Metaliterature

The article, after a brief introduction in which the origin, development, ideology and main features of steampunk genre are reviewed, analyses the novel El mapa del tiempo by Félix J. Palma, primarily from two pieces of information: self-references and metaliterary elements, on the one hand, and time allusions, on the other. The interconnection between both elements allows us to conclude that in this novel the author seems to use the idea of literature in a metaphorical sense, with which reflects upon the dual consideration of artistic creation like potency and act at the same time. This last point would be related to the idea of "parallel universes", which allows the possibility for contesting the absolute value of the idea of time.

Empleando nociones de la teoría metaliteraria y poética, este ensayo afirma, a 65 años de la publicación del poemario Poemas y antipoemas (1954), de Nicanor Parra,  que  la  antipoesía,  en  tanto  proyecto  de  un  solo  autor,  no  solo  estaría  hablando constantemente de un modo de enunciar poesía, sino de cómo ganar ese lugar de enunciación. Otra manera de verlo: que, de una forma más o menos explícita, bajo el discurso humorístico y coloquial de la antipoesía se presenta en estado latente un metadiscurso, una forma de confrontar a la poesía, pero con poesía. En efecto, como han comentado otros críticos, en la obra de Parra hay un planteamiento en clave posmoderna a la crisis de la representación propia de la literatura del siglo XX, pero en la posibilidad de un proyecto tan mayúsculo el autor advertirá pronto que si solo trasgrede la retórica de cierto tipo de poesía, apenas habrá rebajado la polisemia del texto literario. Eso que se ha conocido como desacralización  del  lenguaje  poético  y  del  ejercicio  mismo  de  la  poesía,  en  Parra  funciona  al  comienzo  como  dispositivo  expresivo  antipoético,  pero  luego  se  volverá  su  eje  donde  pivote  la  propuesta  entera:  la  de  un  profesor  de  liceo obscuro capaz de inventar no un lenguaje literario, sino un movimiento de  neovanguardia  que  alcanza  hasta  la  plástica,  la  traducción  y  la  anécdota  cotidiana.  Ya  sea  como  incordio,  ataque  directo,  chiste,  artefacto  plástico  o  canción popular, Parra parece confirmar el núcleo duro de la antipoesía: que es, ante todo, metapoesía amarga, recursiva, y que tiene el recurso humorístico solo como puerta de acceso.

Abstract:
Using notions of the metaliterary and poetic theory, this essay states, 65 years from the first publication of the poetry book Poemas y antipoemas (1954), that antipo-etry as a project of a single author would not only be constantly speaking about a way to enunciate poetry, but also about how to achieve that place of enunciation. Another way to see it: in a not so explicit form, under the humoristic and colloquial speech of the antipoetry, there is a metadiscourse in a latent state, a way to confront poetry with poetry. In fact, as some other critics have said, in the work of Parra there is an approach in postmodern key to the crisis of representation of the proper literature of the 20th century, but in the possibility of a major project, the author realized soon that if he transgressed the rhetoric of certain kind of poetry, the poly-semy of the literary text will have been barely reduced. This, that has been known as desacralization of the poetic language and the actual exercise of poetry, at first functions as an expressive antipoetic device in Parra, but then it comes back to its axis where the entire proposal pivots: a dark school teacher capable of inventing not a literary language but a movement of Neo-avantgarde that covers plastic works, translation  and  the  everyday  anecdote.  Either  as  nuisance,  direct  attack,  a  joke,  a  plastic  artifact  or  a  popular  song,  Parra  seems  to  confirm  the  hard  nucleus  of  antipoetry:  it  is,  above  all,  bitter  and  recursive  metapoetry  in  which  humor  acts  only as an access door.

Explorando o conceito de tradução e a importância do domínio da língua de chegada e de partida, este ensaio explica o ponto de vista que leva António Feliciano de Castilho e alguns teorizadores portugueses coetâneos a acreditar que, se Ovídio tivesse sido um poeta português do século XIX, as suas obras teriam sido escritas como as traduções românticas realizadas nesse período.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Propertius’ poem 1,2,
where Cynthia is introduced to the readers. Following the hermeneutical guide of those scholars who interpret amor and puella as metaliterary tropes, and abandoning, thus, the traditional biographical reading, I claim that a close reading of this elegy allows us to conclude that the figure of the beloved functions as a metaphor of the ideal poetical product envisaged by Propertius. Shaping what will become
a Leitmotiv in his subjective amatory poetry, Propertius establishes the indivisible association of poetry and love through the identification of Cynthia with his own love poetry.

Compiling and publishing a folk narrative anthology is anything but a trivial, neutral undertaking, especially if this is set in a period of great literary and cultural fervour as was the late nineteenth century in Ireland. With his Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) and Irish Fairy Tales (1892) W.B. Yeats gives rise to a complex narrative system in which, necessarily, heterogeneous, if not contradictory voices and points of view meet, and the editor’s task is precisely to make this polyphony work. In the anthologized stories one observes the overlapping and interweaving of narrative levels that reflect a wide range of ideas, beliefs, knowledge, values from which emerges a picture of cultural and social Irish stratification, as well as of relationships being established between the lower and ruling classes, folklore and literature, orality and literacy. After examining in general the folk narrative anthology as an inherently polyphonic object, this essay proposes a specific reading of the Yeatsian collections, focusing in particular on the paratextual apparatus, namely on the borders, the frames of the text – where interactions take place between several narrative levels, as well as historical, cultural, and social meanings – in order to identify, if possible, elements of unity and coherence in a system constitutively plurivocal and open to a variety of interpretations.
Keywords: anthology, folklore, Irish Revival, storytelling, W.B. Yeats

"(For an abstract in English, covering both parts of this article, please scroll down). Questa è la prima parte di un articolo che individua una comune tematica metaletteraria nei primi tre romanzi di Alessandro Baricco. Questa prima parte si occupa di Castelli di Rabbia (1991).

This study argues that the metaliterary aspect constitutes a fundamental and unifying concern within Alessandro Baricco’s first three novels. This author’s leaning towards a self-reflexive mode of representation is demonstrated by the endings of Castelli di rabbia and Oceano mare. However, this aspect pervades all the main thematic strands of both novels, amounting to a consistent vision on Baricco’s part. This also relates to the author’s views on the relationship of the general public with art and culture, as illustrated in Baricco’s newspaper articles and musicological essays. A similar vision applies to the author’s third novel, Seta, which, though it does not include an explicitly metafictional epilogue, can in fact be seen as a daring and coherent metaphor of the role and development of fiction in the last few centuries."