[In the following essay, Méndez examines the cult of artificiality in Casal's prose, tracing its literary and contextual antecedents.]

haz, ¡oh, Dios!, que no vean ya mis ojos
la horrible Realidad que me contrista.

—Julián del Casal¹

[Grant, oh, Lord!, that my eyes no longer see
the horrible Reality that afflicts me.]

Despite traditional interpretations that persisted in stressing an innate deficiency that determined Julián del Casal's character, a new and more accurate consideration of the social, political, and cultural pressures that weighed upon him is being brought to bear.² It is no longer valid, therefore, to simplify his artistic pose under the mistaken assumption that his production was conceived exclusively within, and related only to, an alienated point of view. Partly accountable for this sophism was the fact that it stemmed basically from an analysis of Casal's poetry. The prose, much more copious and revealing, still awaits being properly incorporated into the Cuban artist's overall production. This study will have as its main objective the itemization of the antecedents—literary and environmental—that motivated, shaped, and maintained the cult of artificiality as expressed primarily in Casal's prose.

Julián del Casal approached literature as a way to release both his talents and his anxiety. In doing so, he manifested a tendency to depersonalize himself in order to better achieve cohesion with other writers who advocated similar emotional aberration, disenchanted with the oppressive environment and firmly committed to changing it.³ After a considerable amount of eclectic reading by Casal, French poetic schools became the most propitious source from which he could draw sound inspiration as well as a mode of expression. Of these the one that provided the best and most accessible means of change and escape was French Symbolism. The powerful capabilities inherent in the cult of artificiality, which was a pervasive element in that movement, became Casal's overriding premise, broken down to its essential components. From the symbolists Casal inherited a priority of purpose that could be synthesized by the dictum that “the first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible.”⁴ Eagerly adopting this dictum as an intellectual obsession in the manner of Joris-Karl Huysmans, Casal then developed the principles of what Gustavo Duplessis calls “la estética de lo artificial”⁵ [the esthetic of the artificial], which guides and limits the scope of his most recurrent themes.

WITHDRAWAL FROM SOCIETY

One evident cause of Casal's devotion to artificiality was an intense desire to withdraw from the social and political constituents of the world around him, perpetrated by the stagnant form of government that imperial Spain imposed on Cuba, with its archaic regulations and ill-fated goals. The resulting social climate was one of deprivation and overt materialism, which contrasted sharply with the refined and exquisite creed espoused by Casal.⁶ Unable, therefore, to negotiate the patulous “abyss” that separated him from his fellow men, Casal opted for total separation by isolating himself in a virtually impenetrable and artificial world of his own. By means of evasion, which resulted from his convictions and not from instinctive impulses, Casal attempted to minimize the impure influences of his milieu while simultaneously devoting his efforts to more dependable reinforcements. In this artificial realm of alienation Casal was able to delve into his own self, a process that Ricardo Gullón calls “confinamiento en el yo”⁷ [confinement in the self], which is the center of artistic creation. The writer, as Casal himself points out, “acude a sí mismo, única fuente de consuelo, para adormecer sus penas con la cadencia de las estrofas que arranca de lo más profundo de su corazón”⁸ [resorts to himself, the only source of consolation, in order to appease his sorrows with the cadence of the stanzas that he tears out of the depths of his heart].

Solitude provides both shelter and a mood conducive to meditation and illumination. Casal infers this transition when he recalls his farewell to a bookstore owner who had told him the story of a young man who lived much like Casal himself: “sin decir una palabra, estreché su mano, cogí el sombrero y me refugié en mi soledad, donde he pensado mucho y donde pienso todavía en aquel extraño joven que, para conjurar su spleen, ha hecho del sufrimiento una voluptuosidad” (I, 237) [without saying a word, I shook his hand, took my hat and sought refuge in my solitude, where I have thought a lot and where I still think about that strange young man who, in order to exorcise his despondency, has turned suffering into voluptuousness]. The apparent solidarity—suggested by “I shook his hand” and “I still think”—transcends to a level of spiritual perversion with “my solitude” serving as a catalyst. Worthy of mention in this regard is the deliberate use of the possessive adjective (“mi soledad”), normally omitted in Spanish, employed here to underline the personal nature of solitude. But Casal's awareness that others also had an affinity for solitude led to a further awareness that there exists a brotherhood of marginal entities who share a common purpose in suffering and shattered aspirations. Since they are in an alien environment, however, they are unable to sustain their creed and are equally unable to share those alien values. “Whatever the beginning of his solitude,” Ralph Harper has written, “an outsider knows he is not like most men; and the knowledge of his difference hurts. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries in art and real life have left a frieze of outsiders of all kinds, ranging from epic and tragic heroes to orphans and refugees. They are all brothers of communion of displacement and loneliness.”⁹

As an “outsider,” Casal eventually makes solitude an ideal that presupposes “vivir obscurecido, solo, arrinconado e invisible para todos” (III, 85) [living in obscurity, alone, set aside and invisible to everyone]. Nevertheless, there is suffering associated with this flight, stemming from the confrontation—as Rodríguez-Fernández puts it—of the self and the alien world.¹⁰ Casal himself clearly outlines the causal relationship: “aquel hombre ha vivido un día entre sus semejantes y, desencantado de ellos, se ha retirado a la soledad, sin dignarse mostrar su desprecio a los demás” (III, 27) [that man has lived one day among his fellow men and, disenchanted with them, has withdrawn to solitude, without condescending to show his scorn toward others].

