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TERRY OXFORD TAYLOR

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This is to certify that the
thesis entitled
A STUDY OF THE USE or SYMBOL
IN THE WORK OF
MANUEL GUTIERREZ NAJERA

presented by

Terry Oxford Taylor

has been accepted towards fulfillment
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ABSTRACT
A STUDY OF SYMBOLIC EXPRESSION

IN THE WORK OF
MANUEL GUTIERREZ NAJERA

By
Terry Oxford Taylor

Gutierrez Najera employs a pattern of images and
characterizations which symbolically recreate for the reader
his personal vision of the world from an aesthetic and
idealistic perspective. In part, he was influenced by Posi-
tivism which was a philosophic vogue in Mexico throughout
the late nineteenth century. Although he denounced the
materialistic tendencies of Positivism, he accepted the view
that man's existence was finite without the consolation of a
Christian afterlife. Motivated by the spiritual vacuum
created by Positivism, Gutierrez Néjera chose art and ideal-
ism as a viable means for fulfillment of human spiritual
capacities.

As an idealist, Gutierrez Néjera shows the greatest
affinity to the nineteenth century Romantic tradition. This
is demonstrated in his criticism, which underscores the idea
that man lives in cosmic and social isolation and can find
salvation only through individual endeavor premised on a
mental ability of the individual subjectively to create
value for his actions. Within the nineteenth century Roman-
tic tradition he most resembles the aesthetes (parnassians,

symbolists, decadents, impressionists) of the last decades

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Terry Oxford Taylor

of the century. Art represented to Gutiérrez Najera the
highest possible goal of aesthetic endeavor.

The most important groups of symbols, therefore, are
those which serve to create value, or an ennobling experi-
ence, through representations of art and ideality. The
names of writers, painters, musicians, specific works, musi-
cal instruments and finely sculptured objects commonly recur
to reinforce an aesthetic ideal. The author's frequent tex-
tual references to himself as a writer or the use of artists
as central subjects in the stories and poems are conspicuous
examples of giving art central importance. Idealism is in-
voked through an imagery which suggests the ethereal world
of pure idea: birds, flowers, precious metals, incense, sky,
sea, mist. These items tend to have intangible, fleeting or
mysterious qualities which makes them fitting correlatives
to spiritual realities.

Gutierrez Najera also seeks to make himself, through
his writing, into a timeless and universal continuum. For-
eign names and places function as symbols of universality
throughout Gutierrez Najera's writing. He uses references
to the past, from ancient literatures to his own memories
or those of his characters, with the apparent purpose of in-
voking an archetype of spiritual perfection that he hopes
his own work will measure up to and thus survive eternally.
mythological references are particularly important symbols
of Gutierrez Néjera's dedication to timeless archetypal
norms. In myth he saw the ultimate symbol of truth which

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Terry Oxford Taylor

negated materialistic chronological time. Myth, therefore,
is commonly invoked to give finite personal existence an
infinite temporal extension.

Along with the aspiration to universality there is
also a concern for national problems. Within his own frame
of ideas, Gutierrez Najera saw Mexico's historical dilemma
as being the same as his own, a struggle between materialism
and idealism. The contest between materialism and idealism
led in another direction, in addition to social preoccupa-
tions, toward a concentration on psychological processes.
The will of the individual to survive and achieve spiritual
fulfillment is repeatedly portrayed through fantasy and
dream. In Gutierrez Néjera's interpretation, dreams func-
tioned either as a revelation of the hellish world of mater-
ialism and metaphysical isolation, or of the realm of aes-
thetic idealism. The most important single contribution to
come from his use of dreams and fantasy was the use of color
synaesthesia.

Color synaesthesia epitomizes the totality of Gu-
tierrez Néjera's achievement as an artist. More than mere
stylistic device, the use of color as a correlative to emo-
tive states symbolizes a response to the author‘s immediate
environment revealing a particularly fine awareness of psy-
chological processes. Equally important, color synaesthesia
symbolizes a spiritual norm in the service of aestheticism
and as such becomes a temporal symbol of infinity. Briefly

stated, Gutierrez Najera, without necessarily having the

Terry UXIord Taylor

rigorous system of a philosopher, did have a consistent

world view which he worked into artistic form.

A STUDY OF SYMBOLIC EXPRESSION
IN THE WORK OF
MANUEL GUTIERREZ NAJERA

BY

Terry Oxford Taylor

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Romance Languages

1971

g;Copyright by
TERRY OXFORD TAYLOR
1971

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my most sincere appreciation
to Professor Donald Yates and to my Graduate Committee for
their patience, encouragement and suggestions in the prepar-

ation of this dissertation.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter
I. GUTIERREZ NAJERA AND HIS THEORY OF LITERATURE

II. VALUE: AESTHETICISM AND IDEALISM . . . . . .
III. SPACE AND TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IV. IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . .
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

iii

13
101
177
227
309
315
326

INTRODUCTION

This dissertation is an attempt to define the essen-
tial character of the Mexican writer, Manuel Gutiérrez
Najera, through an analysis of the symbolic world he places
before the reader. Although a study of the use of symbol
may contribute significantly to the understanding of any
creative work, it is especially apprOpriate for Gutierrez
Néjera's literary achievement. Both his prose and poetry
employ carefully chosen allusions, images and stylistic
techniques with the evident purpose of artistically recrea-
ting the universe as he perceived it. This apprehended
universe is constructed from wide-ranging references which
are drawn not only from ancient myths and world literature,
but also from the poet's immediate social and physical
environment.

This essentially symbolic characteristic of his
work is not accidental. At the beginning of his career
Gutierrez Najera elaborated a literary theory which remained
fundamentally intact until his death. Although this theory,
spelled out in several articles of criticism, does not
mention symbol specifically, the concluding generalization
he made consistently is that literature is beauty and beauty

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is ”la representacidn de lo infinito en lo finito."l In
other words, the artist searches for the eternal substance
of reality and then gives it a symbolic representation in
finite terms. The importance of symbol in Najera's work
cannot be overstressed: in fact, my principal contention
is that in the use of symbol lies a key to the understanding
of Nijera's work and to what the author sought to communi-
cats.

Since this study concerns itself primarily with
symbol, some clarification of the term ”symbol" is essen-
tial. Definitions of the term are many and the implications
it can have differ widely among various disciplines. Psy-
chologists, theologians, scientists and philosophers, for
example, each find for it quite different interpretations.
Literary critics are simply without a definite norm for its
use. Northrop Frye noted that symbol could designate ”any
unit of any literary structure that can be isolated for
critical attention."2 William York Tindall, in a fre-
quently quoted study of symbol, agrees with Frye on the
nonspecific properties saying that “analogical embodiment
may be a rhythm, a juxtaposition, an action, a proposition,

a structure, or a poem'3--by poem, meaning any work taken

 

1. manual Gutiérrez Néjera, brass Critica
literaria (Mexico: Universidad Naciona Aut3noma de
igxIco, 1959). p. 55. This work will be referred to
hereafter as Critics.

2. Northrop Frye Anatomy 9; Criticism (New York:
Atheneum, 1966), p. 71.,

3. William Ybrk Tindall, The Literar Symbol
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1932), p. 13.

.ece.

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as a whole.

The German philoSOpher, Ernst Cassirer, has formu-
lated a philosophic system around symbol well-suited to the
intentions of this work. Cassirer first discussed his
theories in a three volume treatise, Th3 Philosophy 92
§ymbolic §Q§m§.1 Later, while teaching in the United
States, he revised and abbreviated his ideas into one volume
titled Ag,§§§51_gg,flgg.2 In this last book, Cassirer holds
that man's most singular attribute, distinct from other
animal species, is not reason but his ability to think in
symbolic forms. Man, in fact, has created a symbolic uni-
verse where such units as language, myth, religion and art
merge.

Cassirer's basic perspective on art is as follows.
The place of art in a symbolic universe is that of a cogni-
tive tool employed in search of knowledge. Art is the
approach to reality most different from science but at the
same time an equally valuable tool of enlightenment. Scien-
tific learning works toward the goal of abstract formulae
and a resulting impoverishment of reality. The scientific
objective is to gather as much information as possible on a
given object and by studied observation and deduction reduce

the characteristics to a simplified whole (esmcz). The

 

l. Ernst Cassirer, Th; Philosophy 2; S bolic
Formg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 195 .

2. Ernst Cassirer, An,Esgay 23,Man (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1966).

4

material of artistic observation becomes symbolic mental
activity in a radically different way. If science is to
simplify and compress reality, art is a reality-expanding
activity always moving away from deductive generalization.
This is a process of exploration, discovery and description
of nature in all its diversity and minuteness. Art then
becomes a symbol of what the artist with his special genius
sees and recreates for his audience.

While Cassirer thereafter engages in a discussion
of beauty and the qualitative aspects of art, these need
not be considered, since numerous critics have clearly
established Gutierrez Najera's eminent position in the world
of Hispanic letters. Alfonso Reyes makes repeated mention
of the importance he accords Gutierrez Najera's poetry,
while Octavio Paz states that in his best moments Najera
reveals ”that other world, that other reality which is the

vision of every true poet."l

As for the prose, it seems
that from the beginning he had a natural feeling for the
medium. It is here that "nuestro Manuel formd su estilo,
cred su personalidad literaria y llego a la plena conciencia
de su fuerza y de su arte.”2 This praise accorded by Justo

Sierra in 1896 has not been significantly altered by any

 

l. Octavio Paz, Anthology gf_Mexican Poetr
(Bloomington: Indiana UEIversity Press, 1933}, p. 35.

2. Justo Sierra, ”Prologo” to Manuel Gutierrez
Najera, Poesfas, Vol. I, 1896, reprinted in Poesias
com letas, ed. by Francisco Gonzalez Guerrero, I
(Mexico: Editorial Porrua, 1953): P. 11.

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5
subsequent critical opinion.

It is not to prove the beauty of Gutierrez Najera's
work, therefore, that Cassirer's study is useful, but as a
means by which to see what the artist sought in his art.

The process is one of trying to get inside the author's mind,
then to gaze outward and contemplate the world as he would
have it eternalized. Given this premise, the symbolic im-
portance of a Hamlet, who occupies a typically central place
in Gutierrez N5jera's world, is not that of a static char-
acter who could be studied as an influence. Hamlet, here,
is a new creation altogether different from the character
Elizabethan audiences knew. The symbolic importance of this
view is that a new personage emerges, conceived by an indi-
vidual temperament which visualizes with the intellectual
tools of the late nineteenth century and takes its bearing
within a particular society.

Given this internal field of view, the most obvious
clue to the writer's symbols are his own consciously ex-
pressed beliefs. To avoid arbitrary conjecture in showing
relationships between reality as experienced by the author
and its incorporation into artistic form, as much emphasis
as possible is given to textual statements by Gutierrez
Najera. The first chapter, therefore, gives a detailed
account of the author's literary theories, explaining how
he saw literature in relation to life. In practice it is
sometimes difficult to separate his criticism from the

poetry and creative prose. There are short passages of

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criticism interspersed throughout his fictional writings

and poetry and it is not unusual to find impressionistic

paragraphs of lyrical or fictional nature in analytical

articles of criticism. As a generalization, the principle

nexus between the criticism, stories and poetry is an aes-

thetic idealism, of a kind succinctly defined as:

l. The view that the goal of fine art is an embodi-
ment or reflection of the perfections of archetypal
ideas or timeless essences (Platonism). 2. The view
of art which emphasizes feeling, sentiment, and
idealization (as opposed to ”literal reproduction” of
fact). 3. The view of art which emphasizes cognitive
content (as opposed to abstract feeling, primitive
intuition, formal line or structure, mere color or
tone .

A basic ideological concern is, to a number of critics, not

only the distinguishing mark of Gutierrez Najera but of the

modernists as a group. Max Henriquez Urefia referred to this

characteristic when he spoke of the Modernists' preoccupa-

tion with spiritual problems of the nineteenth century:

E1 modernismo representaba una nueva sensibilidad,
que se originaba en lo que Manuel Diaz Rodriguez llamo
'la violencia de vida de nuestra alma contemporanea,
ansiosa y compleja'. Dentro de la complejidad de esa
alma inquieta predominaba la angustia del vivir, ese
estado morboso mezcla de duda y desencanto, y a veces
de hastio, que podemos considerar como caracteristico
del siglo XIX aunque eus antecedentes se remonten al
werther (17753 de Goethe, punto de partida de esa
crisis espiritual que ya en la centBria decimonona
recibid el nombre de 931,22; siglo.

 

l.

2.

Wilbur Long, “Idealism", Dictionar g;
I I

Philoso h , ed. by Dagobert D. Runes Ames, owa:
LIttleTield, Adams and Co., 1960), p. 137.

Max Henriquez Urefia, Breve historia del moder-

nismo (Mexico: Buenos Aires: Fonda 3e CuIIura Economics,
1932}, p. 17.

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Federico de Onis spoke of a unity in ”. . .la propia insat-

.1

isfaccién y necesidad interns de renovacion. . . Juan

Ramdn Jimenez in like manner denies the limited poetic
(i.e., stylistic) definition of Modernism:
. . .las criticas jenerales. . .han sustentado

el error de considerar el modernismo como una cuestidn

poética y'no como lo fue y sigue siendo: un movigiento

jeneral teolojico, cientifico y literario, . . .
Manuel Pedro Gonzalez in a similar vein wrote: ”es una
inquietud filosofica y religiosa que afiaden una dimension
hasta entonces inédita a la poesia hispana."3

This ideological explanation of the movement given

by critics writing during the past two decades is paralleled
by Jose Enrique Rodd, who, as a leading essayist of the
movement, wrote in 1899:

Yo soy un modernista también: yo pertenezco con toda

mi alma a la gran reaccion que da caracter y sentido

a la evolucion del pensamiento en las postrimerias de

este siglo: a la reaccion que, partiendo del natural-

ismo literaria y del positivismo filosofico, los con-

duce, sin desvirtuarlos en 10 us tienen de fecundos,

a disolverse en concepciones m s altas. . .es en el

arte una de las formas parsonales de nuestro anarquico
idealismo contemporaneo.

