the matter. While the first stanza ends with an agnostic sentiment ('a lo mejor,
me digo, mas alla no hay nada' (OPC,p. 262)), the poem concludes, nevertheless,
with an allusion to 'estas sospechas p6stumas' (OPC,p. 263), in which the possibility
of life after death is affirmed, since it is at least in doubt. A similar type of self-
contemplation occurs in 'El alma que sufri6 de ser su cuerpo' (OPC,pp. 268-69), in
which there is what might be called an 'epidermalization'of the soul. The poem is a
highly stylized dialogue in which the poet is speaking to himself and the reader is
the eavesdropper. Likewise, 'El momento mas grave de la vida' has a similarly
theatricalized dialogue of selves; as readers we listen to seven men each describing
the worst moment of his life, and it is quite clear that these seven men are projections
of the poet's persona understood in a poetic sense. The first and the second
projections, given their particular reference to the Battle of Marne in the First
World War and the flood of Yokohama, make them less immediately relevant to
Vallejo's poetic persona, but the others (number 5 in particular refers to being
imprisoned in Peru) make it clear that the poet is projecting himself into different
STEPHEN M. HART 717

life-situations.30The ultimate experience of Otherness, as the poem suggests with


the last man's reference ('El momento mas grave de mi vida no ha llegado todavia'
(OPC, p. I84)), is Death.
Up to this point, it would be only fair to say that Vallejo's use of the toposof
Otherness, while not exactly conventional, is not new. Most poets use dialogue in
this way, some more powerfully than others. But where Vallejo's poetry takes on a
clearly visible originality is in its use of the authorial name. Occasionally, this will
take the form of a statement in which he is aware of himself as the owner of a new
voice in contemporary Spanish-Americanpoetry. He portrays his own poetic idiom
as a deviation from the comfortable melancholy of the French Symbolist poets:
'Samain diria el aire es quieto y de una contenida tristeza. I Vallejo dice hoy la
muerte esta soldando cada lindero ...' (OPC,p. I58). But the use of his own name
(language as a reified identity having a separate reality apart from the phenomenal
world) takes on greater urgency in his posthumous poetry. In the extraordinarily
powerful poem 'Voy a hablar de la esperanza', he deliberately uses his own name in
order to suggest the separatenesswithin himself, an alienation produced rather than
simply described by language:
Yo no sufro este dolor como C6sarVallejo.Yo no me duelo ahora como artista,como
hombre ni como simple ser vivo siquiera.Yo no sufro este dolor como catolico, como
mahometanoni como ateo. Hoy sufrosolamente.Si no me llamaseC6sarVallejo,tambien
sufririaestemismodolor.(OPC,p. 187)
Vallejo's use of his own name to signal human identity as separate from the pain he
is experiencing adds an uncanny dimension to the poem. There is a sense in which
identified within the work there is a self that is separate from the name of the
individual. This is to be understood, perhaps, in a Lacanian sense of the disjunction
between the name of an individual as captured by the Symbolic Order and the
identity of that individual as a sentient being inhabiting a region somehow outside
the syntax of that Symbolic Order. 'N6mina de huesos' has a similarly uncanny
dimension, since it alludes to a reality not tied to the net of language.31 The
individual to whom the various commands are uttered, once more likely to be a
projection of the poet's persona, is shown in the last command to be outside the
realm of language, just like the poetic persona of 'Voy a hablar de la esperanza':
'Que le llamen, en fin, por su nombre. IY esto no fue posible' (OPC,p. 190). Vallejo
is here identifying a disjunction between the self and the language that describes
that self; indeed, his poetry, it could be argued, springsprecisely from an exploration
of that gap.
One of Vallejo's most famous poems in which he refers to his own name is, of
course, 'Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca'. The fact that in this poem he has a
premonition of his own death in Paris (and he was right in this) has been one of the
factors ensuring its popularity among a wide spectrum of readers: 'Me morir6 en
Paris con aguacero, | un dia del cual tengo ya el recuerdo. I Me morire en Paris - y