Eventually, Casal recognizes that his “lúgubre aislamiento” (p. 46) [gloomy isolation] has become obsessive since, as he admits, “en cualquier lugar he de encontrarme solo” (p. 51) [I will feel alone anywhere]. This is when the anguished writer begins to consider death as the ultimate solitude:

Procuraré irme a vivir en un barrio lejano, cerca del mar, para aguardar allí la muerte, que no tardará muchos años en venir. Mientras llegue, viviré entre libros y cuadros, trabajando todo lo que pueda literariamente, sin pretender alcanzar nada con mis trabajos, como no sea matar el tiempo.

(III, 85)

[I will try to go and live in a faraway neighborhood, near the sea, to await death there, which will not take many years to come. While it is arriving, I will live among books and paintings, working literarily as much as I can, without pretending to attain anything with my work other than killing time.]

Casal has tried to arrange his remaining years so that they will be as artificial as possible, surrounding himself with works of art and adopting nihilistic aspirations that will isolate him from the outside world. It is by no means accidental that his final location is distant from everything and near the sea, a powerful symbol of escape and hope frequently utilized by French Symbolists.¹¹

The sea provides an extension of self-confinement and a way to alter the physical circumstances by linking them with an artificial environment where the bemused spirit might find solace and inspiration. Again, we must establish a direct relationship between the impoverished state of Casal's homeland and the respite inherent in travel; accordingly, Casal then summoned three components of artificiality and “built for himself a secluded world of oriental art, of sensory perceptions, of imaginary wanderings”¹² that was diametrically opposed to the real world. Casal favors this avenue of escape because he can carefully reconstruct his visions to conform to a particular need at any given moment. His vacillating moods account for paradoxical expectations in the “bello país desconocido” (p. 217) [beautiful unknown country]. In a poem entitled “Nostalgias” (p. 135), Casal lets his mind wander like Rimbaud's “drunken boat”¹³ and whimsically changes the make-up of his imaginary landscape: “soplo helado del viento” [frozen breath of the wind], “campos olorosos” [odorous fields], “llanura africana” [African plain], “bambú corpulento” [strong bamboo tree], “flor de loto” [lotus flower], or “taitiano archipiélago” [Tahitian archipelago]. Behind all the confusion there is a unifying desire to flee, with no specific heading, to “otro cielo, otro monte, / otra playa, otro horizonte, / otro mar, / otros pueblos, otras gentes / de maneras diferentes / de pensar” [another sky, another hill, / another beach, another horizon, / another sea, / other towns, other people / with a different way / of thinking].

Casal realizes that he cannot make his dreamland too definite, lest it become perilously like a natural place, physically accessible. It is precisely for this reason that, after having dreamed of Paris and made plans to visit it, when he found himself in Europe he categorically refused to fulfill his dream. He explains this incident in terms of not wishing to see his visions turn into a disappointing reality:

Porque si me fuera, yo estoy seguro que mi ensueño se desvanecería, como el aroma de una flor cogida en la mano, hasta quedar despojado de todos sus encantos; mientras que viéndolo de lejos, yo creo todavía que hay algo en el mundo, que endulce el mal de la vida, algo que constituye mi última ilusión.

(I, 229)

[Because if I left, I am sure that my reverie would vanish, like the aroma of a flower taken in the hand, until becoming stripped of all its charms; while seeing it from afar, I still believe that there is something in the world that may sweeten life's evil, something that constitutes my last illusion.]

This vital stance is representative of Julián del Casal's devotion to artificiality and his preference of illusion over a reality that could prove to be disappointing and even more deceiving than make-believe. Since distance was necessary to the development of his vision, Casal always maintained as an ultimate goal the enticingly exotic land where “todo es bello, rico y tranquilo, donde la fantasía ha construido y decorado una China occidental, donde la vida es dulce de respirar, donde la dicha está casada con el silencio. Allá es preciso que vayamos a vivir, allá es preciso que vayamos a morir” (II, 151) [everything is beautiful, rich, and tranquil, where fantasy has constructed and decorated an occidental China, where life is sweet to breathe, where happiness is married to silence. There we must go to live, there we must go to die].

