Estudio de la teoría de la cultura en la novela Paradiso (1966) del escritor José Lezama Lima en relación a las menciones a obras de pintura, escultura, arte-objeto, arquitectura y música, así como a los aspectos claves que la constituyen. La metodología utilizada se basa en la teoría del pliegue desarrollada en los postulados culturales y estético-filosóficos de Gilles Deleuze. La tesis consta de los siguientes capítulos: Introducción: El peso de lo irreal: Imagen, cultura, poética. I, Paradiso: La maison baroque. II, Galería de coral: Estudio libre de pintura y escultura. III, Arquitectura de la Imagen. IV, Sinfonía de la Imagen: con la música por dentro. El último capítulo realiza la interpretación y conclusión general, centrándose en las tres nociones que sustentan la teoría cultural del escritor: lo barroco como expresión cultural del ser americano, la imagen como clave cultural y el mito como espacio de la cultura. / Thesis (Master, Spanish) -- Queen's University, 2010-12-07 14:27:25.79

In this study Lezama’s Paradiso is “the mysterious labyrinth of the cognitive image,” a metaphor for his search for ultimate enlightenment--knowledge of super nature toward the Highest Good. The Preamble introduces the novel Paradiso as his poetic sum of knowledge generated by the Cognitive Eros like an encyclopedic narrative with revelation at the center. Chapter One presents labyrinth fundamentals and the mythic method to analyze the novel. It identifies a heightened perception or sensation, cognition, and imagination as “new” senses “beyond reason” needed to read this “new other” novel. It also explains how the author’s clues aid comprehension, how the poetic word illuminates a fourfold method for interpretation, and how the double structure of the narrative superimposes a circuitous pathway of multicursal storylines and descriptions of Old World images upon a linear unicursal surface narrative. Chapter Two examines three cognitive images in Lezama’s labyrinth: Confluence analyzes how multiple streams of thought and images flow from chaos into order in the poet’s mind and how the labyrinth’s principle of opposition represents the convergence of contradictory images whose combination will inspire other images. Androgyne or Oneness illustrates the nature of creativity--how symmetrical opposite images unite or copulate to germinate other imagery. Figure and Revelation show Lezama’s use of Scriptural figura to represent the prefigurative sense of his writing. Chapter Three interprets Lezama’s own labyrinthine method and steps for interpreting Paradiso derived from his scrutiny of “the other” analogous novel, Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela. The study concludes that Paradiso delivers Lezama’s Delphic Course, a systematized literary orientation based on the belief that each text transmits wisdom. The protagonist/reader undergoes Anthropophany, is transformed into a learned interpreter and a higher self toward manifestation in the image of the Word/God. With the author-protagonist as mentor Paradiso proclaims Lezama’s ideal program of cultural, intellectual, ethical, and spiritual formation of the individual after the classic Greek Paideia, parallel to the way of purification and redemption achieved through the Paideia of Christ. Finally, the text embodies Lezama’s crusade to restore Cuba as a bridge for cultural exchange and development between the Old World and the New World. / text

The aesthetic placement and period designation of Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) and José Lezama Lima (1910-1976) are complicated issues among critics. Borges is obviously considered a predecessor of the Latin American literary “boom,” but despite that taxonomy his work transcends that definition and provides a foundation for new trends and styles, such as the “neobarroco” cultivated by Severo Sarduy. Lezama is considered part of the second wave of the “boom,” but his work feeds, stylistically, from the Spanish baroque. At the same time, Lezama’s daring treatment of homoeroticism and his revolutionary system of images place him after the “boom” in a narrative style that is postmodern. This study undertakes a thorough revision of external and internal issues, revealing the key linguistic and fictive elements that characterize both writers. Through discourse analysis and close reading, a poetic system is formulated, which incorporate features of the “neobarroco,” “boom” and postmodern narrative styles. This dissertation uses a polar structure to analyze both poetic visions and concludes that they are compatible and symmetrical. From this perspective, Borges and Lezama belong to the “core” of literature that centers its emphasis in the creation of a system versus other modes of writing in which mimetic function prevails. By doing this and by recycling world culture, they create postmodern myth: the new building material for Hispanic American literature. There are only a few studies that explore the works of Borges and Lezama within the context of Baroque aesthetics. For the first time, this dissertation offers a comprehensive analysis that considers their poetic visions at large. Besides the difference in perspective, defined as macro-spatial in Borges and micro-spatial in Lezama, there are many similarities in content and form. Both writers question the cause and effect relationship and the modern use of metaphor. They also share a redefinition of genre as well as a hedonistic approach to literature and culture. This kinship in poetic vision is revealed through the polar method used for this study, which proposes a new form of aesthetic placement and period designation.