30 The Marne River saw


heavyfightingat the beginningof the FirstWorldWar(6- 2 September 1914), and
at its conclusion(I 5- 8 July 1918).Vallejois also referringto the earthquakethat struckthe Tokyo-Yokohama
metropolitan area on I September I923, causing a tidal wave and leading to a death toll of more than I40,000.
In this poem Vallejoclearlychooses these two events in orderto indicatethe varietyof disastersthat can befall
humanity,and rangefrom human-createddisaster(war)to naturaldisaster(earthquake).
31 For a Lacanian reading of Vallejo'swork, see my book, TheOtherScene:Psychoanalytic Readingsin Modern
SpanishandLatin-American (Boulder,CO: Society of Spanishand AmericanStudies, 1992),pp. 87-96.
Literature
7I8 of Otherness
Versions in CesarValljo

no me corro - tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otofio' (OPC, p. 233). The
reference here to his own death as a 'memory' is to be interpreted as alluding to the
premonition he experienced in Antenor Orrego's house in Trujillo in 1920; for the
record, it is important to recall that he died on a Friday rather than a Thursday.32
The most important stanza for my purposes is the third, in which he refersto himself
by name: 'Cesar Vallejo ha muerto, le pegaban I todos sin que el les haga nada'
(OPC,p. 233). Here Vallejo seems almost to be alluding to himself from beyond the
grave, and the use of his own name has something of the epitaph about it. The fact,
however, that he uses two tenses to describe what would normally be seen as one
temporal dimension ('pegaban' (imperfect)and 'haga' (present)) suggeststhe degree
to which the experience being referred to is simultaneously part of the present and
the past. The most sophisticated, if not the most popular, poem in which Vallejo
names himself is 'En suma no poseo para expresar mi vida ...'. This is a
linguistically complex poem and I wish to refer only to certain features that allow a
greater awareness of his perception of Otherness. In this poem, more than in any
other, Vallejo uses his own name to refer to the self that writes. Thus in the fourth
stanza of the poem, he plays on the different connotations of 'accent', 'air', and
'word' in order, tongue in cheek, to conjure up an image of Vallejo the poet: 'Cesar
Vallejo, el acento con que amas, el verbo con que escribes, I el vientecillo con que
oyes, Isolo saben de ti por tu garganta' (OPC,p. 249). As the imagery and thought
of the poem develop, it becomes clear that the writing subject the poem is describing
(as well as drawing into being) is becoming gradually more and more autonomous,
until, as the final stanza tells us, there is an enigmatic relationship not only between
Cesar Vallejo the man and Cesar Vallejo the writer, but also withinthe identity of
Cesar Vallejo the writer:
CesarVallejo,parece
mentiraque asitardentusparientes,
sabiendoque andocautivo,
sabiendoqueyaceslibre!
Vistosay perrasuerte!
CesarVallejote odio con ternura.
(OPC,pp. 249-50)
Here in this final stanza, the two selves begin to mingle, not to produce a new
Hegelian synthesis but as part of a dialectical, vibrant reality. The opposition
invoked here is that between death, represented by 'yacer', and life, suggested by
'andar'. Vallejo is referringto the paradox whereby, after death, the writing self (the
author as recorded in published form) changes places with the living individual and
becomes itself the site of life in the future. By swapping attributes ('ando' would
normally go with 'libre' and 'yaces' with 'cautivo'), Vallejo produces a new chiasmic
identity in which the self is not identical to itself (redolent of Rimbaud's 'Je est un
autre'), and therefore can be loved and hated simultaneously ('Cesar Vallejo te odio

32 Forfurther
discussion,see ArmandoZarate,'C6sarVallejo:premonici6ny visperas',RI, 38 (1972),431 -40,
and Hans MagnusEnzensberger,'Vallejo:victimade suspresentimientos',in CesarVallejo,
ed. byJulio Ortega
(Madrid:Taurus,I975), pp. 65-74.
STEPHEN M. HART 7I9