AGAINST NATURAL LAW

Similar to the way that social, economic, and political conventions promote self-confinement and an obsessive desire for exotic climes, the physical environment—both primary nature and the man-made metropolis—triggers in devoted advocates of artificiality an immediate and uncompromising tendency to rejection. Despite the intrinsic antithesis of the two alternatives, the artist is unable to cope with either one since, in a materialistic environment, he is denied an atmosphere in which he can survive esthetically. Nature represents a competitive creative force that overwhelms the artist with its inflexible manner, justifying the symbolists' aversion to natural law, which Paul Verlaine (to cite but one example of many that are available) delineates in his poem “L'Angoisse” [“Anguish”]: “Nature, rien de toi ne m'émeut, ni les champs / Nourriciers, ni l'écho vermeil des pastorales / Siciliennes, ni les pompes aurorales, / Ni la solennité dolente des couchants” [“Nature, nothing in you moves me, not the fruitful / Fields, not the roseate echo of the pastorales / Of Sicily, not the grandeur of the dawns, / Not the solemn ruefulness of sunsets”].¹⁴ The negative aspect of these lines complements the attitude shared by other nineteenth-century writers, who viewed nature as an entity that had little to offer the tired senses: its omniscient powers are wasted and reduced to a cyclical pattern of monotony.

This finitude renders nature inferior to the boundless powers of artifice, which is capable of ridding objects of “sus defectos naturales” (II, 81) [their natural defects]. Artists envision the day when the triumph will be absolute, when synesthetic combinations will be achieved that are not possible in the realm of natural law: “Si las piedras preciosas tuvieran aromas, como los tendrán algún día, porque el Arte se encargará de curarlas de esa imperfección natural.” (III, 46) [If only precious stones had aromas, as they will have some day, because Art will be responsible for curing them of that natural imperfection]. Casal looks forward to this day and also to a certain country that will attest to this victory: “Es un país singular, superior a los otros, como el Arte lo es a la Naturaleza, donde ésta está reforzada por el ensueño, donde está corregida, embellecida, refundida” (II, 152) [It is a singular country, superior to others, as Art is superior to Nature, where the latter is reshaped by reverie, where it is corrected, beautiful, recast].

Further evidence of nature's shortcomings is the corruptibility of its accomplishments. Charles Baudelaire, an ardent exponent of the enmity between artist and nature, often captures it through images of putrefaction in his poetry, as in “une Charogne” [“A Carcass”]: “Le soleil rayonnait sur cette pourriture, / Comme afin de la cuire à point, / Et de rendre au centuple à la grande Nature / Tout ce qu'ensemble elle avait joint” [“The sun shone hotly on all this rottenness / As if it were in some sense boiling, / As when Nature in her absolute nothingness / Cares nothing for her creature's spoiling”].¹⁵ The poem epitomizes nature's impassiveness and obvious lack of interest in man's debased and putrid existence. Emulating this champion of the perverse and macabre, Casal also takes morbid pleasure in describing the putrefying process within himself:

De me cráneo, que un globo formaba
erizado de rojos cabellos,
descendían al rostro deforme,
saboreando el licor purulento,
largas sierpes de piel solferina
que llegaban al borde del pecho,
donde un cuervo de pico acerado
implacable roíame el sexo.

(p. 150)¹⁶

[From my skull, shaped like a globe
bristling with red hairs,
descended, to the deformed face,
savoring the purulent liquor,
long serpents of purplish skin
that arrived at the edge of my chest,
where a raven with a steel beak
implacably gnawed at my sex.]

Since nature has been exposed both for its imperfections and for its perishability, in Casal's view, mankind no longer “acude a refugiarse en los brazos de la naturaleza, porque sabe que no tiene alma” (I, 168) [seeks refuge in the arms of nature, knowing that it has no soul]. Hence, it follows, if one reasons as Baudelaire did, that, since nature is heartless, “everything natural in man is bad and whatever is good is artificial and acquired—from virtue to face-paint.”¹⁷ Nature is therefore diametrically opposed to the essential components of the artist's ethical and esthetic make-up. Casal expressed this through an antipathy even for those artists—such as gifted singers—who had God-given talents and did not have to endure the agony of concentration, study, and hard work before succeeding, as writers did: “Yo los odio, como odio todo aquello en que predomina la obra de la naturaleza y en que apenas se reconocen las huellas del estudio, de la paciencia y de la propia personalidad” (III, 57) [I hate them, as I hate everything in which the work of nature predominates and in which traces of study, patience, and even the personality itself are barely recognized].

Casal himself was living proof of nature's inadequacy since he was sporadically plagued by the ominous signs that foreshadow an early death and that forced him to withdraw to more healthful places. His infirmity, consequently, can be taken to account for the value inversion that chooses instead of “el olor de un bosque de caoba, / el ambiente enfermizo de una alcoba” (p. 190) [the odor of a mahogany forest, / the sickly atmosphere of a bedroom]. These preventive measures suggest the special care required by a delicate being because of “la pobreza de su organismo, que lo obligaría a vivir, como una planta de invernadero, tras las vidrieras de la casa paterna, buscando la sombra y huyendo de la luz de sol” (I, 230) [the weakness of his organism, that would force him to live, like a nursery plant, behind the windows of his paternal home, seeking the shade and fleeing from the sunlight]. Sunlight, being a product of nature, is destructive and threatens to “exterminate” the “freshness” of any feeble vegetable (p. 62). The ability to survive in the shade heralds another type of triumph—however perverted—over the devastating effects of nature.