 

l. Federico de Onis, "Introduccidn" to the
Agtologia 93 la poesia es afiola g_hispanoamericana
republ shed as an append x by Juan Ram n Jim nez, El
modegnismg: flotgs 93 pg curso (madrid: Aguilar, 1935),
p. e

2. Juan Ramon Jimenez, El modernismo: Notes g3
g3 curso, p. 50.

 

3. Manuel Pedro Gonzalez, Notas gg_torno g;
moderni mo (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autdnoma de
M xico, 1958), p. 55.

4. Jose Enrique Rodd, “Ruben Dario" in Obras

com letas, ed. by Emir Rodriguez Monegal (Madrid:
Aeuglar. 1957). p. 187.

8

In the case of Gutierrez Néjera, the development
from an ideological view to symbolic expression in art is
clearly drawn, as evidenced in his essays on literature and
art which underscore an intention to give ideas and the
process of idealization a representation in art. Whether
engaging in polemics on art versus materialism, excoriating
the Mexican Academy, or composing an introductory article
for a literary journal, art was always to Gutierrez Najera
the manifestation of truth through literary form. This
basic assumption gives a unity to Gutierrez Néjera's entire
literary production extending from his first poems as a
teenager to the brilliant conclusion of his career as editor

of the Revista Azul. l

 

 

Utilizing Gutierrez Nijera's literary theories as a

 

1. In essence, the basic facts of Gutierrez
Néjera's life are little more than a record of his
career as a journalist and literary figure: “. . .nac16
en México e1 22 de diciembre de 1859. A los h afios de
edad fue su familia a radicarse a Querétaro. . .El afio
de 63 regresaron a la ca ital. No estuvo nunca en la
escuela, su mama 1e ensen6 las primeras letras y él
solo aprendid a leer. A 103 13 afios de edad y sin
conocimiento de su familia empezd a escribir articulos
y poesias en el periodico Lg Iberia, del que era
director don Anselmo de la Portilla; después en el
Federalista, del que era director Alfredo Bablot, y
despuZS en todos los periédicos politicos y literarios
de la época, usando en ellos distintos seudonimos,
entre otros el de Monsieur 9gp Egg, Junius, Recamier,
Cura g3 Jalatlaco, Perico g3 lpg Palotes y sobre todo
Du ue Job. Fue Iundador, en colaboraCIan con Carlos
Diaz DETEo, de la Revista Azul. Nunca quiso
coleccionar ni publicar sus obras y 3610 a su muerte,
. . .se publicaron los dos tomos de prosa y uno de
poesias. La inmensa labor literaria acabd con su vida:
murid el 3 de febrero de 1895." Gonzilez Guerrero in
Manuel Gutiérrez Najera, Poesias completes I, xxiii.

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9
foundation, there emerge three possibilities for categor-
izing symbolic representation of reality and its expression
in his writings: l) Symbolic representation of value:
2) Symbolic representation of time and universality: 3) Sym-
bolic representation of the writer's immediate experience of
himself as a person and his environment.

To anticipate briefly what these three categories
involve, it may be said that Gutierrez Najera's central
desire to give value to life through idealism and aestheti-
cism resulted in a broad grouping of symbols from the fine
arts as manifestations of idealized beauty. The high inci-
dence of artists, writers, musicians and actresses as char-
acters in his stories is another manifestation of both
idealism and aestheticism. The world of nature provides a
further source of material destined to convey an impression
of spiritual value. Precious stones and metals, flowers,
birds, weather phenomena by their rarity, fragility or in-
tangibility were identified in various ways to visions of
ideality.

The second category, a preoccupation with time and
space, involves an attempt to recapture the past and arrest
the fleeting presence of time as well as to give a timeless,
geographically imprecise (therefore universal) norm to human
existence through art. Time symbology is achieved through
the use of mythological personages, historic personages and
literary figures of the past. With respect to symbols of

universality, the author frequently evoked foreign names and

10
countries as a means of giving his work more than a limited
national identity.

The third category of symbols revolves around the
author's person and his experience of his physical and social
environment. Contrary to what might be expected from his
aspirations to universality, there is no rejection of Mexico
or her national characteristics. Gutierrez Najera loved
Mexico all the more for comprising part of the universal
whole and his willingness to confront her problems was con-
siderably more direct and less escapist than is sometimes
thought. Several characters in the stories are readily
identifiable as symbols of social concern. Many of the
signs1 Gutierrez Najera chose from his national background
are used symbolically to portray some aspect of the struggle
of materialism versus idealism that he constantly waged.
Social events such as the theatre, horse races, formal
balls, religious ceremonies, became symbols of aestheticism
and idealism. Another aspect of Gutierrez Nijera's treat-
ment of immediate experience is his concentration on the
psychological processes. His idealism logically led to an
interest in certain mental phenomena: the role of dreams
therefore, is an important aspect of Gutierrez Najera's
work. In giving attention to dreams and the mental pro-
cesses, probably the most spectacular and innovative product

was the employment of color synaesthesia.

 

1. According to William York Tindall, "sign” is
an ”exact reference" which serves as a "pointer“ to
symbols. Tindall, The Literary S bol, pp. 5-6.

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11

This plan for studying Gutierrez Néjera's use of
symbol is directed toward the general thematic meaning of
symbols (value, space and time, immediate experience) rather
than specific symbols. This is necessitated in part by the
nature of Gutierrez Najera's use of the symbolic. He pre-
ferred that literatureo-hence symbols-~be suggestive, with
the result that individual symbols acquire various meanings.

Another consideration which makes a topical approach
to symbol useful is the unity of meaning in Gutierrez Na-
jera's work. Ideologically, major turning points in his
writing are absent, the only exception perhaps being his
ambivalent attitude toward orthodox Christian doctrine
before 1880. It should be stressed however, that Gutierrez
Néjera in his wavering between faith and doubt, felt a
stronger pull toward doubt and that his rejection of ortho-
doxy was not an abrupt reversal of opinion.

It would be inaccurate to claim that the study of
the use of symbol as defined herein and the organization
chosen offer the only valid system for understanding
Gutierrez Najera. Similarly, this work does not attempt to
refute or to supplant other excellent studies on the author.
I hope that a study from this specific perspective will give
new insights into the poetry and fiction of Manuel Gutierrez
Najera.

The editions of Gutierrez Néjera's works which will
be used to complete this study are the two volume collection

of his Poesias completas edited by Gonzalez Guerrero and the

12
Cuentos completos y pppgp narpggiones edited by E.K. Mapes
in 1958. There is no single authoritative edition of
Gutierrez Néjera's criticism: however, recent discoveries by
Boyd Carter, contained in Gutierrez Najera's nggg: Critica
literaria ;, are invaluable sources for studying his theory
of literature and will be used extensively in the first

chapter.

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CHAPTER I

GUTIERREZ NAJERA AND HIS
THEORY OF LITERATURE

The theoretical foundations behind every poem and

story Gutierrez Néjera wrote are contained in an aesthetic

theory which by extension and implication embraces a world

view.

finite
not be
of the
genius

toward

Beauty to Gutierrez Najera was a bridge which united
human beings to absolutes of perfection that could
known except through special revelations. The object
artist, it followed, was to search with his special
for the elusive links which would lead the reader

contemplation of sublime truths. These ideas were

written in the writer's youth and remained essentially the

same as long as he wrote. At seventeen, the first elaborate

statement on art theory was made in a polemic article, ”E1

arte y el materialismo” intended to combat positivistic

notions which he nevertheless later accepted in part. His

definition of beauty was:

Para nosotros, lo bello es la representacidn de lo

infinito en lo finito: la manifestacidn de lo extensivo
en lo intensive: e1 reflejo de lo absoluto: 1a revela-
cidn de Dios. Para nosotros e1 sentimiento de lo bello
es innato en el hombre: es un destello de la naturaleza
angelica, un ideal sublime que Dios presents a1 espiri-
tu como el término de sus luchas, como la realizacién
de sus aspiraciones, como el bien supremo. Lo bello
tiene que ser necesariamente ontoldgico: es lo absolu-
to, es Dios. Dios, que se revels en las sublimes
creaciones del poets, en las dulces melodias de la

13

14
misica, en los lienzos que con magnifico pincel traza
e1 artista, y en las gigantescas moles que levanta
e1 genio creador del arquitecto. Valiéndonos de una
f6rmula matemética, pudiéramos decir, que lo bello es
a1 artists como la perfeccién espiritual es al santo:
el anhelado término, la suprema recompensa, la idea
sublime.
(Critics, p. 55)
The importance of this early pronouncement is indicated by
Boyd Carter's statement that it offers the first important
theoretical document of the literary movement which became
known as Modernism.l
Looking into Gutierrez Najera's ideas on literature,
one of the most impressive characteristics is the author's
awesome variety of references to other writers, both
Mexican and foreign. In truth, Gutierrez stera was promi-
nent among the Mexican intelligentsia of his time, in addi-
tion to being completely within the mainstream of nineteenth
century European and American literary currents. Both of
these facts--the author in his intellectual environment and
the literary tradition he worked within-~give enough addi-
tional insight into Gutierrez Najera's theory of literature
to deserve some presentation before the theories themselves
are examined.
Partially, manual Gutierrez Néjera’s literary out-

pouring can be described as the final result of a crisis of

existence suffered by the author. Everything he wrote

 

l. Boyd G. Carter, Manuel Gutierrez Najera:
Egtudio y escrito inéditos (Mexico: Ediciones de
Andrea, 19 9 Po 7 e

15
eventually has its connection with this central and crucial
problem. The principal figure in this struggle is the
author himself: however, the preoccupation extends beyond
mere subjectivism to include an empathetic view of the world,
seen as peopled with protagonists sharing the author’s
metaphysical doubt. With this background, the artist's task
is to try to give substance to human existence and somehow
come to terms with the mysteries of eternity which oppressed
generations of the late nineteenth century so strongly. In
exploring the enigma and reaching for answers to man's un-
certain place in the universe, Gutierrez sters worked
around the functions of the human psyche which is where the
struggle had to take place.

The roots of this preoccupation are complex and
there is no single source distinguishable as the one
influence which caused his metaphysical uncertainty. That
Gutierrez Nijera was fully aware of the problem in all its
amplitude there can be no doubt. His writings abound in
phrases such as “the chaotic times in which we live”, “this
age of doubt”, ”our troubled times“. One of the nearest
sources of this concept of the world and the epoch is the
circumstances of the artist's life.

Having recourse to the writer's life for an expla-
nation of his ideas does not imply that the ideas are in
some deterministic manner products of environment. It is
more the case of a sensitive genius with a particular

education working from the vantage point of a unique society

16

deciding which parts of the education are useful and what
place in that society he could mutually contribute to and
profit from. Gutierrez Najera's choice of companions, his
work, the books he read, all reflect a selection of
interests aligned with a concept of what the world is or is
not or ideally should be.

According to the author‘s daughter, her father's
life was, with the exception of an inherited disease, a
happy one. She particularly singles out for attack several
myths which have become commonly accepted parts of her
father's biography. The one she goes to the greatest length
to refute is his reputed ugliness. According to the Egg;-
clopgdia Espasa-Cal e, which she quotes, her father was
'torcido o corcovado."l Such deformity is easily discounted
by quotes from close friends and references to seven photo-
graphs she had in her possession. Another long-held myth
is that his mother intended that the poet should be a
priest, causing a rebellion by the son. This is discounted
with family reminiscences and scattered autobiographical
quotes from her father's work. Two other myths she dispels
with plausible explanations are his reputed alcoholism and
suicide. To some, notably Torres-Rioseco who conjectured
that Gutidrrez Najera took his own life through excessive

alcoholic consumption, his death was a combination of the

 

l. Margarita Gutierrez Na'era, Refle‘o: Biografia
anectdtica gg_Manuel Gutierrez N era (Mexico, Instituto

Nacional de Belles Artes, 1959). P. 3.

1?
two. According to Juan José Tablada, Gutiérrez Najera did
like to drink but was far from being an alcoholic.
However, other rumors are not so easily countered.
Miss Gutidrrez Néjera, perhaps out of filial loyalty, takes
issue with Blanco Fombona, that her father had an unhappy
love affair. It is easy to show the weakness in Blanco
Fombona's assertions since he was writing from the distance
of Spain with admittedly vague information. Other sources
nearer the poet however, give more concrete information:
. . .y conste que el justo temor de ser indiscreto me
hace no narrar con todos sus detalles un episodio que
pudo ser trégico: una tentative de suicidio con vul-
gares cerillas disueltas en una taza de te, que se
verified a1 romperse los dulces lazos del amor juvenil
que ligaron a1 Duque y a la Duquesa, y que no tuvo
fatales consecuencias gracias a la pronta y eficaz
intervencidn de ngestro no olvidado amigo e1 doctor
Juan N. Govantes.

Although this is only one incident, the depth of unhappiness

made obvious by it indicates that Gutiérrez Najers's exis-

tence was not all pleasure.

