Urban Scene, History and Poetics in José Agustín Goytisolo

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss the conjunction between history, poetry and city in Taller de arquitectura, by José Agustín Goytisolo, especially in his poem “Bilbao song”.

A member of the so-called Generation of the Years 1950, Goytisolo has often shown a concern for the condition of man in modern society and for his life in the urban centers and Taller de arquitectura as a representative work on his reflections about the human being and his environment. Therefore, we propose to discuss how the poet articulates different visions of the city of Bilbao with the various discourses that emerge from the poem. Through a tour of the political, social and aesthetic history of the late 1960s and the early 1970s in Spain, we have identified and examined the poetic procedures used by the author in configuring the relationships between history, poetry and society present in “Bilbao song”.

Throughout this itinerary, we will exhibit as the author capturing and modulating the voices of “Bilbao song” using the background of images, stories and rhythms, to compose a mosaic that reveals the various faces of the city, its people, its fealty and its charm, and the city of the Franco dictatorship.