Casal's embittered resentment of natural law appears at a very early stage of his thematic development, when the poet chastises nature for instilling a sense of boredom:

¡Qué insípidos tus dones conocidos!
¡Cómo al verte el hastío me consume!
Muere al fin, creadora ya agotada,
o brinda algo de nuevo a los sentidos …
¡Ya un color, ya un sonido, ya un perfume!

(p. 119)

[How insipid are your known talents!
How tedium consumes me when I see you!
Die once and for all, creator already spent,
or offer something new to the senses …
Either a color, or a sound, or a perfume!]

It is precisely the inalterable quality of the Cuban landscape that prevents Casal from finding any redeeming value in it, as we can see in a letter written shortly after his return from a convalescing excursion to the country, where he felt “el hastío más insoportable a la vista de un cielo siempre azul, encima de un campo siempre verde. La unión eterna de estos dos colores produce la impresión más antiestética que se puede sentir” (I, 241) [the most unbearable tedium at the sight of an ever-blue sky above an ever-green field. The union of these two colors produces the most antiesthetic impression that one can feel]. Incapable of tolerating the unchanging exuberance of his countryside, Casal professes “el impuro amor de las ciudades” (p. 190) [the impure love of the cities], where there exists a pervasive artificiality more attuned to his aberrant psyche. Nevertheless, subjected as he was to sporadic changes of mood brought about by a sudden aggravation of his pathological symptoms, Casal also admits that he is unable to maintain emotional stability in a synthetic world of human beings whom he finds terribly irritating: “creo que mi neurosis, o como se llame mi enfermedad, depende en gran parte de vivir en la ciudad, es decir, rodeado de paredes altas, de calles adoquinadas, oyendo incesantemente estrépito de coches, ómnibus y carretones” (III, 85) [I believe that my neurosis, or whatever my illness might be called, stems in part from living in the city, that is to say, surrounded by high walls, cobblestone streets, incessantly hearing the deafening noise of coaches, omnibuses, and carts]. His alienated spirit and refined tastes clashed in the city with the daily reminders of another type of existence that was extremely active, mechanized, and chaotic. Moreover, urban life can ultimately lead to a rhythm that denotes the same despised invariability as that encountered in the countryside.¹⁸ As George Ridge has pointed out, the decadent hero “detests the great city, his megalopolis, which holds him captive through the fatal appeal of its artificiality.”¹⁹ On the one hand, the city contains every conceivable perversion and symbolizes man's victory over nature; on the other hand, its environment is comprised of multitudes that augment “la sensación más triste que se puede experimentar: la del aislamiento entre la multitud” (II, 99) [the saddest sensation that can be experienced: that of isolation within a crowd].

Since the urban setting is incapable of fulfilling his insatiable appetite for artificiality, Casal must create a synthetic reality within the immediate reality. For this purpose he resorts to various ploys, from dressing like a monk and living an ascetic existence to surrounding himself with oriental objects that created an ambiance of exotic preciousness. He clung to this world by refusing to recognize the signs that threatened to dissolve his illusive reality: “Los globos de luz eléctrica, colgados entre las columnas rojas, eran lo único que desvanecía a ratos mi ilusión. Pero yo procuraba no mirarlos jamás” (III, 57) [The electric light bulbs, hung among the red columns, were the only things that at times made my illusion vanish. But I tried not ever to look at them]. This state of mind, however, was not tenable for long. Consequently, realizing the precarious and ephemeral function of this kind of self-deceit, Casal also tried to produce artificiality through the use of drugs, a means of escape utilized by Baudelaire in his journeys to “the real land of Cockaigne.”²⁰

Casal's relationship to drugs was more esthetic than practical and his hallucinatory experiences were normally related to literary trances or the commitment to modify reality: “Durante la lectura, mi pensamiento se sumerge, desde la primera página, en una especie de letargo cataléptico, del que no quisiera nunca salir. Cada párrafo me produce el efecto de una bocanada de éter” (I, 207-08) [while reading, my thoughts are submerged, from the first page, in a kind of cataleptic lethargy which I would never want to leave. Each paragraph produces in me the effect of a whiff of ether]. Literature, like ether, becomes a cathartic agent and has an effect similar to the one outlined in “La canción de la morfina” [The Song of Morphine], in which the drug is animated for the purpose of enticing the reader with its powers:

Amantes de la quimera,
yo calmaré vuestro mal:
soy la dicha artificial,
que es la dicha verdadera.

(p. 69)

[Lovers of the chimera,
I will calm your sickness:
I am artificial happiness,
which is true happiness.]

This assertion of a perverted truth by the morphine is one of the chief justifications for using hallucinatory agents. Through drugs the artist is able to confuse the delicate balance that separates reality from artificiality. Furthermore, while he is under the influence of drugs, he can expand the sensorial boundaries that stimulate creation by unleashing the limitless dimensions of synesthesia:

doy al cuerpo sensaciones;
presto al espíritu alas.
Percibe el cuerpo dormido
por mi mágico sopor,
sonidos en el color,
colores en el sonido.

