Paz, Octavio (Vol. 6) - Paz, Octavio 1914–
Paz, Octavio 1914–
Paz is a Mexican epic poet (one of the finest of our time), a critic, and social philosopher. His search for his own Mexican identity characterizes all his work: he has been called both "a regionalist campaigning for the individual's sense of belonging to a specific people," and a proponent of "political and cultural collaboration … among all underdeveloped nations 'condemned to modernity'."
Paz is never neurotic like Vallejo or like the Neruda of Residencia. No edgy splinters, no humid walls menace him. His demand that the world be different is the demand of a healthy man, untroubled by suffering. It is just that nothing can satisfy him that is not an all-embracing, time-destroying ecstasy. His poetry, whose central topics have remained more or less constant throughout his career, constitutes a search for a single moment of dizzy ecstasy, a splendid instante that will annul the world that is, and germinate...
[The entire page is 5480 words long]
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