The Orbitals of Ontology: A Chemical Approach to Jorge Guillén's Cántico

Abstract

When one reads what Jorge Guillén has either written or said about the circumstances of his own literary development - his participation in the supposed Generación de 27 - it is apparent that Guillén, objectively one of the best poets to emerge from Spain in the 20th century, has a modesty that runs counter to his reputation. At a conference at Harvard in 1957-1958, when asked to speak about his generation, he began by excusing himself from the first person (and thus possibly from the temptation to anecdote, an element decidedly absent in much of his obra): "Para evitar el yo protagonista, «le moi hai'ssable», hablemos de «nosotros»: el grupo de poetas que, con los rasgos de una generación, vivió y escribió en España entre 1920 y 1936 (Guillén, "Una Generación" 73). Guillén, known for the nearly scientific precision of his poetry, gives in this case a definition of his cohort worthy of his reputation.