I've discovered the influence of Vallejo on Quevedo. How a twentieth-century poet influences one in the seventeenth century, I'm not sure. What I mean is that you can pick up a certain "precursor" quality in Quevedo that would be invisible, wouldn't exist at all, if we didn't know Vallejo as well.
I think Borges turned away from Quevedo because the latter was a writer too invested in verbal effects. I'm wondering whether the Quevedian aspect of Vallejo is a cliché that I'm not even aware of, not being a Vallejo specialist (good enough for undergraduate teaching.)
Dude, you sound like Bloom.
ResponderEliminarHow so? I'll take that as an insult.
ResponderEliminarNo insult, just a poke--in that Bloom's always making anachronisto-influential statements along the lines of "Cervantes was influenced by Joyce, because blah blah blah."
ResponderEliminarA joke of the opposite-of-an-insult variety.
ResponderEliminarThe idea comes from Borges' essay "Kafka's Precursors." He identifies Kafkaesque moments in a few texts and then states that we would be unable to connect these texts together without Kafka himself. The lesson is that a writer creates his or her own precursors. I'm sure Bloom took it from Borges.
ResponderEliminarIt is a Borgesian construct, now that you mention it. Interesting.
ResponderEliminar