The great misfortune of Gutidrrez Najera's life
which would make the greatest impact on his literary work
however, is indicated by his daughter in elaborating for the
first time a detailed account of her father's death. As she
makes unquestionably clear by quoting family letters,

Gutidrrez Najera died from a hemorrhage following a tumor

operation and not by suicide. The hemorrhage was a result of

 

l. Margarita Gutiérrez Ndjera, Reflejo, p. 162.
2. Julio Jiménez Rueda, ”La Duquesa Job”, Revista

de la Universidad de YUcatan, II, No. 9.(May, 19605, HO.

l8
hemophilia which had made the author's life a private
martyrdom. This physical impairment was undoubtedly upper-
most in the author's consciousness throughout his life and
generated his concern for eternity, the nature of reality,
and the stability of the universe. Speculations on the
physical and spiritual characteristics of life and the
possibility of eternity were subjects Gutierrez Néjera could
not easily take lightly. In one of his newspaper columns,
with a brief mention of the Russian Tzar, Nicolas II,
Gutierrez Nadera probably revealed some of his own anxiety
when he said: ”LSabéis lo que es vivir casi catorce afios
atado codo con codo con la muerte? aSabéis lo que es nunca

1 Under-

decir sin miedo: hasta mafiana? De eso se muere.”
standably, death along with love is a leading motif of his
writing.

Together with Gutierrez Najera's physical condition,
there are other biographical determinants that led him to
see the world in a certain way. His childhood education in
the home, formal education and the friends in whom he sought
companionship all left an enduring mark in ideological form.
The disturbing problem which arose from his education and
from his associations was that everything he learned was not

acceptable, such as the traditional beliefs in God so care-

fully instilled in youth. Yet if faith was rejected, its

 

l. Manuel Gutierrez Nadera, Obras ineditas: Qgér
nicas gg ”Puck", ed. by E.K. Mapes, (New York: Hispanic
Institute, 1933): Po 191. Future references to this
work will be noted in the text as Cronicas gg "Puck”.

l9
pressing need was never ignored. In this case, scientific
positivism continually pulled him away from Christian dogma
only to receive in the end the same acceptance-rejection
relationship. If the tenets of scientific positivism
appeared to be true, the implications they held out to man
were energetically rejected.

The first opportunity for close attachment to the
spiritual emerged in Gutierrez Najera's youth from routinely
given religious instruction and a formal education with a
broad humanistic foundation. Strictly speaking, Gutierrez
Nijera did not attend any one school, his education coming
from several tutors and matriculation in different schools
for individual courses. Undoubtedly the most noteworthy
part of his early education was an introduction to the
French language at an early age. Contrary to some biograph-
ers, his daughter writes that he did not attend a French
secondary school but received private instruction from a
tutor, Argel Grosso.l Although there are no exact dates,
she states that he was "muy nifio”, more or less agreeing
with Justo Sierra who, referring to himself and Manuel
Gutierrez Najera, wrote: 'aprendemos el francés a1 mismo
tiempo que el castellano."2 The accessibility of French to
Sierra, Gutierrez Najera and their entire generation gave

them a wider outlook on occidental as well as world culture.

 

l. Margarita Gutierrez Najera, Refle'o, p. 13.

2. Justo Sierra quoted in margarita Gutierrez
Najera, Refle'o, p. 13.

20
French, learned in youth, became as important to Gutierrez
Néjera's artistic and intellectual formation as his own,
native Castilian.

Besides French, he became quite familiar with Latin
from classes taken in the capital's Seminario Diocesano
under Prospero Maria Alarcon who was subsequently Archbishop
of Mexico. If French provided a more ample view of the
modern world, Latin was the bridge to the ancient civiliza-
tions. In his formal training, it is Latin and French which
left the greatest imprint. From this point his education
continued in an autodidactic manner through extensive
reading. The father who had carefully planned the formal
part of his son's training now provided him with a study
and a steady supply of books. A custom of heavy reading
begun with paternal encouragement remained as something of
a daily ritual with Gutierrez Najera until he died. In his
own words, 'escribo de seis a ocho horas diaries: cuatro
enpleo en leer, porque no 36 todavia cdmo puede escribirse
sin leer nada” (Critica, p. 365).

In an article Gutierrez Najera left a record of
which books most attracted him in the formative years,
mentioning especially the Romanticists Lamartine, Zorrilla
and Chateaubriand.1 An intimate acquaintance, Juan Jose
Tablada gives more insight into his friend's literary pre-
dilections recalling authors and titles of Gutierrez

 

l. 8 Quoted in Margarita Gutierrez NaJera, Reflejo,
pp. 1 -9.

21

Néjera's library at the time of his marriage:

Alfredo de Musset, Gautier, Paul de St.-Victor, Janin,

Brunetiere, Renan, los maestros franceses que mas in-

fluyeron...y junto a ellos los misticos que nutrieron

su espiritu: Las moradas interiores de Santa Teresa,

Las Fioretti de San Francisco.
What stands out in this enumeration is a preference for the
Romantic. Writers in this tradition were his first inspira-
tion and theoretically Gutierrez Najera, in youth and
through maturity, never really left this movement. His aes-
thetic taste sharpened, his interests broadened, his own
creative work developed, but all within an essentially
Romantic context. Another salient characteristic of the
reading preferences is a leaning toward French. However, if
French titles are in the foreground, there is danger of
passing over the fact that his interests extended far beyond
French to include not only his own Mexican and Spanish
literatures but all occidental literature. An appendix of
Gutierrez Najera's criticism would be a veritable compendium
of world literature from Homer to the author's contemporar-
ies.

Besides Gutierrez Nijera's early training, school-
ing and reading interests, his selection of companions gives
additional knowledge of how he thought and what influenced
him to think the way he did. In describing Gutierrez

Najera's relations with his companions, the picture widens

to encompass the existing thought in Mexico at the time

 

1. Quoted in Margarita Gutierrez Nadera, Reflejo,
p. 19.

22
and to show how this led Gutierrez Néjera’s generation to
look upon themselves and the world. Broadly, the span
of Gutierrez Néjera's writing (1876-1895) is the apogee
of positivism in Mexico. To be sure, positivism was intro-
duced earlier with Gabino Barreda's famous Oracién civica
given as a speech in 1867, but it was not until the presi-
dency of Porfirio Diaz that positivism became an instrument
of official policy covering the years 1876-1910. Gutierrez
Najera's death came at a time when positivistic ideas and
the Porfirio Diaz regime were at a zenith. It is only after
the author's death that Diaz was commonly acknowledged as a
dictator_in the worst sense and that positivism came under
attack, partly by the same intellectuals who introduced and
propagated its tenets.

V The positivism of the period was an attempt to in-
corporate the ideas of such men as Darwin, Mill, Bain,
Huxley, Tyndall, Virchow, Helmholz, and especially Spencer
and Comte into a coherent political and educational format.1
The generation which attempted this synthesis considered
itself practical, non-utopian, evolutionist and scientific.
Society was reasoned to be a living organism which could be
cured of its ills by a combination of enlightened laws to

foster order with progress and an enlightened educational

 

system.
The group to which Gutierrez Najera related, which
1. Leopoldo Zea, g; ositivismo en Mexico

(Mexico, ando de Cultura Econ mica, 1968), p. 318.

23

prevailed in shaping positivism into official policy, had
as its first platform the newspaper Lg libertad. Justo
Sierra, one of its editors, was the leading theorist of the
group which included Telesforo Garcia, Jorge Hammeken and
Francisco Bulnes. It was with these men associated with La
libertad that Gutierrez Najera came of age intellectually.
Between 1878 and 1884 he published hoh articles in this
newspaper. writing of these years shortly before his death
he fondly recalled the above names in happy association with
long days of writing, reading and conversations which molded
his spirit, a period he considered as an "escalera" in his
life (Cr6nicag 92,Ӥggk", p. 50).

As stated, the ideas which influenced Gutierrez
Najera and guided his generation had their origin with Ca-
bino Barreda's introduction of positivism into Mexico. In
his Oraci6n civica of 1867, Barreda began with an adaptation
of Comtian philosophy to Mexico's unique historical circum-
stances. Auguste Comte had set forth in his Qgg§§,gg_philg-
gophie o itive, published in 18h2, that the history of
civilization could be divided into three stages: the theolo-
gical in which everything was explained as motivation of
gods: the metaphysical in which reality was explained by
rational abstractions: and the positivistic in which the
origin and destiny of man is ignored and rational study is
limited to what can be observed. Barreda applied this
scheme to Mexican history, defining the colonial period with

its close church ties as the theological stage of Mexican

24
history: the independence period with its Romantic utopian-
ist ideologies as the metaphysical and the present and
immediate future as the positivistic. This last stage was
to be a period of reform: first, educational reform to lead
the masses away from the customs inherited from the theolo-
gical (colonial) and metaphysical (Mexican independence)
periods: and secondly, political reform to adjust the nation
to its material needs. The motto adopted for this stage of
positivistic reform was Liberty, Order, and Progress.

The problem which occupied the minds of the Lg
libertad writers was twofold, national and metaphysical.
The national preoccupation was primarily what it had always
been from independence-~how to organize a nation to govern
itself. The split with Spain had been total, leaving an
inexperienced bureaucracy without institutions to govern.
The resulting chaos produced continuing revolutions and
facilitated the occupation of Mexico by the United States
(18u6-18h8) and then by France (1862-1867). With such a
confused historical past, the task took on a certain urgency
and the positivists came to feel that something more elabo-
rate than political reform alone was needed. The nation
had to be educated for a total change of national, racial
characteristics which caused chaos and social disintegra-
tion. Justo Sierra felt that the innate habits of the
Mexican toward anarchy had become a “thousand times more

difficult to destroy than domination by the privileged

25

classes."1

Consequently, the basic objective became the
changing of the country's mentality. Barreda had referred
to this task as ”emancipacién mental”. Justo Sierra gave
renewed emphasis to the idea: "Mexicans must pass from the
military era, the era of revolutions and civil wars, to the
industrial era, the era of work. . .quickly, since the giant

2 For

growing at our side. . .would tend to absorb us."
Telesforo Garcia, to approach this working and practical
industrial era, all ideas of utopia in an educational philo-
sophy had to be abandoned. Metaphysical, idealistically
oriented ideologies served only to perpetuate natural de-
fects of a country which is "eminentemente sofiador, eminen-
temente mistico".3 The country must be educated along
severely scientific lines. This was not intended by Garcia
to be a thorough capitulation to scientific thinking but an '
attempt to augment natural qualities of a people with attri-
butes that were lacking.

In order to reach the pragmatic industrial era, the
country must have peace and order. In order to implement

these two ideals there must be a strong progressive-minded

government. This idea was the initial justification for

 

1. Leapoldo Zea, The Latin American Mind, trans.
by James Abbott and Lowell—Dunham (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1963), p. 283.

2. Zea, The Latin American Mind, p. 272.
3. Leopoldo Zea, g; positivismo gg_México,

P0 3350

26
the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship. Diaz, who had fought under
the reformer Juarez, had acceptable liberal attitudes and
his control of the army gave him power to provide what
Francisco Cosmes said would be a “tirania honrada".l The
supporters of the Diaz regime holding these positivistic
concepts of progress were known as "cientificos".

No account of the ideological side of Manuel
Gutierrez Majera's life is complete without taking this
background into account. There is a limit to how involved
Manuel Gutierrez Najera was in the power configuration of
the period and he certainly did not acquire great wealth as
many of the cientificos did, particularly in the declining
days of the regime. He was a member of the national legis-
lature: however, no significant legislation is associated
with him, nor is his name commonly given as a cientifico.
It is in the position of a well known journalist that
Gutierrez Najera fits into the social picture and a perusal
of his articles with the superlatives he uses for men who
were more involved makes plain that his sympathies were
allied with this group. Significantly, it was the three
newspapers most closely tied to the Diaz presidency (Lg
Libegggd, LL iv sal, and LL partida liberal) in which
Gutierrez Najera wrote his largest number of articles. The

first two of these newspapers were subsidized by the

 

1. Patrick Romanell, Lg formaciog gg Lg
mentalidad mexicana (Mexico: Colegio e Mexico, 195a),

De '0

27
government. Of Porfirio Diaz himself, Gutierrez Najera has
left a glowing portrait as "bizarro, vigoroso, rebozando de
vida...La glorie solo es complete cuando la hermosura cau-
tivade por ella erroja flores al paso del vencedor...de1
triunfante paladin" (ngnicas gg_Ӥggg", p. 164).-

Gutierrez Najera was never, however, an overly
involved political figure. His foremost concern was art.
In his concern for art, social themes did play a component
role, as evidenced in occasional sentences such as the
following: "108 indios. . .en sus lomos de increible resis-
tencia hen traido la pesadumbre de cuatro siglos. Y no
puede decirse que tienen familia, ni propiedad, ni patria.
Tienen cansancio: lo hen heredado. . .casi no hen vivido"
(Qrdnicas gg_'§gggf, p. 18). He felt drawn to this positi-
vist generation and its dedication to national problems by
a sympathy for its social ideals, a respect for its intel-
lectually elite, aristocratic character. He felt that he,
as an innovator in art, was a natural complement to those
who brought the new to education and politics.

There is another point of positivistic influence in
which Gutierrez Najera was more than a mere complement to
the preoccupations of his time. The focus of his generation
as stated above was national and metaphysical. If Gutierrez
Najera's dedication to art limited his involvement in
national matters, there was no escape from the metaphysical
issue which made a conspicuous influence on his life and

work. It is at this juncture that a rational basis for the

28

crisis of existence which afflicted the author is centered.