con ternura'). 'En suma no poseo para expresar mi vida . . .' explores the area of
penumbra between these two selves.33
Since Vallejo's portrayal of the self is not predicated on the Platonic notion of
identity to itself, it comes as no surprise that when his work is analysed in order to
discover its 'message' with regard to the identity of his culture ('culture' here being
understood as the 'second identity' that we as human beings carrywith us) it likewise
yields an ambiguous answer. Once more, it is appropriate to start from the
hypothesis that the image of culture refracted by Vallejo's work is characterized by
Otherness. There are a number of ways in which his cultural iconicity can be
construed. First, he has been seen as a projection of Amerindian consciousness;Jose
Maria Arguedas, for example, has stated that 'en Vallejo empieza la etapa tremenda
en que el hombre del Ande siente el conflicto entre su mundo interior y el castellano
como su idioma', while others have seen Vallejo as a projection of 'mestizo'
consciousness; this is understandable, since his grandfathers on both sides of his
family were priests, and his grandmothers Indian.34 For Alejandro Lora Risco,
Vallejo's use of numbers and the expression 'combatido por dos aguas encontradas
que jamas han de istmarse' in Trilceare seen as a symptom of the cultural and
historical dilemma of'mestizo' consciousness;Claude Esteban, for his part, has seen
Vallejo's work as stuck midway between two cultures; thus the Peruvian poet
'eprouve des l'adolescence le fer intolerable d'un partage'.35Yet it is only fair to
point out that these early readings were impressionistic rather than theoretical.
Indeed, according to a recently published biography, Vallejo did not see his
'mestizo' nature, as Esteban's comment would tend to have us believe, as a cause of
distress;his was a 'mestizaje establecido, segun su propio decir, entre misterioso y
socarr6n'.36More important, these views need to be challenged because they fail to
address an epistemological problem. This is most evident in Arguedas's interpreta-
tion. Arguedas clearly reads Vallejo's work as an icon of precolonial authenticity, as
epitomized by his 'mundo interior', which is figured as in opposition to 'el castellano
como su idioma'. However, Arguedas's rhetorical gesture is based on a quixotic

33
Vallejo was also fond of using this type of doubled identity when referringto others. One of the most
strikingexamplesof this device in his poetryoccursin Poem IIIof Espafa,apartademiestecdliz,in which Pedro
Rojas'sdeath is portrayedas (at least) two deaths, since the fatherandthe man, the railwaymanandthe man
die: 'De Mirandade Ebro, padre y hombre, maridoy hombre, ferroviarioy hombre, Ipadre y mas hombre.
Pedroy sus dos muertes'(OPC,p. 290). This poetic device, which could almostbe seen as Vallejo'shallmark,
also consistentlyapplies to the phenomenalworld, an example of which is 'y el oro mismo sera entonces de
oro' (OPC,p. 283), which does not make sense unlessone appliesthe poetic principleof the doubled identity.
For furtherdiscussionof this featureof Vallejo'spoetic language, see Nadine Ly, 'La po6tica de Vallejo o la
palabra
34 See
inteligente',Insula,43:50 (1988), 15- 7.
Juan EspejoAsturrizaga,CisarVallejo: itinerariodelhombre,
p. 22. The fact that both his father'sparents
(Jose Rufo Vallejo and Justa Benitez) and his mother's parents (Joaquin de Mendoza and Natividad
Gurrionero)consisted of a priest who married an Indian woman introduces a rather uncanny element of
biradialsymmetryinto Vallejo'sgenealogy.
35See
Jose Maria Arguedas,'Entreel quechua y el castellano',in Aproximaciones a CisarVallejo,ed. by Angel
Flores (New York:Las Americas, 1971), 2 vols, I, i87, AlejandroLora Risco, 'Trilcey el enigma mestizo', in
Hacia la voz delhombre: ensayossobreCisarValleo(Santiago de Chile: Andr6s Bello, I97i), pp. 159-209, and
Claude Esteban,'C6sarVallejo',Mercure deFrance,352.1215 (1965), 142-150 (p. 142).
36Juan Domingo C6rdoba Vargas, CesarVallejodelPeri ProfundoySacrificado, p. 37. To judge by C6rdoba
Vargas'smemoriesof Vallejo,'socarr6n'is probablythe best adjectiveto describeVallejo.
720 Versionsof Othernessin Cesar Vallejo

desire to reverse a process of 'mestizaje' which is empirically irreversible. This is