(p. 70)

[to the body I give sensations;
to the spirit I lend wings.
The body that lies asleep
under my magic stupor
perceives sounds in color
and colors in a sound.]

Precisely because of this esthetic inducement, Casal, like many other artists of his time, fell prey to the drug habit. As Guerard has stated: “few believers in Art for Art's sake are free from the À Rebours taint, the willful quest of the abnormal.”²¹ All symbolist-decadent perversion had its roots either in the rejection of the prevailing circumstances or in some sort of sordid experimentation purported to broaden the scope of artistic creativity. The latter, in the case of Casal, will compensate for the cultural myopia of colonial Cuba.

THE POWER OF ART

Although Julián del Casal remains somewhat aloof and confessional in his poetry, his prose provides his readers with an objective and accurate account of the cultural stagnation of his time, which should be considered among his most recurrent and significant themes. The overall picture is one of deprivation, beginning with “la indiferencia glacial, la falta de estímulo y la poca estimación que acompañan a los que viven aquí dedicados a los trabajos intelectuales” (II, 28) [the glacial indifference, the lack of stimulation, and the little esteem that accompany those who live here dedicated to intellectual work]. These factors, among innumerable others are responsible for Casal's defeatist question: “¿Puedo aspirar a algo, en nuestro medio social, que esté en consonancia con mi carácter, con mi educación o con mis aspiraciones?” (I, 228) [Can I aspire to anything, in our social medium, that is in consonance with my character, my education, or my aspirations?]

In such a demoralizing milieu the artist may succumb, for his “inteligencia se atrofia, y su carácter se agria, cayendo en la más negra misantropía” (II, 71) [his intelligence is atrophied, and his character becomes bitter, falling into the blackest kind of misanthropy]. Only artists who can pursue and maintain a commitment to esthetic ideals may overcome the cultural circumstances, and Enrique José Varona is—like Casal himself—one of them:

un gran escritor en un medio propicio para realizar toda clase de empresas, menos para las intelectuales, lo cual demuestra que poseía una vocación más sólida que ningún otro escritor cubano y que es un hombre que ama verdaderamente su Ideal, amor que no se ha visto justipreciado por su pueblo, porque no teniendo éste más que el de la vida material, difícil le sería comprender que un individuo pueda perseguir otro más noble, más elevado, más inmaterial.

(I, 251-52)

[a great writer in an environment conducive to the accomplishment of all kinds of plans, except intellectual ones, which shows that he possessed a more solid vocation than any other Cuban writer and that he is a man who truly loves his Ideal, a love that his people have not appreciated because they, having love only for a material life, could hardly understand how an individual could pursue a nobler one, more elevated, less materialistic.]

Casal establishes an antithesis between literary dedication and the prevailing values, underscoring the merit of artists who survive under such adverse conditions. This contraposition becomes a prevalent stylistic element in Casal's production, employed whenever the young writer addressed an intrinsic duality: “Su pensamiento anhelaba ascender en pos de las águilas hacia el sol y tuvo que marchar tras los reptiles hacia el lodazal” (I, 262) [His thoughts longed to ascend after the eagles toward the sun and had to march behind the reptiles toward the swamp].

Devotion to art establishes the polar, elevated world seen above, where the follower of this cult can develop it, nourishing what Guerard calls “a perversity inherent in the artistic temperament, a shrinking from the bustle of the market place, a nostalgia for the solitude of the Ivory Tower, a timidity which half-reveals the haunting secret of self-diffidence.”²² In this stance there is a resulting “estado de alta espiritualidad”²³ [state of high spirituality] derived from the willful acceptance of “la penitencia purificante de la vida” (I, 37) [the purifying penitence of life] that either protects the artist from denigrating stains or cleanses him afterward. The esthete may then consider himself a martyr who “ha sacrificado su existencia en aras de su ideal” (III, 62) [has sacrificed his existence on the altar of his ideal].

In addition to affording a mystical purification of life, the devotion to art can indeed supply protection to “el confiado cominante que pasa por el sendero de la vida, aspirando el olor de las flores abiertas y bebiendo la lumbre de los astros” (III, 35) [the confident traveler who goes along the path of life, inhaling the aroma of open flowers and drinking the brightness of the stars]. Anyone who identifies with refined and dignifying things is worthy of “la mirada consoladora de las estrellas” (I, 213) [the consoling glance of the stars] since artistic devotion is a powerful ally, providing “el talismán que conjura al maleficio, el ácido que aniquila al microbio, la fuerza que arranca la pistola al suicida, la moneda de oro en el fango del arroyo, la tea fulgurante que deshace el pavor de las tinieblas” (I, 258) [the talisman that conjures the spell, the acid that annihilates the microbe, the force that tears the pistol away from the would-be suicide, the gold coin in the mud of the stream, the bright torch that dispels the fear of the darkness]. The deliverance is immediate:

Cuando tu cuerpo, acribillado de heridas, caiga sangrando sobre las piedras del camino; cuando tus labios, cerrados para siempre, exhalen el último suspiro; ceñiré a tu frente el lauro de los inmortales y te abriré las puertas de mi templo. ¿Quieres seguirme? Piensa en que me aborrecen las muchedumbres, porque soy El Arte.