Positivism, with its inclination toward social
problems had as its most basic assumption that the only
worthwhile reality was that which is scientifically prova-
ble. This in a sense was a denial of any metaphysical
explanation with the justification that what is not seen is
not knowable. The consequence was to prevent man from
speculating too broadly on his destiny or beginning if
limited by observation and reason. The implication of this
philosophy for Christian dogma is practically to destroy it.
Comte attempted to create an entirely new religion within
the limits of observed reality with its own trinity: the
Great Being (humanity), the Great Fetish (the earth) and the
Great Way (space). John Stuart Mill, although denying
Comte's political and religious absolutism, preserved the
principle that religion should be founded on experience and
lean toward a "religion of humanity based upon altruistic
ethics".1 The best h0pe for Christian dogma came from
Herbert Spencer who, while describing his own form of evolu-
tionary positivism, urged that science could not take the
place of religion but that religion-~all religions--had
failed to explain the mysteries of the universe and their
proper function was to struggle in this direction.

Similarly in Mexico, if positivism offered a ready

ideology for social reform the negative effect was to

 

1. Nicola Abbagneno, 'Positivism”, The Encyclo-
pedia g; Philosophy, 1st ed., VI, #16.

29

create a spiritual vacuum. Several of the Mexican positiv-
ists insisted on a spiritualizing effect of scientific
discovery to prove they had not destroyed spiritual, ideal-
istic criteria. Justo Sierra wrote that "e1 arco de Volta
encierra mas poesia que La Iliada".l But the fact remained
that the positivists, at least theoretically, had gone far
to cut themselves off from the spiritual world. Telesforo
Garcia aptly described the impasse in addressing himself to
the opposing idealistic philosophy of Kraussism, ”acomo va
a ser la filosofia ciencia de Dios, si Dios mismo es algo
indemostrable?"2

The positivists of Gutierrez Najera's time were not
only restricted to the physical world, skeptical of Chris-
tian doctrine, mistrustful of Romantic idealism, but in
their own special development of the philosophy, not really
secure in their feelings about the material world. The
first generation of Mexican positivists (Barreda, Prieto,
Ramirez) followed Comte in that they saw much more certainty
in science than the second generation (Sierra, Garcia,
Hammeken). This later group, more influenced by Spencer,
Mill and Darwin, saw the scientific approach as meaningful
but imperfect. What man knows is limited not only to what
he sees but also by the fact that his knowledge is relative

 

l. Agustin Yafiez, Don Justo Sierra, su vida, sus
idea ¥,su obra (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma
He M§XIOO, I932), p. 98.

2. Leapoldo Zea, LL positivismo gg,México,
p. 3320

0'.
"4

L. .11 '

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I

use.-

I. e \

~eww I.
:

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. “:
col v...

|~l .61
'.:II..

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30
to what other men observe. Scientific laws for this reason
are not universal but subject to change and, for that
matter, man's knowledge even of what he sees is not entirely
comprehensible.

The previous paragraphs outline the principal
aspects of Gutierrez Najera's life which reach over into
his creative work. He spent a childhood which was ideally
conducive to development as an artist. An early introduc-
tion to the journalistic world provided stimulation, an
outlet for his ambitions and enlightened acquaintances.

All in all, the young journalist found his surroundings well
suited to his personal inclinations. The urban elegance of
the Porfirio Diaz era was aesthetically to Gutierrez
Najera's liking: the liberal politics of his associates
corresponded to a basic sympathy for the less fortunate: and
the metaphysical insecurity of the positivists interacted
with feelings caused by the writer's precarious physical
condition. This last fect--the sway of positivistic in-
fluence and the misfortune of hemophilia--is the most
explainable biographical source of his uncertainty-of-life
theme. These biographical notes, however, give only
partially the background of Gutierrez Najera's thinking. A
more exact view comes with the biography in connection with
a selective description of the Romantic tradition to which
he pertained.

Positivism, as noted, was the most widely accepted

philosophy of the intellectual circles frequented by

31
Gutierrez Néjera. However, this philosophy was not totally
responsive to the special needs of the lyrical, impression-
istic frame of mind characteristic of the artist. Positiv-
ism's greatest point of convergence with Gutiérrez Najera's
inclinations was the uncertainty concerning human destiny.
However, this uncertainty and doubt, and for that matter,
the entire school of positivism, stemmed from the earlier
much more inclusive Romantic movement. This movement, begun
in the late eighteenth century, altered man's self-view and
caused him to feel deep conflicts within himself and with
the world. On the one hand there was a thirst for truth
and value and on the other a sense of frustration rooted in
presentiments of their unattainability. The repercussions
of this conflict in art were as diverse as they were fer-
tile, producing a variety of moods and styles with succeed-
ing schools of writing which attacked a common problem in
dissimilar ways. Positivism and its literary counterparts,
Realism and Naturalism, were only detached parts of the
larger Romantic current. Thus, if Gutierrez Najera found
the circumference of positivism limiting, there was an
infinitely wider field for inspiration in Romanticism which
he productively exploited.

To give meaning to the statement that a Romantic
current gave Gutierrez Najera his literary essence at once
involves accounting for a literary term which has consis-
tently resisted the effort. That the term Romanticism may

be considered either as a constant of human temperament

32
recurrently appearing throughout history, a literary vogue
of specified traits chronologically placed at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, or a post-enlightenment world
view that continues to the present moment, indicates the
broad usage into which the word has fallen. At least two
critics who have written well and sympathetically of Roman-

2 . .
1 and Jacques Barzun, dismiss the

ticism, Morse Peckhem
first two definitions as too vague and narrow for accurate
description of what transpired literarily during the last
two centuries. Both of these men share a view of the
nineteenth century as Romantic, that is, as a period of
artistic diversity but unified by a sameness in underlying
motivations.

The conclusions of Peckhem and Barzun concerning
Romanticism and the nineteenth century are interesting when
compared to analogous ideas Gutierrez Najera unconsciously
adhered to in his criticism and which eventually molded his
creative work. Peckhem and Barzun, each for different
motives, detail how a basic nineteenth century assessment of
the human condition found its way into expression through a
variety of guises. First, a pattern was set by late

eighteenth century pro-romanticism, then followed special-

ized manifestations such as Transcendentalism, Realism,

 

.l. Morse Peckhem, Be and The Tragic Vision (New
York: George Braziller, l9 2 .

2.. Jacques Barzun, Classic, Romantic and Modern,
Anghor Books (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co.,
19 1 .

33
Parnassianism, Naturalism, and Impressionism. Gutiérrez
Najera, who denied he followed any literary movement, and in
one place or another found a condescending way of referring
to representative nineteenth century literary schools
("ciertos decadentistas, simbolistas, teosofos y demés gente
menuda' Cronicas gg "2295”, p. 97: "a pesar de su romanti-
cismo" grénicas gg "2295', p. 70: “neturalismo...lo nausea-
bundo y pornografico sin arte' Cronicas gg,"§ggg", p. 99).
declared himself an eclectic. The implementing of this
eclecticism turned out to be a decision to adopt whatever
suited his temperament from different literary tendencies,
some of which, like neturalism, he had sharply criticized.
Therefore, even if Gutierrez Néjera has a unique personal
style, he is also, to varying degrees, a microcosm of every
major artistic direction taken in the nineteenth century
and his critical assessment of the century had a unified
quality similar to that of Peckhem and Barzun. He encoun-
tered in the major writers of this period a basic Romantic
spiritual orientation with which he closely identified his
own thinking.

The unity which Gutierrez Najera found with other
writers of his century revolved around typically fundamental
Romantic concepts of reason, emotion, and social roles to be
played by men. These concepts were practically forced upon
the Romantics as the seventeenth and eighteenth century
period of Enlightenment disintegrated.

The Neo-Classicists, inspired by empirical,

34

mathematical formulas and scientific discoveries, had pro-
jected an assumed orderliness of nature into human areas of
government, art and everyday life. The rationale was the
way to knowledge and knowledge led to orderly geometric
patterns of reality. The set rules of Aristotelian poetics
with Renaissance modifications gave the Enlightenment an
art formula which paralleled its concept of man as a compo-
nent in the geometric configuration of the universe. Going
beyond art, the orderliness of the physical world was used
as evidence for the existence of God. As for governments,
it was reasoned that rulers and society should work together
in patterned concert, each responsive to the needs of the
other. If a society could work in harmony this way, then
there existed a justification for monarchical absolutism.
The surest way to happiness for the individual was a surren-
der to rational harmony and a constant struggle to bridle
emotions, which were considered as inherently pernicious.

The reaction against Enlightenment philosophy began
during the late eighteenth century. The Lisbon earthquake
and tidal wave of 1755 raised questions throughout Europe
concerning the orderliness of the physical world and a
harmonious universe designed by God. The decay of the
French monarchy undermined Neo-Classical justification of
political absolutism. Dissatisfaction extended to include
Enlightenment standards of personal behavior. As Jacques
Barzun points out, the treatment of emotions was at best

inconsistent and arbitrary. Pleasure, amusement, ridicule,

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surprise were acceptable because they seemed consistent
demeanor for a rational man: melancholy and vindictiveness
were less acceptable, while fervor and eccentricity were
unacceptable. During the last half of the eighteenth
century these and other arbitrary judgments wore thin,
causing a general pessimism which finally ended in the
Romantic re-evaluation of the human situation.

The most significant development of late eighteenth
century pessimism and the Romantic re-orientetion were
developments in Germany. Morse Peckhem points to new
directions taken by two different men who, working indepen-
dently, nevertheless arrived at similar conclusions.
Immanuel Kant and Wolfgang Goethe examined Enlightenment
rationalism and suggested different problems which became
central for writers from then until the time that Gutierrez
Néjera began publishing. Kent, in his Critique g; gggg
Reason (1781), provided a vague beginning for Romanticism in
his break with total rationalism by denying the provable
existence of metaphysical systems and that reality, more
than a fixed thing, was a creation of the mind. Goethe gave
a practical demonstration of how men was affected by the
disintegration of the idea that the human mind was struc-
turally part of a larger order. His novel, Egg Sorrows g;
laggg Werther (1787) showed how an optimistic, Enlightenment
oriented young man fails in pursuit of happiness because his
irrational but natural passions would not allow him to per-

form a socially prescribed role. His attempts to achieve

36
worldly position were hampered by an inability to accept
artificial class distinctions, while an attempted fulfill-
ment through love was frustrated by the heroine's engagement
and then marriage to a friend. Rather than give in to the
impossible situation with a calm, rational understanding,
he submitted to an irrational, incomprehensible side of his
character. The culmination of this mysterious, dark, inner
drive was suicide.

The alienation of young werther is the foundation
of Romanticism. First came the realization by Goethe and
his generation that the mind was not part of nature, that
man could not find happiness in a social role or consolation
from a cosmic order: then followed an acute feeling of
isolation. Salvation for the individual had to come from
within. Order, meaning and value had to be created by an
assertion of selfhood. To preserve the self from a per-
nicious social structure, selfhood had to be gained by
original creation which automatically made the role an anti-
social one.

Gutierrez Najera's view of the world was totally
colored with this primordial vision of social and metaphy-
sical alienation and fulfillment of selfhood. His literary
criticism gives repeated illustrations of how weighted his
mind was with these ideas. If a writer post-dates the
initial stages of Romanticism, Gutierrez Néjera character-
istically finds some common ground. On the other hand, even

when the writer pre-dates the turn of the nineteenth

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century, Gutierrez Néjera inevitably discovers viewpoints
similar to those of Romanticists from Goethe and after.
Among the writings Gutierrez Najera mentioned which

pre-dated Romanticism, the most salient examples of criti-
cism mirroring the critic's mind were several articles on
William Shakespeare.1 In general, this objectivism was a
Romantic pattern for Shakespearean criticism which had
existed since the first polemic manifestos in Germany and

2 Shakespeare's

continued through the nineteenth century.
non-adherence to classical unities, rules of form and pro-
priety was a vindication of original, intuitive creativeness
as a method for writing which had converted Shakespeare into
a weapon for use against the Neo-Classicists. The useful-
ness of Shakespeare did not end with these considerations
of form however. Subjective, idealistic characters who
peopled a complex world where a moral code did not auto-
matically provide happiness and where legitimate aspirations

were truncated by an unfathomable design of Providence were

circumstances totally compatible to the nineteenth century

 

l. Gutiérrez Najera referred to Shakespeare
throughout his life. The most extensive criticism on
the English playwright is contained in a series of
articles: ”William Shakespeare”, ”Othelo', ”0thelo.--
Yago.--Desdemona“, "Hamlet", "Romeo y Julieta",

Obras 9g.Mgguel Gutierrez Najera: Prose, Vol. II
(Mexico: Tip. de la Oficina Impresora del Timbre,
Palacio Nacional, 1903). 65-92. Hereafter cited in the
text as Prose II.

2. Oswald LeWinter, ed., Shakespeare Lg Europe:
gg_ tholo ‘2; Writings gg Shakespeare Ly Euro eans,
Merid an Books (Cleveland and New York: The World
Publishing Co., 1963).

 

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consciousness. Gutierrez Néjera, in viewing the Shakespear-
ean world and finding common ground with it, was following
a well established trend. A list of some of the more
prominent men who focused on Shakespeare in a similar way
includes Schlegel, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, Stendhal, Heine,
Pushkin, Hugo, Turgenev, Taine, and Tolstoy. In Mexico,
Gutierrez Najera had contemporary examples in Ignacio
Altamirano and Justo Sierra.