La crítica de arte escrita por el poeta, narrador y ensayista José Lezama Lima proporciona una triple perspectiva. Observa tanto en los ensayos compilados en La visualidad infinita, como en los artículos de la revista Orígenes el diálogo entre las corrientes artísticas internacionales y una pintura vanguardista cubana, reflexiona sobre elementos propios de la labor plástica y teje un continuo contrapunto entre la poesía y la pintura. Este encuentro entre los dos quehaceres artísticos, donde la imagen juega un rol fundamental, desdoblándose en el par imago visible-pictórica e imago invisible-poética, es el eje desde el cual pueden pensarse los planteamientos críticos de este autor sobre ambas manifestaciones estéticas, el pintor René Portocarrero y los procedimientos y técnicas de la composición pictórica. Si la crítica de arte hace parte de una poética lezamiana, un análisis acerca del modo de esta continuidad se constituye en el centro del presente proyecto de investigación. Nuestro propósito es analizar la percepción de la historia en estas dos artes, la prolongación entre los elementos del sistema poético y las propuestas acerca de la pintura en los dos ensayos extensos Paralelos. La pintura y la poesía en Cuba en los siglos XVIII y XIX y Homenaje a René Portocarrero. Como se trata de un estudio que parte de la literatura hacia las artes visuales, nos interesa el modo (o las operaciones) en los que desde el discurso de este escritor se asume el texto pictórico, la obra plástica. De esta manera, incursionamos en los planteos de disciplinas como la ecfrasis o en el desarrollo histórico de la frase horaciana Ut pictura poesis, una reflexión que evidencia la antigüedad del lazo entre ambas disciplinas estéticas e, igualmente, demuestra su actualidad, ya que en las dos últimas décadas asistimos a la multiplicación de estudios dedicados a este vínculo tanto en el ámbito anglosajón como en algunos sectores de la crítica literaria en lengua española / The writings about art criticism from the poet, narrator an essayist José Lezama Lima provides a triple perspective. Observes in the essays collected in La visualidad infinita as well as in the articles of the journal Orígenes the dialogue between the international artistic movements and an avant-garde Cuban painting, reflects on elements pertaining to plastic works and weaves a continuous counterpoint between poetry and painting. This encounter of the two artistic endeavors, where image plays a fundamental role, unfolding in the pair imago visible-pictorial and imago invisible-poetic, is the axis from which one can understand the Lezama´s critical proposals about the history of both aesthetic manifestations, the painter René Portocarrero and the methods and techniques of the pictorial composition. If art criticism is part of a lezamian poetic, an analysis regarding the character of this continuity constitutes the center of this research. Our objective is to analyze the historic perception in these two arts, the continuation between the elements of the poetic system and the approaches about painting in the two extensive essays Paralelos. La pintura y la poesía en Cuba en los siglos XVIII y XIX and Homenaje a René Portocarrero. As it pertains to a study that begins in literature and moves to visual arts, we have interest in the mode (or procedures) in which from this writers discourse, the pictorial text, plastic work is assumed. In this way, we make an incursion into the disciplines posed, like ekphrasis or in the historic development of the horatian sentence Ut pictura poesis, a reflection that demonstrates equally the antiquity of the tie between both disciplines as well as its topicality, since in the past two decades we have seen the proliferation of studies dedicated to this bond not only in the English speaking world, but also in some areas of the literary criticism in Spanish language

