A fable on the way: almost a novel by Juan l. Ortiz

Abstract

This work tries to make a closed, immanent reading of an extensive poem by Juan L. Ortiz, from his last years. The analysis focuses on two areas of problems: on the one hand, the question of the narrative, the narrative included in the poem and its relationship to the traditional theme of travel or, more broadly, the verbal representation of displacement; on the other hand, the problem of the lyrical form, of that can characterize it in the plane of elocution and in the disposition of that can still be considered as its rhythmic unity, that is, the verse. To do this, we establish relationships with the old Aristotelian differences and their problems of translation between fable, action and composition, that if we took them literally, from the survivals of the Greek language in the present, they could be stated as follows: myth, praxis and synthesis. Without forgetting that also “fable”, which translates thus into Latin the most general “myth”, is sometimes said in Greek logos, that for Aristotle it is sometimes the theme or argument of the work, and other times the language with which it is performed, which includes metrics, rhythm.

In the modernity of the poem studied we will see therefore the contemporary drifts of the genre that in part assumes and in part tensions, since not only figuratively a fable, not only narrates and reflects, but also and above all subordinates syntax and communicative convention to the twists of a primacy of verbal matter (sound, graphic, paratactic).