Gutierrez Néjera was not unaware of the tradition
of Shakespearean criticism. He mentioned especially Victor
Hugo whose statements on the English playwright figured in
his defense of Romanticism in France. Gutierrez Najera
acknowledged, in addition, the possible objection that he
was reading his own feelings into the plays of another age,
saying this in fact was so and giving a succinct justifica-
tion: ”A veces he llegado a creer que en uno de los apoca-
lipsis de su genio, Shakespeare entrevio nuestro siglo y le
dio ser en Hamlet” (Egggg II, p. 85). This "uno de los
apocalipsis de su genio" is indicative of the enthusiasm
Gutierrez Nijera felt for Shakespeare's work, and the
embodiment of Hamlet as the most representative symbol of a
century, by extension, leads the reader to associate Hamlet
with the ideas of his critic.

Hamlet emerges in Gutierrez Najera's criticism as
a model protagonist of the Romanticists. The description in
the first sentence sets the tone with a delineation of the

protagonist as "la palida silueta del sofiador danés.” This

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image came not only from reading the tragedy but was rein-
forced in the critic's memory with two portraits by differ-
ent nineteenth century painters, Henry Lehmann's "Hamlet in
the Cemetery“ and Delacroix's rendition of the same title.
Hamlet's role, in Gutierrez Néjera's interpretation, was the
important Romantic search for value, inevitably ending in
frustration: "vino al mundo cargado de ilusiones (nggg II,
p. 85) . . .(Hamlet) nos conduce a un caos indescifrable
en que la virtud y la verdad desaparecen" (nggg II, p.81).
There was no consolation for the protagonist in social
mores, in reason or in faith. Society, which should have
offered the consolation of its professed mores, was in a
diseased state, leaving the Danish dreamer in the position
of all truth searchers, victimized by reality which in its
most compassionate mood destroyed reason.¢mata la razon”
Egggg II, p. 85) or with its usual malignancy, killed faith
("se levanta aterrada la imagen espantosa de la dude" nggg
II, p. 81). The terminal effect was a personage who was
”tétrico, meditabundo, taciturno con la ironia en los
labios y el dolor profundisimo en el alma” (figggg II, p.81).
A love-hate combination was the emotional reaction which
sought release in typical Romantic moods of "desprecio a1

mundo” (Prose II, p. 82) and a "colera universal" (Prose II,

 

p. 82). The last paragraph of the article restates the
correlation between Hamlet and the nineteenth century: "Si
Hamlet es un loco, también lo es nuestro siglo. La misma

duda, el mismo descreimiento, el mismo deseo impaciente del

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miento" (nggg II, p. 86).

A study of characters from other Shakespearean
plays gives insight into the way Gutierrez Néjera saw him-
self and his century reflected through that playwright's
genius. Othello, for one, received almost as much praise
as Hamlet, but the qualities he possessed were different.
If Hamlet symbolized doubt, Othello ("aquel hercfileo molde
humano" Egggg II, p. 71) represented Romantic constants of
strength, energy and glorious triumph in combination with
a natural but potent defect: jealousy. This combination in
the person of Othello is further complicated by the same
hostile Providence which plagued Hamlet, making faith and
human reason pointless. Although jealousy was recognized as
a defect, it was not equivalent to the orthodox notion of
sin which could be cast aside or effortlessly atoned for,
nor was human frailty something rationalism could replace.
Jealousy was as integral to Othello as adverse fate, and the
manner in which Othello struggled against this combination
evoked in Gutierrez Najere a view of ideal conduct similar
to that of other nineteenth century generations. Worthiness
of being had to emanate from a kind of individual struggle
which can be defined by several observations Gutierrez
Najere made on Othello.

Othello's strength, energy and nobility (“fiera
noble” ggggg II, p. 75) were, by definition, of superlative

quality (”e1 mas soberbio leon” Prose II, p. 71). The

#1
attempts of this superior being to impose himself bring
forth his own as well as the world's complex reality. In
bitter vengeance he kills his wife, whom he believes guilty
of adultery, but "no deja de amarle!...Ya este muerta y
todavia quiere besarla. Ya es cadever y afin 1e parece muy
hermosa!” (nggg II, p. 76). This dialectical complexity
of emotions is as striking to Gutierrez Nejera as the unex-
plainable fate which cast Othello about. Othello's greatest
achievement in the struggle against intricate and nebulous
reality is that he triumphs ("Es bello...porque es bello el
triunfo' Prose II, p. 71) and his greatest triumph of

 

strength and nobility was taking his own life after learning
of Desdemona's innocence. Even if Othello is guided to his
death by mysterious forces and uncontrollable passions, he
transcends all of these by a resolute sense of faithfulness:
”no se meta: se va con ella” (Egg g II, p. 77).

Among Gutierrez Nejera's articles on Shakespeare
there were isolated but significant comments on several
female roles. The three women most discussed were Desde-
mona, Ophelia and Juliet, each of which incorporated some
facet of love which is commonly accepted as a unifying theme
used by Gutierrez Nejera. Although the love of each heroine
appears unique to Gutierrez Nejera, there is a basic inter-
pretation common to all three. Their love provided the
material for a Romantic inner fulfillment which compensated
for a meaninglessness of the external world. The range of

love extended from the childhood innocence of Desdemona and

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the spiritual purity of Ophelia, to the sensuality of
Juliet. Love was the equivalent of faith (”Greer es amar"
Egggg II, p. 8“) which could lessen the pain of doubt: it
could temporarily isolate man from his pernicious surroun-
dings: and, although love was not able to postpone death, it
constituted the highest essence of life farthest removed
from death. Death, in its turn, retained its eternal near-
ness connected to love and life in these terms: "Ya Julieta
y Romeo amaron: ya pueden morir, porque hen vivido ya” nggg
II, p. 90). Since they loved, they lived, but both love and
life 'va derecho y repido a la muerte' (nggg_II, p. 88).

As Gutierrez Nejera's comments on Shakespeare accum-
ulate, it becomes more obvious how thoroughly Romantic was
his orientation. Whenever his criticism concentrates on
men whose work followed the initiation of Romanticism,
Gutierrez Nejera is on home ground, making his remarks all
the more pertinent to understanding his own creative pro-
cesses. As he related himself to immediate predecessors
there was always a sameness in the underlying ideas of so-
cial and metaphysical isolation with value achieved through
individual exertion. However, the similarities can ob-
scure wide differences, such as those between Romanticism
and Realism or Naturalism and Symbolism. The way in which
Gutierrez Nejera treats these differences leads to a reason-
ably accurate definition of his own art. As a critic, he
refused on principle to accept or reject the credo of any

movement in its totality, believing an original author had

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to be like a house whose windows were open on all sides to
every possible influence.

The first generations of Romanticists were given
lavish praise similar to that bestowed upon Shakespeare.
Representative among those singled out were Goethe, Byron,
Poe and Victor Hugo. Hugo was, in Gutierrez Nejere's esti-
mation, the only author who approached Shakespeare's synthe-
sis of a vast spectrum of human feeling. As a formal tech-
nician, Hugo provided a wealth of examples for imitation,
such as his fusion of poetry into prose, while his ability
to represent the purely ideological sensibility of his age
qualified him es "el gran moderno” (Crenicas gg ”2295",

p. 217). Similarly, Goethe received unqualified acceptance
although this was directed more to the ideological than
technical. Goethe's attempts to fuse the different periods
of art, his self assertion through love, and the crises of
faith make the 'Jfipiter de Weimar" ideologically as near to
Gutierrez Nejera as Victor Hugo. The American, Edgar Allan
Poe, whose relationship to Gutierrez Nejera has been
explained in a chapter by John Englekirk,1 was recognized as
one of the most direct sources of the fig,gg siecle malady
shared by Gutierrez Nejera. The English poet Byron, less
influential perhaps than others, is equated with Goethe as

"eterredor y sombrio" (Critica, p. 111).

 

 

1. John Englekirk, Ed ar Allan Poe Lg’His anic
Literature (New York: Instituto de las Espanas, 1935),

pp. 2E0“; e

44

Among the literary influences emanating from the
early Romanticists, that of Germany should be emphasized
because of the long-held, exaggerated conception of
Gutierrez Nejera as the author of "pensamientos franceses
en versos espafioles".l This categorization was justified
perhaps until the 1950's when the appearance of previously
unpublished articles forced a different view. In a volume
already cited, the American hispanist, Boyd Carter, un-
covered and published several poems and literary articles
taken from a Mexican Germenophile newspaper, LL Correo
Germenico.2 The articles, first published in 1876, which
dealt largely with aesthetics and literary theory revealed
an extensive enough knowledge of German literature that
Boyd Carter cOncluded: ”e1 supuesto afrencesamiento que se
le imputa al Duque Job, no se note del todo en-los escritos
publicados en el Correo Germenico. Mes bien es germanefilo

3

e hispanefilo". Carter qualified the conclusion by point-
ing out that this did not deny a wide inspiration in French
letters but that such detailed comments on German writers
like Heine and the effusive praise of the German LL g made

an alleged total dependence on French literature question-

 

able.
Along with positive reactions to the early
1. Justo Sierra, "Pr610go", p. 8.
2. Carter, Manuel Gutierrez Nejera: Estudio y

escritos ineditos.

3e Ibid’ Po 75o

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Romanticists an occasional negative response appears. Empty
over-expressiveness was one fault which drew his attention.
Garcia Gutierrez, for instance, packed all of the Romantic
trappings into his drama but expressed ”poca o ninguna
verdad" (nggg II, p. 186). Bad imitations of the Romantic
greats were another literary develOpment he found unaccep-
table. Referring to Victor Hugo's numerous imitators he
wrote: ”Los Hugos chiquitines son insoportables" (Critica,
p. 319). What cannot be found among criticism of the early
Romanticists is a statement which attacks the basic tenets
of the movement. Garcia Gutierrez was not censured because
he gave a Romantic frame to his works but because his hollow
ideology did not equal the elegant stylistic externals.
Imitators of Victor Hugo suffered from the same defect:
'imitar la factura me parece facil...pero no el pensamiento"
(Czitica, p. 319). The pattern is consistent. A writer was
never found lacking because of inherent Romantic traits but
for not rising to a level of the movement's best tradition.

After the initial stages of Romanticism expended
themselves (a process completed around 1850 according to
Barzun), a period of specialized literary trends began.
Although a description of the European literary movements
of the late nineteenth century does not fit into a rigid
pattern, there were two clear tendencies. On the one side

were the positivist schools of Realists and Naturalists

 

l. Barzun, Classic, Romantic and Modern, p. 99.

86
opposed on the other by the idealistic tendency of deca-
dents and Symbolists. Both groupings still, however, worked
around problems introduced by their Romantic predecessors.
Gutierrez Nejera, without rejecting completely the positi-
vist viewpoint, allied himself with the idealists.

Gutierrez Nejera's major objection to the positivist
carry-over into literature was its insistence on natural
laws with thematic emphasis on the tangible and physical
("materialismo asqueroso" Critica, p. 166). Categorizing
Realism and Naturalism as strictly limited to the physical
however, does a great injustice to what Realism and Natural-
ism accomplished as a final product. The motivation behind
the Realist-Naturalist writer was the same preoccupation
shared by his idealistic counterpart: fulfillment of indivi-
duality. Those who took their start from positivism typicale
1y sought this fulfillment in social reform while the
idealists moved into mysticism or aestheticism. The result
was that the positivistic literature usually reflected in
some way the idealistic motivations of its author as
society's guardian.

This conflict of theory and final product did not
escape Gutierrez Nejera. He simply recorded his misgivings
about the theories and absorbed the outstanding works in the
same manner he would those of Shakespeare, Hugo or Goethe.
In reference to Zola, who illustrates the positivistic
artistic formula at its purest, he wrote: ”Instintivamente

huyo de Zola, pero ecabo por sentirme en su poder...y sin

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embargo no reniego de mi credo artistico...Zola personifica,
generalize, y el que tanto ha censurado a Victor Hugo."
This personalizing to Gutierrez Nejera sufficiently dis-
proved the dogma of artistic determinism: "Y esto es un
triunfo para los que hemos combatido los preceptos dogmeti-
cos de Zola en lo que tienen de exclusiones, porque precise-
mente cuando el mismo los conculca, es cuando hace algo
bello y perdurable" (Crenicas gg "2395', p. 160).

The same concept of European Realism and Naturalism
was applied to Mexican positivism. Gutierrez Nejera looked
at the Mexican positivists who had loudly proclaimed their
rejection of Romantic idealism and recognized, first, that
the motivation which led to the rejection of Romantic ideal-
ism was itself idealistic and, secondly, that the positivist
unconsciously arrives at what the idealist believed litera-
ture must express anyway. To Gutierrez Nejera, the scien-
tifically oriented articles of LeOpOldO Zamora on social and
economic problems were not products of science, but of art.
Art, by inference, was idealism. Justo Sierra in his poetry
was an eloquent advocate of the ideal which denied the
validity of science. By means of this interpretation of
Realist literature, Gutierrez Nejera was presented with
innumerable avenues of inspiration from authors whose works
of social representation did not obscure a suppressed or
toned down idealism (Galdes, Pardo Bazen, Balzac, Zola,
Maupassant).