(II, 83)

[When your body, riddled with wounds, falls bleeding on the rocks of the road; when your lips, closed forever, exhale the last sigh; I will place on your forehead the wreath of the immortals and open for you the doors of my temple. Do you want to follow me? Remember that the multitudes abhor me, because I am Art.]

The symbolism here is overwhelming; the dual options represent the multiple vicissitudes of life (“wounds,” “rocks,” “the sigh,” and “the multitudes”), counterpoised by the withdrawal that is inherent in artificiality, the “temple.”

Casal readily accepts this invitation, hoping that artistic devotion will succor him and alleviate his suffering:

Para olvidar entonces las tristezas
que, como nubes de voraces pájaros
al fruto de oro entre las verdes ramas,
dejan mi corazón despedazado,
refúgiome del Arte en los misterios.

(p. 16)

[To forget then the sadnesses
that, like clouds of voracious birds
on the golden fruit among the green branches,
leave my heart in pieces,
I take refuge in the mysteries of Art.]

This confidence in art has an immediate advantage: the conscientious esthete can eventually disregard the “voracious birds” that threaten him with the new realization that “el verdadero artista no se debe ocupar del prestigio que le concede el público, sino perfeccionarse en su arte y nada más” (III, 85) [the true artist should not concern himself with the prestige that the public bestows on him, but with the perfection of his art and nothing else]. Such a striving for perfection is the basis of what Auerbach has called in the French Symbolists “the Idolatry of art.”²⁴ Casal's self-imposed and rigid standards were extremely difficult to attain; and, unwilling to acquiesce to prevailing norms, he was rarely satisfied with his own work. What Casal wrote about José Arburu could have been said of Casal himself: “nunca quedaba satisfecho con sus obras, porque había colocado muy alto su ideal” (I, 282) [he was never satisfied with his works because he had set his ideal very high]. Casal's epitaph attests to his overriding and primary esthetic drive: “Amó solamente la Belleza / Que ahora encuentre la Verdad su alma” (p. 55) [He loved only Beauty / Let his soul now find Truth].

In his never-ending quest for an innovative expression and for intellectual and sensory stimulation, Julián del Casal promoted an extension of literature. Through a diffusion of techniques he attempted to establish a continuity between the written word and the plastic arts. His collection “Mi museo ideal” [“My Ideal Museum”] consists of ten sonnets that correspond to an equal number of paintings by the French symbolist artist Gustave Moreau. Each of the poems is a verbal painting that approximates the chromatic richness of a particular canvas while simultaneously probing its meaning; the poems reveal the palette of a painter who has a keen sense of color, an artist who feels through his senses.²⁵

The apprenticeship of Julián del Casal was a long, steady, and conscientious one, beginning with the appreciation and emulation of compatible approaches by other artists, like Joris-Karl Huysmans who, according to Casal, “traspasa las fronteras literarias, refundiendo los procedimientos más refinados de las otras artes, especialmente los de la orfebrería, el mosaico y la pintura” (I, 177) [goes beyond literary boundaries, recasting the most refined procedures of other arts, especially those related to gold or silver work, mosaic, and painting]. It is quite fitting that Casal used the French writer to illustrate the extensive scope of literature. Huysmans created a character—Des Esseintes—with whom the bemused Casal might be identified, a refined spirit who also had “unrealizable ideals and was beginning to outline his experiments in colour.”²⁶ Undoubtedly, Casal himself began to manipulate color when he first lamented “que nuestra pluma no tenga, en estos momentos, la fineza de un pincel” (II, 25) [that our pen does not have, in these moments, the fineness of an artist's brush]. Eventually he developed this technique, and his profound admiration for plastic expression provided the incentive: “Habiendo sentido siempre un gran amor por la pintura, yo había tratado de hacer, en aquella composición, dos cuadros poéticos, uno en el estilo de Perugino y otro en el estilo de Rembrandt” (I, 267) [Having always felt a great love for painting, I tried to make, in that composition, two poetic paintings, one in the style of Perugino and another in the style of Rembrandt].

Bearing in mind that the underlying intention is to form an artificial realm as discordant with the environment as possible, it should come as no surprise that Casal avails himself of the illusive capabilities of the plastic arts. Once he has achieved his purpose, the painter can reap its benefits:

la hora de arrinconar la tela esbozada, pasar la espátula sobre la paleta y aprisionar el color en sus frascos, dejando que su espíritu, como halcón desencantado, se aleje de la tierra y se remonte a los espacios azules de la fantasía, donde las quimeras, como mariposas de oro en torno de una estrella, revolotean sin cesar.

(I, 265)

[the time for laying aside the sketched canvas, for passing the knife over the palette and closing the colors in their tubes, allowing his spirit, like a disenchanted falcon, to withdraw from the earth and to flee to the blue spaces of fantasy, where chimeras, like golden butterflies around a star, flutter incessantly.]