La crítica de arte escrita por el poeta, narrador y ensayista José Lezama Lima proporciona una triple perspectiva. Observa tanto en los ensayos compilados en La visualidad infinita, como en los artículos de la revista Orígenes el diálogo entre las corrientes artísticas internacionales y una pintura vanguardista cubana, reflexiona sobre elementos propios de la labor plástica y teje un continuo contrapunto entre la poesía y la pintura. Este encuentro entre los dos quehaceres artísticos, donde la imagen juega un rol fundamental, desdoblándose en el par imago visible-pictórica e imago invisible-poética, es el eje desde el cual pueden pensarse los planteamientos críticos de este autor sobre ambas manifestaciones estéticas, el pintor René Portocarrero y los procedimientos y técnicas de la composición pictórica. Si la crítica de arte hace parte de una poética lezamiana, un análisis acerca del modo de esta continuidad se constituye en el centro del presente proyecto de investigación. Nuestro propósito es analizar la percepción de la historia en estas dos artes, la prolongación entre los elementos del sistema poético y las propuestas acerca de la pintura en los dos ensayos extensos Paralelos. La pintura y la poesía en Cuba en los siglos XVIII y XIX y Homenaje a René Portocarrero. Como se trata de un estudio que parte de la literatura hacia las artes visuales, nos interesa el modo (o las operaciones) en los que desde el discurso de este escritor se asume el texto pictórico, la obra plástica. De esta manera, incursionamos en los planteos de disciplinas como la ecfrasis o en el desarrollo histórico de la frase horaciana Ut pictura poesis, una reflexión que evidencia la antigüedad del lazo entre ambas disciplinas estéticas e, igualmente, demuestra su actualidad, ya que en las dos últimas décadas asistimos a la multiplicación de estudios dedicados a este vínculo tanto en el ámbito anglosajón como en algunos sectores de la crítica literaria en lengua española / The writings about art criticism from the poet, narrator an essayist José Lezama Lima provides a triple perspective. Observes in the essays collected in La visualidad infinita as well as in the articles of the journal Orígenes the dialogue between the international artistic movements and an avant-garde Cuban painting, reflects on elements pertaining to plastic works and weaves a continuous counterpoint between poetry and painting. This encounter of the two artistic endeavors, where image plays a fundamental role, unfolding in the pair imago visible-pictorial and imago invisible-poetic, is the axis from which one can understand the Lezama´s critical proposals about the history of both aesthetic manifestations, the painter René Portocarrero and the methods and techniques of the pictorial composition. If art criticism is part of a lezamian poetic, an analysis regarding the character of this continuity constitutes the center of this research. Our objective is to analyze the historic perception in these two arts, the continuation between the elements of the poetic system and the approaches about painting in the two extensive essays Paralelos. La pintura y la poesía en Cuba en los siglos XVIII y XIX and Homenaje a René Portocarrero. As it pertains to a study that begins in literature and moves to visual arts, we have interest in the mode (or procedures) in which from this writers discourse, the pictorial text, plastic work is assumed. In this way, we make an incursion into the disciplines posed, like ekphrasis or in the historic development of the horatian sentence Ut pictura poesis, a reflection that demonstrates equally the antiquity of the tie between both disciplines as well as its topicality, since in the past two decades we have seen the proliferation of studies dedicated to this bond not only in the English speaking world, but also in some areas of the literary criticism in Spanish language

This thesis project explores the connection between Cuban identity and the twentieth-century Neobaroque. The paper approaches the Neobaroque as a concept that reoriginates or "refracts" culture, implying a relationship between Baroque forms and post-colonial Latin America that creates a transformation of cultural expression. Furthermore, the Neobaroque is seen relating to questions of cultural identity, post-colonialism, transculturation, mestizaje, and Latin American modernity. The Neobaroque's relevancy with Cuba is stipulated in twentieth-century writings of three Cuban authors known as the Cuban triumvirate: José Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, and Severo Sarduy. Similar themes of these writers concerning the Neobaroque's connection with the urban environment of Havana as well as connections to José Martí's writing Nuestra América are highlighted as key components connecting the Neobaroque with Cuban culture. / Graduate / 0336 / 0626 / scruiksh@uvic.ca