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pertinent to Gutierrez Nejera was the Parnassian movement
of poetry in France. Although tied to positivism, this
trend was actually quite different from realistic-
naturalistic fiction. While the fictional side of positi-
vism leaned toward social portrayal with an eye to criticism
and reform, the highest ambition of the Parnassians was a
purified aestheticism. These poets shared with the realists
a desire to play down the emotional and sought to objectify
their works with an elaborateness and precision of form
and plastic detail. But they did not restrict their works
to contemporary society. Ancient, exotic worlds and primi-
tive societies were as germane to their art as contemporary
society was to the realists. In spite of the Parnassian's
wish for objectivity, they were not impersonal or impassive,
constituting in Henri Peyre's words "un romanticisme assagi
et mitige.”l

The aestheticism, or art for art's sake motivation
of the Parnassians, more than any other nineteenth century
ideal, describes Gutierrez Nejera's solution to the Romantic
problem of self identity. It would be inaccurate to desig-
nate Gutierrez Nejera's aestheticism as a direct evolution
from Parnassian ideas since he was also fully aware of their
source in people such as Poe, Goethe, and Schopenhauer.

Nevertheless, Parnassianism is the most conspicuous previous

 

l. Henri Peyre quoted in A. Lytton Sells, "Par-
nessians", Enc clo edia 9; Poetry ggg Poetics, ed. by
Alex Preminger (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1965), p. 600.

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49
example of the Mexican's notion that artistic contemplation
and creation give a meaning to life unattainable elsewhere.
Beyond the basic idea of aestheticism there are other
matters of influence relating to style which left their
mark. Gutierrez Nejera contrasted his fondness of color
with the poetry of Theophile Gautier and in another place
he mentioned the manipulation of form by Leconte de Lisle
to create vivid impressions of music, color and plastic
form.

It is not, however, Realism, Naturalism, or Par-
nassianism which define Gutierrez Nejera as an artist. He
drew inspiration from each (certainly more from the Parnass-
ians), but his emphatic commitment to a subjective revela-
tion of Lg,LgLLg and Lg_nggL place him with certain of the
Parnassians--Baudelaire more than Leconte de Lisle, for
example--end with the decadents, Impressionists and Symbol-
ists. There is a complication here, however, in claiming
inspiration. Many of the artists under this category were
his contemporaries and there exists a question of whether it
would be influence or a parallel development. There is much
to suggest both possibilities.

Gutierrez Nejera's attitudes towards his contempor-
ary European counterparts reveal some strange ambivalences
which leave the impression that his resemblance to Impres-
sionism or Symbolism was as much an incidental personal
maturation as a direct outgrowth of concurrent European

aesthetics. Essentially, the ambivalence is that the

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Mexican frequently writes of decadents and Symbolists with
reservation if not outright censorship yet, on the other
hand, in his critical theory, prose and verse there are
strong resemblances to those he censures. This ambivalence
or refusal to accept fully the decadent-Symbolist mode pos-
sibly reflects his desire for impartiality toward any work
or period of art. Yet it is inescapable that his enthrone-
ment of art, mysticism, subjectivity, and especially the
nature of his technical innovations places him more solidly
within this tradition than he chose to admit.

The decadent-Symbolist tradition to Gutierrez
Nejera was a line beginning with Edgar Allen Poe extending
through Baudelaire, Rollinat, Richepin, Verlaine, Ibsen and
Maeterlinck. Among the reservations which Gutierrez Nejera
held with respect to this group was his dislike of anything
physical, earthy or excessively Naturalistic. Baudelaire's
ng fleurs gg,ggL, for this reason, was inferior to Victor
Hugo's L g Contemplations. Another fault he found was an
excessive zest for innovation: ”Dar en ridiculeces y exo-
tismos que a la fin y postre, nada tienen de nuevos, pues
antes bien son, propiamente hablando, un salto atres" (gag-
giggg fig,'£ggkf, p. 97). Still another fault was a neurotic
spirit ('semilocos' Critica, p. 463) he saw in the decadents
and Symbolists.

Along with the criticism, however, appears an impli-
cit if not acknowledged admiration. Perhaps decadents were

”semilocos” but also "de enorme talento" (Critica, p. 463).

51

Paul Verlaine is equated with a painter who was "un artiste
endemoniadamente humano que suele tener somnolencias y en-
suefios misticos" (Crenicas gg_"2ggg", p. 46). These "somno~
lencias y ensuefios misticos", which could characterize
Gutierrez Nejera himself, probably give the reason that he
tried to put distance between himself and the decadents.
He saw in their work an uncomfortable image of himself. His
own obsession with death and its 'seduccien diabelica” made
Gutierrez Nejera anything but a psychologically well adjus-
ted person. A near self-portrait was given in a statement
on Symbolism: ”sufre alucionaciones como las de Poe, aspire
a creer, suefia en almas...Lo que se siente, lo que se queja,
en este minuto secular de crisis, es el nirvana, es la re-
nuncia del ser' (Crenicas gg "nggf, p. 60). There is an
interesting acceptance-rejection in another passage where
the somber tone of the decadents is criticized and in the
same sentence that Poe, Baudelaire and Rollinat are named,
Gutierrez Nejera, in spite of a reproval, employs the first
person pronoun ”we". The most eloquent testimony to
Gutierrez Nejera's adhesion to Symbolist ideas is not in
his literary criticism but in his prose fiction where unin-
hibited first person narration, mysticism, lyricism, cosmo-
politanism and technical innovations, such as synaesthesia,
are characteristic.

The purpose of this short incursion into European
literature has been to give some indication of the frame

wherein Gutierrez Nejera defined and interpreted the world

52
about him. Perhaps a qualification should be made that this
is not an attempt to label, but to illuminate basic assump-
tions necessary for an understanding of the material at
hand. For the sake of accuracy, Gutierrez Nejere was not a
Symbolist but a Modernist, which in a sense is a Spanish
American counterpart to the European school. If he has not
been discussed in terms of Modernism, it is not to deny him
this affiliation or to try to make him over into a European,
but for a more basic reason. Gutierrez Nejera, among
others, was an initiator of Modernism and, as such, influ-
enced the movement more than the movement affected him.

As stated in the first paragraphs of this chapter,
Gutierrez Nejera's ideas on art were closely keyed to what
he thought the world was, was not or ideally should be. His
art was a response to a roughly outlined world view chosen
eclectically from Positivism and the broader nineteenth
century current of Romanticism. With regard to a theory of
art, Romanticism was the prevailing influence rather than
positivism. In fact, it was a reaction against the claims
of positivists upon literature which first motivated
Gutierrez Nejera to hypothesize on the nature and goal of
art. With a prefatory statement in 'El arte y el material-
iemo', the negative motivation of his theory is unequivo-
cally presented: ”Lo que nosotros combatimos y combatiremos
siempre, es esa materializacien del arte” (Critica, p. 53).
Other remarks underline the strength of the negation: ”as-

queroso y repugnante positivismo“ (Critica, p. 50), "atroz

eteriali

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53
materialismo” (Critica, p. 51), and 'prostitucien del arte"
(Critica, p. 54). Following these disavowals, an affirma-
tive belief was expressed that beauty was contained in the
idealistic, spiritual nature of man: ”. . .1a belleza reside
en el orden espiritual y no en la materia, claro es que
debemos encontrarla en el idealismo” (Critica, p. 57).

For Gutierrez Nejera, idealism served various func-
tions in its relation to art and literature. Foremost per-
haps, idealism provided an antidote to disconcerting univer-
sel truths. Gutierrez Nejera and his positivist opponents
alike had scant faith in the existence of a universe beyond
their visual experience and consequently they relied on
their own individual abilities for security. At least on
this point there was little disagreement between Gutierrez
Nejera and the positivists, but the best way to utilize
individual endeavor in literature was a different question.
The positivists preferred to minimize unresolvable metaphy-
sical problems in order to concentrate on the immediate and
observable, which usually translated into social reform.
Gutierrez Nejera saw little value in ignoring eternal mete-
physical problems which, however unresolvable, remained
engraved on the human mind: “Lo que nosotros hemos sos-
tenido es que debe dejarse en eterna libertad a1 poeta para
expresar sus sentimientos ya sean religiosas, ya patrioticos
c ya amorosos, en la forma que en inspiracien 1e dicte'
(Critica, p. 53). This was not a denial of the usefulness

of social reform but an insistence that art should have a

u

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54
more inclusive scope which in no manner would be lacking in
usefulness. Simply stated: "El arte purifica al hombre”
(Critica, p. 56), or ”. . .lejos de ser futil y vane, ha
hecho muchos y muy elevados beneficios a la humanidad" (9;;-
ILQE: Po 51).

Another appeal for idealism to be incorporated into
literature originated in the critic's own notion of ”real-
ism” concerning the nature of man. Different from the
strictly physiological concept of man without a spirit who
reacts according to laws, man according to this theory of
art, did have a spirit which could not be ignored without
reducing humanity to a state of abjection and berbarism.
The idea that '. . .el espiritu no existe, el amor es una
quimera, luego 1a poesia eretica es vane y perjudicial'
(Critica, p. 50) seemed as hypothetical to Gutierrez Nejera
as his own belief in the human spirit. The negation of a
spiritual, idealistic quality to human existence was a point
he considered too absurd for detailed comment:

Admitamos por un momento que la existencia del
espiritu y del amor son simples hipetesis. aPodren
ser destruides par une sola negacien? aEsta negacien
no sere tambien una hipetesis, puesto que no viene
acompafiada de prueba alguna? ...pues haste con las mes
conocidas y triviales reglas de la legica puede pro-
barse la verdad de nuestro aserto.
(Critica, p. 51)
Furthermore, the patriotic goals of social reform-oriented
literature defended by the materialists ”. . .este compren-

dida en la poesia sentimental. . ." (Critica, p. 52) and

was, as a consequence, idealistic. The restrictions of the

.f [1.30:
ieeue. '4

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55
”mal llamado genero realista” (Critica, p. 53). from any
vantage point, were reduced to a philosophically incomplete
definition of man and an aesthetically restrictive formula
for writing with pernicious exclusions of its own.

If love and sentimental poetry were not a vain
dissipation of effort, the problem still remained concerning
how to make use of these qualities. Gutierrez Nejera's
solution was an aestheticism, left at liberty to discourse
on any subject which obsesses the human spirit. With justi-
fication it can be said that beauty became the center of
Gutierrez Nejera's world and encompasses a multiplicity of
meanings and purposes. To begin, beauty was the closest
approximation for man to eternity: ”Lo bello es universal y
eterno” (Critica, p. 113). All other aspects of life and
human labor were perishable but ". . .1a poesia, es decir,
la manifestacien de lo bello, es y sere siempre iguelmente
grandiose porque se derive de la Divinidad y tiene su
dominio en el espiritu” (Critica, p. 113). This did not
solve the problem of certain physical death but at least
gave mortals a glimpse of something unperishable.

The concept of beauty deriving from "la Divinidad"
was the only part of the theory which eventually underwent
a significant change. The statement of divine origin was
given in 1876 when the author was seventeen years old and
probably originated from Hegel's ontological rationalization
for the existence of God. Exactly how directly the source

came to Gutierrez Nejera is uncertain. Both Boyd Carter and

I: :': ‘
V“. "‘3 I

H}... ‘

a-

131.". ex
111313;:

13.5, he

4' “Her .
fii~l I

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56
Porfirio Martinez have acknowledged the Hegelian derivation
but disagree about the source from which he derived the
idea.1 Regardless of how he came to use the concept how-
ever, it was discarded during the first years of his writing
career.

At the time Gutierrez Nejera gave the divine origin
of art explanation ("lo bello tiene que ser necesariamente
carrtolegico: es lo absoluto, es Dios” Critica, p. 55) in

JL£376, he was already feeling a crisis of faith. The same
year he wrote: "la duda con sus garras destroza mi
<31~eencia."2 There are other indications that the equating
of beauty and God were less than a pronouncement of orthodox
faith, the most conspicuous example being that beauty was

described as God and not the reverse. Also, the beauty-God
':==<=>Inparison was made to defend erotic poetry which, as Justo
$2.~erra observed, would offer little encouragement to those
who hoped for a defender of traditional Christian ideals.3
Ari-other point which places a commitment to orthodoxy in
gC'~=l.cstion, even at this early juncture, was the evocation of

‘5.“‘U1fthors for theoretical support-~Goethe, Byron-~who were not

\
:JL‘ <- Boyd Carter, ”Gutierrez Nejera y Marti como
Iniciadores del Modernismo', Revista Iberoamericane,
XXVIII (July, 1962), 306 and Porfirio Mart ez
Pefialoza, in the introduction to Critica, p. 21-2.

. Manuel Gutierrez Nejera, Poesies com letas,
Vol. I, ed. and prologue by Francisco Gonzelez Guerrero,
introduction by Justo Sierra (Mexico, Editorial Porrua,
1953). p. 107. Hereafter Poesies L,or Poesias LL will
be written into the text.

33. Justo Sierra, ”Prelogo", p. 5.

57
particularly orthodox in their beliefs. Yet another point
in the early theorizing which removed the author from a
solid orthodox position is that he speaks reprovingly of
the positivist's doubt and skepticism, but when the negation
‘is accompanied by his own affirmation, only the spiritual
realm is mentioned and never a ”Christian” spiritual realm.
The obvious inference is that if Gutierrez Nejera began his
literary career from a Christian orientation, it was with
wavering faith and that, in the context of ”El arte y el
materialismo", God appears in a secondary position as a
convenient way to explain beauty's superlative nature.
The total deification of beauty occurred simultane-
Qusly with a diminishing of faith. God, while he was in-
kaed, now served as an explanation of beauty, but as the
writer's faith disappeared, the comparison became metaphoric
‘Elul:1¢3 when faith was gone, beauty evolved into the highest
g<>al available to man. The transition can be explained as
beginning with beauty leading to God then, with the depar-
‘fl‘=r‘élzre of faith, beauty itself undergoes deification. Manuel
bgdro Gonzilez, who studied the trajectory, considers the
b:l=‘<>cess completed by the author's twenty-fourth year
‘:»:1u883)81 however, there is little written after 1880 rele-
Vamt to Christian doctrine which is not ambiguous and much
\l‘itten before this date which suggests that the battle was

\

3L4 Manuel Pedro Gonzelez, ”El conflicto
religiosa en la vida y en la poesia de Manuel Gutierrez
Nejera”, Atenea, XXII (August, 1932). 228-36.