quite apart from the fact that Vallejo knew no Quechua.37
The first fully sustained analysis of the 'mestizo' structure in Vallejo's work is
Jorge Guzman's Contrael secreto profesional:lecturamestizade CesarVallejo,in which the
author argues that Latin-American society possesses a completely established
'mestizo' structureand then goes on to say that Vallejo, like El Inca Garcilaso de la
Vega, has a 'mestizo' consciousness in the sense that they stand simultaneously on
both sides of the fence:
Y eso mantienesin descansoel templedel dolorvigenteen los hombrescomo GarcilasoInca
o Vallejo.Significa:yo soyel humilladoy el que humilla,el despreciadoy el que desprecia,el
miserable(realor potencial)y el poderoso(realor potencial),el blancoy el no blanco,el
otro. (Guzman, p. 32)38
I now propose a differentset of parameters for an analysis of the projection of the
cultural other in Vallejo's work; I use the terms 'First World' and 'Third World'
rather than 'mestizo', since however much I am reminded that the Hispanic term
refers to a cultural rather than a racial reality, the origin of the word itself, which
was first used to indicate the joining of the Spanish and the Indian races, persuades
me to look for an adequate terminology elsewhere. For exactly the same reasons,
Garcia Canclini offers 'hybridization', and Angel Rama, following Ortiz's lead,
'transculturacion'. I prefer the interrelationship of Third and First Worlds in
Vallejo's case, since he lived in the First and Third Worlds at a time when the new
(destructive) relationship between the two was coming to historical consciousness,
and this is shown most clearly when these terms are retained.39It also avoids the
pejorative or endearing connotations associated with terms such as 'mestizo' and
'cholo'; the problem is compounded because there are critical studies written about
Vallejo that call him 'el cholo Vallejo', which, I propose, is predicated on a
spuriouslyeasy connectiveness between race and identity in the poet.40
Vallejo's sense of the Otherness of culture changed radicallywhen he finally went
to Europe in I923, so much so that his work can be fairly easily divided into two
stages. In the poetry he wrote during the Peru period (until 1923), he adopts towards
37 There is a good discussionof the methodologicalproblemsinvolved in such an approachin postcolonial
studies in Neil ten Kortenaar, 'Beyond Authenticityand Creolization:Reading Achebe WritingCulture',
PMLA,I 0 (I 995), 30-42, in which the virtuesand sins of the 'authenticity'and 'hybridization'hypothesesare
compared.It is quitepossiblethat the scienceof thermodynamics,which explainsenergytransferacrosssystem
boundariesin the physicalworld, has somethingto teach us about the transferof power and identityin the
colonizationprocess.In particular,the Second Law of Thermodynamics,which statesthat energytransfercan
go in one directiononly and that the reversalof that process (wherebyboth the systemand its surroundings
would be returnedto their originalstates)is impossible,would tend to militateagainstthe 'authenticity'thesis;
meaning that a colonized country cannot reverse the effects of the colonization process and return to an
authentic,pre-colonialidentity.
38 Other critics who touch on
Vallejo's 'mestizo' identity are FernandoAlegria, who describesVallejo as
'mestizo,mestizo triste,sensual,intimamenteherido'('Lasmascarasmestizas',in Aproximaciones a CisarVallejo,
I, 193-209 (p. 193), and Antonio Pablo Cuadra, who sees Vallejo as an expression of'mestizo' consciousness:
'la primera verdaderaalianza po6tica de la lengua espafiola con los labios del indio' ('Dos mares y cinco
poetas: La nueva poesia de Hispanoamerica a trav6s de cinco poetas', CHA, 22:65 (I955), 338-60, (p. 345)).
In the section on Vallejo(pp. 341-45), however,the same authormanagesto get the poet's dates of birth and
death wrong,which does not inspireconfidencein his accuracy.
39 ForAngel Rama, see Laciudad letrada(Hanover:Edicionesdel Norte, 1984); for N6storGarciaCanclini,see
his TransformingModernity:PopularCulture in Mexico,trans. by Lidia Lozano (Austin:Universityof Texas Press,
1993).
40 Homage volume entitled 'El estado de la cuesti6n: iinolvidable cholo!, Cesar Vallejo Insula,
(1938-I988)',
43:501 (I988), I I- 8, andJos6 Luis Ayala, El choloVallejo(Lima: Fimart, 1994). This is not to deny that Vallejo
had variousnicknamessuch as 'cholo' and 'huaco'.
STEPHEN M. HART 72

