SOURCE: “In Humble Conformity: Cipher and Vision in Jorge Guillén's Poetry,” in Allegory Revisited: Ideals of Mankind, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994, pp. 31-57.

In the following essay, García-Gómez discusses the theme of “creatureliness” in Guillén's poetry.

Emilia de Zuleta, one of the most careful and perspicacious students of Guillén's poetry, has established the existence of three distinct thematic clusters in his work. As she says, the “first one comprises being, time, and love … The second one includes chance, chaos, suffering, death, and memory … The third one involves imminence, enjoyment, jubilation, God, and the devil”.¹ According to her, the third thematic cluster is clearly identifiable in Cántico, Clamor, and the rest of Guillén's poetic production thereafter, while the first two appear throughout his entire work.²

In my opinion, Zuleta's classification is interesting both for what it mentions and for what it leaves out...