58

already lost. If in 1876 beauty is God, then in 1878 the

young critic contrasts a volume of thorough-going orthodox
poetry to that of his generation, which is “filosefico,

sombrio, con la duda cartesiana en el espiritu y la sonrisa

de Voltaire en los labios" (Critica, p. 173). In the con-

clusion to the article Gutierrez Nejera allies himself with
the religious skeptics by praising the aesthetic qualities
of the religious poetry but withholding approval of the

poet's beliefs: ". . .no se si es un filesofo: se que es un

artiste” (Critica, p. 176). In 1880 the movement toward

deification had advanced full cycle in a poem entitled

°° Solo ante el arte”. God is still referred to here as the

creator but, to all appearances, this is purely metaphoric
usage since a central theme of the poem is to state that

<3th art is eternal: “es la finica grandeza que no muere"

( ‘Poesias I, p. 239).

On balance, it is fair to say that, from the outset,
‘39 auty was central, soon deified and, as such, reached
toward the eternal: "Diriase que el genio y la belleza son
‘11 la tierra la imagen de la eternidad" (Critica, p. 113).
Eternality, as it rested on beauty deprived of Christian
QEmpernatural assurances of longevity, developed as the

§Ounterpoint of death, which drove the author to art for

assurances of immortality. The prevalence of a feeling for

<leath's nearness and its consequent motivating force cannot

be underemphasized. The following lines, written between

the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, illustrate the morbid

59

propensity that was prevalent in the early years:

1876: ”Este mi corazen de muerte herido” ("Pegina
negra'): 1877: ”. . .que la inflexible/ sentencia

del Eterno nadie borra" (“Sobre el sepulcro de Rafael
Martinez de la Torre”): 1879: "compramos e1 derecho de
la vida/ con la triste moneda de la muerte” (”El 25 de
junio"): 1880: ”Unos se burlan de los sepulcros:/ otro

contemple con ansiedad“ ("Lapida"): 1880: "Mi cuerpo
sofioliento se rinde a la fatiga:/ secrete voz interna
me dice que no si e. . ./ . . .aqui, sin agitarme,

la muerte esperare. (“aPara que?”)

(Poesias I)
flDlrese poems with their mixture of death and fear of death
are not isolated examples, nor is there a diminution of
‘131xeir thematic presence in any of the poems, stories, chron-
icles or literary criticism.

Gutierrez Nejera was fully aware of the fact that

death was the force that pushed him toward survival through

ale stheticism. Art offered a measure of consolation against

d-eath in all its implications.

qQath was physical extinction.
t ion from this inevitable moment but could offer a console-

The most certain form of

Art could not offer salva—

‘bion through contemplation because art, by its pleasantness,

was 'muy higienico, alarga la vida" (Crenicas d_e_ "nglg‘,
j353’s 90) or, on the other hand, offered a view of something
“"1hlich escaped the "caos tenebroso de la nada' (Critica,

:I;>.. 113). Nothingness and death, however, were more than

there physical extinction. If life were not lived with a

Qertain amount of feeling, human existence became a death
in its own right: "el espiritu que no siente la belleza. . .
‘33 verdaderamente un repugnante cadever, dotado tan selo

tie un movimiento fisico y mecenico' (Critica, p. 114).

60
Although death is life's greatest disillusion, it was not
the only catalyst which moved the author toward the creative
world. Gutierrez Nejera generalized, saying that pain in
any form is a generating impetus for art: "E1 dolor ha
creado el arte en todas sus manifestaciones y sus formas"
(M: P- 75).

As beauty allied to life in a struggle against death
airrd.prosaic existence embraced the eternal, several consi-
derations of time are automatically implied. If beauty is

the route toward eternity, there was no way the author could
ial‘rtoid considering the essence of time which isolated him
from death and an everlasting existence. In the most
general sense, time possessed for Gutierrez Na'jera two seem-
a.~l"1gly inconsistent traits. It was a rapidly disappearing
ghronological phenomenon but at the same time was static and
uhchangeable. 0n the one hand ”El tiempo no interrumpe su
§ arrera ni un segundo" (Crenicas gg "Pu_c_l_c_", p. 214) and on
the opposite extreme: ". . .continfia indivisible como infi-
JEj‘ji—fta linea recta, que no sabemos ni de donde arranca ni si
hermina en algfin punto” (Crenicas Qg "PM”, p. 214). The
midividable, infinite line is a mirror of a reality which
“E’3Eldured in an unchangeable state: ”. . .vivimos de repeti-
§iones' (Crenicas Q "§u_c_k_", p. 138).

Notwithstanding these contrasting views of time,
‘tihey are unified to the extent that both are psychological

cirientations. The idea that time is a speeding phenomenon

has concretely related to a death fear, while the static

61
property of time represented the possibility of unlimited
existence. Unlimited existence however, was only a con-
ceivable possibility which, by its uncertainty, created
feelings of hopelessness or despair. Consequently, time's
unchangeable aspect created a response of tedium:
E1 mismo sol, la misma lune, las mismas estaciones,
los mismos amores, los mismos placeres, los mismos
tedios, los mismos pesares, las mismas mujeres, los
mismos ministros, los mismos libros con diversos
nombres.

(92.63.2933 51.3.. ӣ29.19": P0 138)
<>q:- an ominousness: ”No hay libro mes tregico que el calen-
dario. Es la tragedia de lo desconocido. Cada die es un
<Eklmflbozado” (Crenicas gg ”2293", p. 199). The clock with its

e qually spaced units of chronology was of little service to
Gutierrez Nejera as he applied the mental yardstick to
a“lzatic time. In a chronicle description of an earthquake,
he demonstrated how time was a mental flux rather than a
‘qulrlaiversal numerical standard: 'aCuentos minutos habian
transcurrido? Un segundo 0 un siglo"(Cr6nicas gg ”Egg-k”,
b - 187).
Within this interpretation there is little that can
be said about future time. It is an unknowable certainty
which the author entered with a mixture of resignation and
"sllread. The only possibility of survival was the meager one
Qffered by art. If an artist could achieve sublime crea-
“=ions then at least that part of him would endure.
The implication of static time for beauty in its

JDelation to the past however, is a different matter. Here

62
mortals could survey historically centuries of creative work
and find spiritual nourishment by contemplating the cultural
attainments which had survived. Once an art work gained a
state of eternal grandeur, it possessed a timeless imme-
diacy which made its author a perpetual contemporary to any
age :
La Iliada de Homero como los cantos de Virgilio, la
Divine comedia del Dante como la Jerusalem de Torcuato
Tasso, la Atale de Chateaubriand como el Rafael de
Lamartine y el Fausto de Goethe como las sombrias
creaciones de Lord Byron, seren siempre obras gran-
diosas del pensamiento humano, y a pesar de las

revoluciones intelectuales y morales que en el mundo
se verifique.

(Critica, p. 113)
{IPIIe idea is that in all beauty, all statement of truth,
~t=1I‘1ere will always be a kernel of reality which remains uni-
versal and constant. On a trivial day to day level of
a~<=tivity, eternal experiences were relived which perish as
‘1t31hie physical body will perish, but art because of its tran-
chndent greatness realized by means of genius and talent,
thoyed an everlasting permanence: ”iPrivilegio sublime
Q61 talento!“ (Critica, p. 113).
In searching the history of man's consciousness to
Qrapport a personal need to serve beauty and idealism, myth-
Qlogy and ancient legends are the examples farthest removed
:jidrom Gutierrez Nejera, in either chronological or cultural
development, in which he found an ideal physical-spiritual
iaynthesis. According to Gutierrez Nejera, the ancients were
laappy because they knew how to weave harmoniously their

rhythological fantasies into the pattern of a daily physical

63
existence. The Greeks achieved a ”. . .sintesis supreme en
que la vida del hombre y la vida de la naturaleza se con-
fundieron y se identificaron" (Critica, pp. 175-6).

Other peoples, not necessarily as early in time as
the Greeks but of a basic primitive nature, exemplified the
same ability to establish a rapport between themselves and

a. life force of the inanimate world. Such was the case of
the early Germans who through their lieder transported the
reader to past centuries where the contemporary could witness
dialogues of generations long past. Gutierrez Nejera was
fascinated by these poems as the incarnation of what he
believed the ancient German people to be--a visionary people
who inhabited a misty, fog-filled land of dark, mysterious
rorests-u-but more important, he liked the lieder as an exam-
ple of the universal properties of beauty. In spite of
be ing German cultural manifestations, these songs were above
Q-.]_l ”1a manifestacien mes simple y sencilla de la poesia"
(Sritica, p. 119) which resembled early folk and poetic
I'3-‘li.r:ifestations of other peoples. The Lydian songs of the
thient rhapsodists, the skaldic poems of the Norsemen, the
w of the minstrels, the songs of the bards, the odes of
Seappho, the short compositions of Alcaeus, the popular songs
“I the Arabs, the cencioneros of Castille, Catalonia and
Asturias--en had their points of contact. The pristine
idealism of these primitive poems was sought by Gutierrez
Nejera in a uniform way in every great artist. It was the
duty of contemporary man to find consolation in all the

6h

world's surviving works of beauty: ". . .nos es preciso

vivir en ese mundo creado por la fantasia de los artistes

de todos los siglos, de todas las edades" (Critica, p. 115).
{Ihose monuments of mankind which had escaped the chaos of
teethingness were all equidistant in time from the author
Iaecause they were "siempre igualmente grandiose" (Critica,
3;» 113). Static time, in the final analysis, was a museum
(:f history's monuments of beauty beginning with the earliest
.nnyths, folk songs and legends, and ending with works of
(Shatiérrez Najera's contemporaries whom he judged to be so
good as to approach an ideal state of beauty in their works.

The present was opposed to static time as a rapidly

Iilesappearing part of man's existence which carried him ever

closer to death. As man rapidly passed through time, he was

Surrounded by the commonality of the material world with all
ji—‘lbs trivial entanglements. The logical objective was to
'lLlrrest time through a qualitative endeavor, which to

‘ZFImtiérrez Nijera's thinking was an aristocratic life style

‘illmose foundation and cornerstone was beauty. To relate the

:trlleeting presence of time to literature, the artist's task
"Vtas to eternalize the passing moment into a form of art.
Emile Zola is a perfect example of this possibility.
The Mexican critic, whose ire was continually directed
against Zola’s theories, praised his "potencia, mas que
creadora, retentive" (Cronicas g2,"ggg§”, p. 160) and the
fact that Zola could take common detail and raise it to

”las esferas de las supremas generalizaciones' (Cronicas d2

 

 

 

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In.

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IV,-

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65

"Puck", p. 160). The Mexican novelist Federico Gamboa was

extolled in a similar way for his capability to "atrapar a1

 

.paso y por medio de la fotografia instantanea“ (Critica,

:Ih 396). The instantly captured moment was not sufficient
lnowever; quality (beauty and genius) was equally requisite.
{The fact was emphasized that Gamboa ”. . .retrata con tino
:y'elegancia...es un joven fot6grafo de genio” (Critica,

3;. 395). Although these examples are taken from articles on
:zrealists and naturalists whose proclaimed objective was to
capture the environment of a particular moment, Gutierrez
Néjera made this a criterion for judging all art which was,
't>3r definition, the only outlet from the passing moment

'1;<>ward the eternal. The historians of Shakespeare's time

‘fl’eere "simples analistas" (Prosa II, p. 68) of an epoch's

£aLcetivity, but Shakespeare, because he was a poet, ". . .era

‘Jtrx supremo historiador” (Prosa II, p. 68).
These responses of Gutierrez Najera to time are

indicative of his approach to reality generally. To begin,
3:”eaality, like time, is a personal creation or psychological

JE‘EQaction to the outside world. Time as a mental flux which

'VVtiries according to the impact of stimuli is purely a crea-
1tion of mental character. Infinite time however, is exter-
r1&1 to the author who knows it exists but not its source or

destination. Not knowing the origin or terminal point of
time stimulates a personal response which overrides its
importance as something that exists outside of the critic's

person. This application of mental processes to time is

66

just one example of how Gutierrez Najera treated reality in

its total context.
To explain Gutierrez Néjera's definition of reality

and his application of this concept to art once again
involves a comparison with his positivist counterparts.
Stripped of broader implication, there is little difference

between the reality of the positivists and that of the

Modernist theorist. Reality is that which the mind per-

ceives. First there is a mind which has individual proper-

ties capable of reflecting stimuli in its own characteristic

way, then there is the immediate observable world which

Provides the stimuli. The individual as he exists as an

entity in the universe is practically powerless to control

his destiny. Gutierrez Najera would not question Taine's

biological definition of man as a development of cumulative

OHater forces like race, milieu and moment. Literature, in

Qrénicas Q2 "Puck", is described as a good indication of
the ”media social en que se desarrolla" (Cronicas g9 “Puck",

D- 60). The principal cause of Gutierrez Najera's elevation

0:8 art is to transcend the fact that life is “finita y limi-

tada" (Critica, p. 113) and that man is "un movimiento
f:tsico y mecanico" (Critica, p. 114). Nor would he disagree

VWith the realist’s formula that art is ”1a nature vue a

travers un temperament."l Again there are repeated asser-

tions by Gutierrez Na'jera that art is the individual artist

¥

1. Karl Uitti, The Concept 9; Self in the

Symbolist Novel (Paris: Mouton, 1961), p. 17.