the cultural patrimony of his country a stance that for all its gesturing is essentially
Eurocentric and ethnocentric. In the section 'Nostalgias imperiales' of Los heraldos
negros(dated 1918, though it was published in 1919), when Vallejo is describing the
legacy of Amerindian culture, he does so with the eye of a European anthropologist.
The Indian woman who is depicted weaving is projected not as an embodiment of a
living, vibrant culture but as a statue: that is, as a remnant of a civilization situated
in the remote recesses of the past ('La anciana pensativa, cual relieve Ide un bloque
pre-incaico, hila que hila' (OPC, p. 82)). This is, indeed, the typical rhetorical
gesture of the colonizing power that sees only itself as within the present, and
projects all other countries as inhabiting the past.4' This is only to be expected,
perhaps, since much of Vallejo's early work (Los heraldosnegrosand Trilce)was
influenced by iconoclastic literarymovements of First-Worldprovenance (modernismo
and the avant-garde), which would tend to make Vallejo a Third World writer
dependent, like his nation's economy, on the First World.42That his view of the
Indian betrays the gaze of the colonizer, rather than that of the colonized, is also
revealed when he turns his eyes upon himself. In 'Huaco', for example, he portrays
himself as the symptom of the clash underlying 'mestizo' culture:
Soy el pich6nde c6ndordesplumado
porlatinoarcabuz;
y a florde humanidadflotoen los Andes
comoun perenneLazarode luz.
(OPC,p. 87)
The Amerindian culture with which Vallejo here identifies himself is associated with
death, or rather, a slow protracted murder, in the form of the national bird of Peru,
the condor. Again, this is not a version of the Amerindian culture from the inside, as
perhaps in Arguedas's Los r'osprofundos, but it gives the impression of a subject who
is actively seeking to identify himself sympathetically with that culture but who
remains epistemologically external to it. Vallejo's Eurocenteredness was also
demonstrated when he contemplated adopting the pseudonym of Cesar Peru for
Trilce,following in the footsteps of Anatole France.43
This all changed when Vallejo went to Europe. One of his biographers describes
how distressed Vallejo would become when discussing political issues in Peru; he
would berate others, for example, for believing that removing Leguia would benefit
Peru, arguing instead that Leguia would simply be replaced by another tyrant. He
would sometimes quote the words of Alcorta: 'iPensar en las cosas del Peru es para

41 It is trulyremarkablehow persistentthis notion is. Its resilienceis suggestedby how often it is repeatedby
leadersof countriesthat are intellectuallycolonized by the West. One need only listen to the radio or watch
the news in Latin America to hear statementsby leaders of Latin Americancountrieswho speak out on the
theme of bringingtheir countryslowlybut surelyinto the twentiethcentury,as if they were not there already.
This is one of the most deadly examples of colonialistexpansion,for it persuadesthe colonized culturethat
even time itself, surely the one reality that is common to all nations of the world, is parcelled up between
nationsdependingon how modern,developed,and industrializedthey are.
42 For a discussionof the influence of the
avant-gardeon Vallejo'searly work, see Roberto Paoli, 'En los
origenesde Trilce:Vallejoentremodernismoy vanguardia',Mapasanatdmicos deCesarValleo(Florence:D'Anna,
1981), pp. 33-50.
43 'Entoncesdecide
que el libro llevariacomo nombredel autorel de CesarPeruy asi se empiezaa imprimir.
Cris6logoQuesaday FranciscoXand6val, compafierosde domiciliode Cesar,le iniciaronuna sordacampana
de bromasy burlaspor este inesperadocambio de nombre. [...] Por lo que Cesar, rindiendosea las razones
de lo ridiculodel caso decidi6 que el libro llevariasu propio nombre'(Juan EspejoAsturrizaga,CisarVallejo:
itinerario
delhombre,p. o8).
722 Versions in CesarVallejo
of Otherness
sentarse calato en el batan de la cocina y echarse a llorar!'(C6rdoba Vargas,p. 157).
It was despair of this kind that would gradually fan the flames of Vallejo's
revolutionary zeal; the mystique of Paris, the City of Light, so visible from the
colonial periphery of Peru, graduallydisappeared as he approached the source of its
power. From the articles he wrote in the I920S it is clear that he saw Marxism as
providing a clear answer to the question why the developed and undeveloped worlds
were as they were, since it revealed exploitation of the Other (whetheras proletarian
or prime-matter nation) as an exploitation that underlies capitalism. Just as
significant, his conversion to Marxism provided him with a new vital perspective on
his Amerindian culture. This is particularly evident in his posthumous poems,
particularly in 'Telurica y magnetica'. This poem is a complex one, and I want to
draw attention to three of its features only.44The first point to be borne in mind is
its attention to the projection of a political utopia. This is clear from the three
opening lines of the poem ('iMecanica sincera y peruanisima Ila del cerro colorado!
I jSuelo te6rico y practico!' (OPC, p. 2Io)), which indicate the architecture of
Marxism as bonding with the Peruvianlandscape (the expression 'te6rico y practico'
alludes to Stalin's book Le Leninisme theorique
etpratique,which Vallejo read in the late
I920s or early 1930s: see my Religidn,politicay ciencia,p. 25).45 The second important
issue touched on is its conscious rejection of the tourist-type stereotype of Peruvian
reality, as suggested by the line:'Co6ndores? iMe friegan los c6ndores!' (OPC,
p. 211)). Lastly, 'Telurica y magnetica' is significant, given its aim to express a
genuinely Peruvian ethos:
iIndiodespu6sdel hombrey antesde 6l!
iLoentiendotodoen dosflautas
y me doy a entenderen una quena!
iYlo demas,me laspelan!
(OPC,p. 212)
The important point about these verses is that they express an othered structure of
feeling in that they use the Latin as well as the Quechua words ('flauta', 'quena') to
refer to the wind instrument with which Vallejo is associating his own poetry. The
sense of the doubleness of this vision is further reinforced by the allusion to 'two
flutes' ('dos flautas').
As I said above, Vallejo is fond of alluding to the doubled nature of human reality;
it could almost be seen as a hallmark of his poetic idiom (certainly no other poet