By means of a powerful symbol of elevation and freedom, the writer has achieved the levitation of a deserving spirit to an artificial and ethereal region of recognition and dreams. Supplementary images—“blues,” “butterflies,” and “a star”—enhance the dignifying nature of this realm. Since both literary and plastic arts espouse no other objective than “el de satisfacer una necesidad espiritual” (II, 177) [the satisfaction of a spiritual necessity], they can share the attainment of this level of fulfillment and reward, where “el Arte se conserve, en las más puras cimas” (I, 177) [Art may be kept on the purest summits].

Access to this artificial world in which dreams, aspirations, hopes and recompense amalgamate harmoniously, was possible only for superior beings whose entire lives were an exemplary devotion to estheticism of one sort or another, and who possessed a spirit that was “impaciente por abrir las alas” (III, 64) [impatient to spread its wings]. In Casal's view, Rafael Díaz Albertini and Gaspar Villate were such spirits: “Albertini transportaba las llamas desconocidas, en las notas de oro de su violín, al paraíso azul del Ideal y Villate, por medio de sus creaciones, iba ascendiendo a la Cumbre Sagrada, donde la Gloria aguarda a sus elegidos” (III, 60) [Albertini transported the unknown flames, in the golden notes of his violin, to the blue paradise of the Ideal; and Villate, by means of his creations, was climbing to the Holy Summit, where Glory awaits the chosen ones]. Again we must notice the ascending motion imparted by the use of appropriate images. Casal himself fervently strove to reach this world of artificiality and consequent spirituality. As a poet, he was cognizant of the potential innate in his literary production:

Aves mis versos son, que se detienen
en las páginas blancas de tu libro,
pidiéndote, con voz arrulladora,
que les dejes hacer en tu alma un nido.

(p. 212)

[My verses are birds that stop
on the white pages of your book,
asking you, in a lulling voice,
to let them build a nest in your soul.]

Unfortunately, a prolonged stay in this artificial region is untenable. Despite the unquestionable protection it offered to the aberrant spirit, there is always the inexorable return to the real world, expressed by Casal in terms of a descending motion:

Así mi ensueño, pájaro canoro
de níveas plumas y rosado pico,
al querer en el mundo hallar cabida,
encontró de lo real los muros de oro
y deshecho, cual frágil abanico,
cayó entre el fango inmundo de la vida.

(p. 143)

[Thus my reverie, a song bird
of snowy feathers and rosy beak,
wanting to find a place in this world,
found the golden walls of reality
and, in pieces, like a fragile fan,
fell into the filthy mud of life.]

Casal's artificial creation crumbles due to the constant pressures of his materialistic milieu; and, however hard he tries to sustain his visions, he is constantly haunted by overwhelming signs that herald his fall. Literature, art, dreams, and any other means of artificiality are supportive only to a certain degree, inasmuch as “Al salir del magnífico establecimiento, mi espíritu se sintió dolorosamente impresionado por el espectáculo de las calles. Me parecía haber descendido desde la altura de un antiguo palacio italiano, poblado de maravillas artísticas, hasta el fondo de inmundos subterráneos, interminables y angostos, llenos de quejas, gritos y blasfemias” (II, 77) [Upon leaving the magnificent establishment, my spirit felt itself painfully impressed by the spectacle of the streets. It seemed as if I had descended from the heights of an ancient Italian palace, filled with artistic marvels, to the depths of filthy tunnels, endless and narrow, filled with grumblings, screams, and blasphemies]. This is a Dantesque descent to the infernal atmosphere of the surroundings that, through brutal contrast, clarifies the need for these evocations.

Even though Julián del Casal was unable to find constant security in artificiality, he was able to sustain it long enough to provide himself with respite from a reality that he strongly abhorred. To these moments of solitude and tranquility we owe a unique and personal blending of literary and esthetic influences and the expression of an anxiety that was genuine. Casal's message will have enduring relevance as long as there are beings who cannot cope with their immediate circumstances and who seek ways to evade them.

Notes

1. “Tras una enfermedad,” in Poesías (Havana: Consejo Nacional de Cultura, 1963), p. 123. Throughout this paper references to the poetry of Julián del Casal—page numbers only, given parenthetically in the text—will be to this edition. The translations are mine.

2. For an example of the traditional interpretation consult Rufino Blanco Fombona, El modernismo y los poetas modernistas (Madrid: Mundo Latino, 1929), p. 29. The new interpretation was spearheaded by Ivan A. Schulman in Génesis del modernismo (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1968), pp. 16-17.

3. Juan J. Geada y Fernández says in “Introducción a la Selección de Poesías de Julián del Casal,” Colección Libros Cubanos, 23 (1931), xxxviii: “Por el gran número de autores que leía, podemos llegar a la conculsión de que fue tal la influencia por ellos ejercida, que la personalidad real de Casal fue sustituyéndose por una personalidad puramente artística. Desde entonces no se ajustaba a la realidad del vivir de los demás. Vivía en su propio ambiente, hijo de sus lecturas en amoroso consorcio con la fantasía” [Because of the great number of authors that he read, we can reach the conclusion that their influence was such that the real personality of Casal was replaced by a purely artistic personality. From then on the could not adjust to the reality of other people's lives. He lived in his own environment, offspring of his readings in amorous consortium with fantasy].