44 For
good brief discussionsof this poem, see Noel Salomon, 'Algunosaspectosde lo "humano"en Poemas
humanos', in CesarValljo,ed. by Ortega, pp. 289-334 (esp.pp. 325-27), and Gordon Brotherston,'La poetica
del patrimonio:"Telfrica y magnetica"de CesarVallejo',CHA,548 (1996), 109- 9.
45 It is
importantto make a distinctionat this juncture. Doubleness as a concept is being used here in a
phenomenologicaland dialecticalsense. In his politicalwritings,Vallejolays great emphasison the dialectical
nature of revolutionarythought, art, and literature.Thus he writes in the essay 'Funci6nrevolucionariadel
pensamiento':'La dialecticaconcibe cada formaen el flujodel movimiento,es decir, en su aspectotransitorio.
Ella no se inclinaante nada y es, por esencia,criticay revolucionaria'(El arteyla revolucidn
(Lima:Mosca Azul,
1973), pp. I -20 (p. 13)). Vallejo'spoetry, likewise, can be seen as dialectical since it often involves the
creation of thought through the dialecticalclash of opposites. The crucial distinctionhere is that he is not
referringto binary distinctionssuch as between body and soul, which, in his terminology,would be seen as
part and parcelof bourgeois,and specificallyHegelian,philosophy.Thus, as Vallejosuggestsin the same essay,
the dialectic'a los ojos de la burguesiay de sus profesores,no es mas que escandaloy horror,porque, al lado
de la comprensionpositivadelo queexiste,ella engloba, a la vez, la comprensidn
dela negacidn
y de la ruina necesaria
del estado de cosas existente' (p. 13). He is clearly referringhere to the destruction,or negation, of reality
understoodin a political sense, but the point is applicable,I would argue, to the modusoperandi of the poetic
processin his workwhich, typically,proceedsthrougha Baroqueshuttlingof opposites.
STEPHEN M. HART 723

springsto mind who alludes to the doubleness of phenomenal reality so consistently).


The strikingfeature of'Telurica y magnetica' consists in its skill in avoiding the trap
of depicting Peruvian identity through the eyes of a tourist, but does so in terms of
its connection to a transnational humanity. No doubt this is due in part to Vallejo's
greater awareness of his Amerindian cultural legacy, which he began to study in an
intense way in the early 193os; as Gordon Brotherston has pointed out, Vallejo's
knowledge about Amerindian culture is far from superficial, as this poem makes
quite clear ('La poetica del patrimonio' (pp. 109-I3)). Strikingly, the words that
constitute the central phrase of the poem: 'iSierra de mi Perui,Peru del mundo, Iy
Peru al pie del orbe; yo me adhiero!' (OPC,p. 2 2), refer simultaneouslyto Peru and
to the world. In 'Telurica y magnetica', Vallejo is thereby able to avoid the pitfalls
of exoticism to which he fell prey in the earlier poem 'Huaco', and to expound a
new version of Peruvian-Amerindianculture, one based on a Peruvian as much as
on a transnational reality.
Vallejo's work is shot through with Otherness, an Otherness that weaves its way
through his biography, the image of him as captured by the critics over the last fifty
years or so, the projection of the Self within his poetry, and his sense of himself as a
verbal icon of Peruvian culture. It would be best to avoid the temptation to seek
unity within these various images of his Otherness. To see them for what they are is
surely to do greaterjustice to the mystery of Vallejo's work than has hitherto often
been the case.
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY STEPHENM. HART

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