4. Roland N. Stromberg, Realism, Naturalism, and Symbolism: Modes of Thought and Expression in Europe, 1848-1914 (New York: Harper, 1968), p. 238.

5. Gustavo Duplessis, “Julián del Casal,” Revista Bimestre Cubana, No 3 (1945), p. 268.

6. Schulman states that Casal lived “en medio de fuerzas contradictorias, polares, condenado a comparar con dolor el profundo e intransitable abismo entre sus gustos refinados y exquisitos y los valores materialistas y positivistas que lo circundaban” (p. 17) [in the midst of contradictory, polar forces, condemned to compare with sorrow the deep and unbreachable abyss between his refined and exquisite tastes and the materialistic and positivistic values that surrounded him].

7. Ricardo Gullón, Direcciones del modernismo (Madrid: Gredos, 1963), p. 96.

8. Julián del Casal, Prosas, 3 vols. (Havana: Consejo Nacional de Cultura, 1963-1964), I, 168. Henceforth, all prose quotations will be indicated in the text by volume number and page number. The translations are mine.

9. Ralph Harper, The Seventh Solitude: Metaphysical Homelessness in Kirkegaard,Dostoevsky and Nietzsche (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965), p. 5.

10. Mario Rodríguez-Fernández, El modernismo en Chile y en Hispanoamérica (Santiago de Chile: Editorial Universitaria, 1967), p. 47.

11. See, e.g., Stéphane Mallarmé, “Sea Breeze,” in An Anthology of French Poetry from Nerval to Valéry in English Translation with French Originals, ed. Angel Flores (New York: Doubleday, 1958), p. 147 (cited hereafter as Flores), and Arthur Rimbaud, “Delirium (II),” in Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine: Selected Verse and Prose Poems, ed. Joseph M. Bernstein (New York: Citadel, 1947), p. 186 (cited hereafter as Bernstein).

12. John E. Englekirk, Irving A. Leonard, John T. Reid, and John A. Crow, An Anthology of Spanish American Literature, 2nd ed. (New York: Appleton, 1968), II, 394.

13. See Flores, p. 109.

14. Flores, pp. 85 and 338.

15. Bernstein, p. 30.

16. Casal's “Horridum Somnium” bears a remarkable resemblance to Baudelaire's “Un Voyage à Cythère” [“A Voyage to Cythera”]: “Les yeux étaient deux trous, et du ventre effondré / Les intestins pesants lui coulaient sur les cuisses, / Et ses bourreaux, gorgés de hideuses délices, / L'avaient à coups de bec absolument châtré” [“The eyes were holes, and from the ruined gut / Across the thighs the heavy bowels poured out, / And crammed with hideous pleasures, peck by peck, / His butchers had quite stripped him of his sex”] (Flores, pp. 43 and 314).

17. A. E. Carter, “The Cult of Artificiality,” University of Toronto Quarterly, 25 (1956), 455.

18. “Todas las noches, en La Habana, son iguales. Siempre vemos el mismo cielo, tachonado de los mismos astros; aspiramos el mismo ambiente impregnado de los mismos olores; recorremos las mismas calles, alumbradas por los mismos mecheros de gas; penetramos en los mismos cafés, invadidos por las mismas gentes. … Vivimos condenados a girar perpetuamente, en el mismo círculo, sin poder escaparnos de él. Así la vida nos parece abominable, y brota incesantemente de nuestros labios impíos la súplica diabólica de Raudelaire:

    O Satan! aie pitié de ma longue misère” (II, 27).

    [All the nights in Havana are alike. We always see the same sky, spattered with the same stars; we breathe in the same atmosphere, impregnated by the same smells; we walk the same streets, illuminated by the same gas lights; we enter the same cafés, invaded by the same people. … We live to gyrate perpetually, in the same circle, without being able to escape from it. Thus, life appears abominable to us, and from our impious lips incessantly comes Baudelaire's diabolical supplication:

    Oh, Satan, have pity on my long misery!]

19. George Ross Ridge, The Hero in French Decadent Literature (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1961), p. viii.

20. Bernstein, p. 120.

21. Albert L. Guerard. Art for Art's Sake (New York: Schocken, 1936), p. 292.

22. Ibid., p. 337.

23. Rafael Ferreres, Los límites del modernismo (Madrid: Editorial Torres, 1964), p. 68.

24. Erich Auerbach, “The Aesthetic Dignity of the Fleurs du mal,” in Baudelaire: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Henri Peyre (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962), p. 168.

25. Cf. Duplessis (see n. 4, above), p. 255.

26. Joris-Karl Huysmans, Against Nature, trans. Robert Baldick (Suffolk: The Chaucer Press, 1976), p. 211.