6?

communicating a reality he has seen. To make this very

point, he approvingly quoted a positivist: ". . .lo que
constituye e1 arte--como dice Eugene Véron en su Estética--
xno es tanto la emocién comunicada, cuanto 1a intervencion
<ie 1a personalidad humana en la emoci6n misma” (Critica,

3;» 323). There is nothing unusual in these frequent points

(of contact between a Modernist and positivism. Karl Uitti

lnas explained how the same relation existed with the Sym-

Isolists and Naturalists in France1 and Manuel Pedro Gonza-

lez has shown how the Modernist epoch in Spanish America
times an outgrowth of a basic positivistic orientation.
Gutierrez Najera gave the basic positivistic tenets

his own emphasis which varied enough as to appear that he

Inland a different concept of reality. With Taine and Zola,

literature was a cognitive effort to capture the soul of
I‘lzan through enumeration of pertinent data, while for
(EPLatiérrez Najera art was an effort to know the world as it
filtered through mental, emotional processes which would be

e(iifying for man's soul. In short, Gutierrez Na'jera de-

nlainded a personal rather than a social literature. He uses

E3<3vera1 positivistic values to justify his position. He

Egtave to his appeal for personal literature a utilitarian

Social value:

‘

 

1. Karl Uitti, The Concept 3; Self ig_the
§ymbolist Novel, pp. ZI-Z.
2. Manuel Pedro Gonzalez, Notas en torno a1

modernismo, (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autznoma de

Méxic0. 1958). pp. 33-7.

68

58610 son 'positivos' bienes aquellos que se mani-

fiestan en el orden industrial y politico de las ‘
aNo son bienes mil veces mayores y de mas

naciones? ,
alta trascendencia los que se verifican en el espiritu
y tienen por dominio a1 anchuroso campo de la idea?

(ELLE-.93: Pa 113)

fThe idea is echoed continually that the spiritual side of
Iran needs as much attention as the physical. Zola conceded

'this temperamental nature of the artist but chose that ”the

personal feeling of the artist is always subject to the

elaigher law of truth and nature.” The possibility that

personal sentiments could lead the artist to represent man
as standing on his head was absurd to Zola. Gutierrez

lNléIJera, by contrast, would have said there is an empirical

't>tasis for standing a man on his head--in dreams, for exam-

]FDJLe. In a concluding sentence of a review he stated "Es
Z‘eal todo lo que se cuenta en este libro, porque el suefio

Ga una hermosa realidad" (Critica, p. 308).
The existence of an outer world was recognized but
“=lme important goal for art was the communication from the

artist's mental reflection of the outside universe. This

‘“"Els not to go so far as to declare the outer world an exten-

83.0m of the mind, but the substantial effect is the same.

3911s true artist looked only to his own feelings:

Ante todo, yo no conozco a la humanidad ni sé lo que
desea. Cuando por la exaltacien de un sentimiento, me
veo obligado a escribir en verso, no pregunto si eso

Emile Zola, The Experimental Novel, selec-

tions in Literary Criticism: Pope pg Croce, ed. by Gay
Wilson Allen and Harry Hayden Clark (Detroit: wayne

State University Press, 1962), p. 596.

69

mismo sienten otros, sino que digo lo que siento o creo
sentir. Los mismos que piensan desprenderse de este

personalismo, no pueden lograrlo.
(91220.2. p. 323)

{This dealt with the subject of poetry: however, the comment
his valid for all literary activity since Gutiérrez Najera
(did not recognize a fundamental difference between verse
sand prose: ”. . .en achaques de arte, no hay poetas y
jprosistas, sino artistas y no artistas" (Critica, p. 95).

This inward-turning led Gutierrez Najera into an

;i41ea1ism which became a confrontation not only with the

mysteries of eternity but also of the self. He quoted

.53<=hopenhauer to the effect that introspection was the appro-

JE>zriate test of the artist: ”aConocéis 1a arcilla de que

esta’is formados?. . .Aprended a conocerla." The resem-

7t>JLance to, if not actual influence of, Schopenhauer did not

erid here. The Mexican's idealism shares the same pessimism,

"3lue same concept of self governed by a blind will and the
game final remedy in love, all of which could find its

litalximum expression in art.
The pessimism of Gutierrez Najera, which has already

‘t><3en touched on in the general description of his Romantic

‘Sesmperament, was rather severe. It is significant that he

}?<:inted to Schopenhauer as an originator of modern pessimism.
()I'the early Romantics it was Schopenhauer, along with Poe,
who bore the strongest resemblance to the intensity of the

¥

1. Manuel Gutierrez Najera, "Leconte de Lisle",
Lg Revista Azul. I (12 de agosto, 189“), p. 23“.

70
late nineteenth century anxiety. Gutierrez Najera partook
of this generational despair in the fullest measure. In
deciding how to write, he was faced with the problem of how
to incorporate something into literature as distasteful as
‘utter hopelessness or a disconsolate state bordering on in-
sanity. Even if he felt himself and humanity to be without
ta.bearing, it was a repugnant and unattractive predicament.
The possibility of ignoring the pessimism did not
exist: its roots were too deep. For Gutie'rrez Najera as a
,Iperson and for his generation, despair was an inescapable
eventuality. Different critics have described how the
decadent mode in literature came about as a logical and
progressive breakdown of the Romantic enthronement of self-
Il'iood.l The typical early Romantic found considerable conso-
lation in ascribing a transcendental value to man per se
While deprecating society as an abstract collective. It is
'Ciuifficult to indicate a chronological moment when this idea
LJLeost validity. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are commonly given
credit for having ended selfhood's existence as intrinsi-
cally important. These two were contemporaries of Gutierrez
Néjera and the Modernist epoch and, while it might stretch
reality to call the Modernists existentialists, it can
Elafely be said that the idea of transcendent Romantic

¥

1. Two writers who have focused on this problem
in book length studies are: Geoffrey Clive, Tpg
Romantic Enlightenment, Meridian Books (New York: The
World Publishing Co., 1960): Wylie Sypher, Loss of Tpg
Self ip Modern Literature gag App, Vintage Books-(New
York: Random House, 1965).

7l
selfhood was badly shaken within the entire movement. For
Gutierrez Najera, the lessening importance of selfhood is an
important characteristic of his pessimism. Manuel Duran
depicted his attitude as a ”. . .fenomeno de desaliento
‘vital, de falta de confianza en el hombre. . .Toda ideali-
zaci6n mediante la accién de un héroe o lo elevado de las
.ideas expuestas por un personaje 1e esta prohibida."
Since the dark condition of man was an inescapable

:fact, Gutierrez Najera sought to mitigate its unpleasant
effect in literature through love. In "El arte y el mater-
ialismo", he outlined the relation literature should have to

JL<3vet

Intentaremos demostrar a1 critico del Monitor: 1. Que
el arte tiene por objeto la consecuci6n de lo bello:
2. que lo bello no puede encontrarse en la materia,
sino con relacion al espiritu: 3. que el amor es una
inagotable fuente de belleza.

(Critica, p. 54)

5131118 love, more than a simple physical property, has an
ealctensive range of application, as in this article where it
‘I'tas a ”sentimiento purisimo que pudieramos llamar apoteosis
dc espiritu“ (Critica, p. 54). In love's extension to
"zapoteosis del espiritu“ and "fuente de belleza” it acquired
characteristics common to Gutierrez Najera's world view

generally. Irma Contreras Garcia aptly described his

concept of love as “infinito, ilimitado, lleno de vibraciones

~

1. Manuel Duran, "Gutierrez Néjera y Te6filo
Gautier”, Revista de la Universidad de Mexico, (March,

1951+). p. 7. "" "' _——""'" "'

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72
palpitaciones y en el fondo inalcanzable, abismal.” The

acceptance of a love force by the author was an attempt to
tie himself to an idealistic universe and, at the same time,

come to grips with the disconcerting reality of physical

existence .
Love was, in a sense, the equivalent of time and
infinity, as a comparison of his definitions of time and

Llove demonstrates. Time, as recorded above, was an "infi-

.zaita linea recta, que no sabemos ni de donde arranca ni si

termina en algfin punto" while love ". . .no comienza ni

termina, es una linea trazada en lo infinito.”2 Love stood

above the crass reality of everyday life: “El amor vuelve

Oro todo lo que toca. E1 amor tiene una breve esponja per-

fumada que borra las manchas de lodo.“3 Tied as closely as

‘3L<3ve was to art, it shared the same deification: "La humani-

‘jltad no puede tener mas Dios que el amor.” In its most

«5Lefleal state love created an ”encanto mistico” as in the case

(>1 Desdemona, or provided an opposite polarity to the ice of

 

 

‘3l<3ubt, bitterness and misanthropy, as with Ophelia. Ideal
3L~. Irma Garcia Contreras, Inda aciones sobre
Eptiérrez Najera, (Mexico: Metafora, 193?), p. 115.
33:.~ i t ManueléGutiérrgz Najera, Z§otas de Amor”, Lg
Rev 8 a Azul, 1 de d c embre 189 cited by Irma
Garcia Con reras, p. 11h. ’ ’
3. Obras ipggipgg: Crdnicas g; "Puck“, cited by
Irma Garcia Contreras, p. .
h. Manuel Gutierrez Najera, “En asno a Jerusa-

lem”, Lg gevista Azul, (marzo, 1890), cited by Irma
Garcia Contreras, p. 117.

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73
love did not preclude a physical love such as existed
between Romeo and Juliet: however, physical love predictably
led to immediate, perishable, physical considerations which
were not exactly heartening to the author. The ideally
eternal qualities of love were compromised in the physical
encounter. Love brought pain: "El amor muerte" (9.229.193:
p. #61): or the surest way to suffering was ”e1 terrible
encuentro con el amor” (Critica, p. 461). On a more specu-
lative plane, love was the face of death: ”Todo amor da la
muerte“ (grdnicas 513 "_13u_g_1_c_”, p. 194). Love as an idealistic
quality led the poet back to the dilemma of the decadents:
that is, goodness and badness are not separate entities but
come in a single package. Eternal love was inextricably
bound to death: ”Tue ojos (oh mujer! ocultan el amor y la
muerte” (Qrénicas g_e_ "£33k”, p. 194). Love, like art, could
only mitigate sorrow but not eradicate it.

The belief that good and bad were inseparable, or
that love had an ugly perspective did not stifle the idea
1”let a struggle toward love and beauty was worthwhile. The
aI‘tist had to accept love, even in a degraded state if
l“Geessary, and let it work as a catalyst, moving author and
lFeeder toward a purgated, exhilarating state of truth and
beauty, '1’ en los lechos impuros aCuantas veces ha refugiado
“11 suefi'o casto, un recuerdo tierno, una memoria de pureza,
alga hermoso que fue bueno" (Critica, p. 1457). Once more
this is the same reality of the naturalists who wrote to
depict the horror of existence, with the difference that the

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horrible existence is sifted through by the author, in order
to extract what is elevated. The author began by accepting
love in its painful, physical, material aspect and then
moved towards transforming it by his genius into the sem-
blance of an absolute norm. Such a movement from physical
to pure idea is, of course, thoroughly platonic, as Porfirio
Martinez Pefialoza noted in the introduction to Gutierrez
Nijera's criticism: "Gutierrez Najera nacié platcSnico."l

In the tradition of Platonic or neo-Platonic aesthe-
tics, Spain offers an outstanding manifestation through her
mystic poets of the formula for transcending the physical
to arrive at supreme realms of perfection through the medium
of love. Gutierrez Najera referred to the Spanish mystics
to corroborate his observations in "El arte y el material-
ismo“ and continued to invoke their names until the last
important articles in the Revista 1_|.z_ul_. He especially liked
Teresa de Jesus, whose mysticism came not from the misery of
the Book of Job, but from ". . .esa inmensa onda de amor que

36 llama e1 'Cantar de los Cantares' " (Prosa II, p. 199).

 

that is to say, it was based thoroughly on love. Mysticism
to Gutierrez Najera was an "evaporacién de nuestro espiritu”
(W, p. 175) and, as such, a ”fuente inagotable de
Poesia' (Qritica. P. 175). The function Mysticism served
18 described in a statement on Santa Teresa de Jesus: "la

"1&3 Perfecta encarnacién de esa poesia mistica que tras-

:2
191149 a los lirios orientales. . .que perdiéndose en
\ ‘

1.

 

f _ Porfirio Martinez Pefialoza, introduction to
W. p. 25.

 

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75

idealidades hermosisimas, debe subir al cielo como las
espirales del incienso” (Critica, p. 176).

Within the platonic context with which Gutierrez
Na'jera viewed the Spanish mystics it would be fair to say
that he himself was a mystic, but not exactly in the same
way as the Spanish mystics. These relate to the nineteenth
century Mexican with the same affinity as Shakespeare.
Gutierrez Najera adapted from each whatever suited his
temperament. In the case of Shakespeare, he adopted certain
thematic materials such as doubt, love, madness and disillu-
sion: from the Golden Age Mystics he took an idealized
vision of life and art where the corporeal world is invested
with value through a process of idealization. While San
Juan, Fray Luis and Santa Teresa sought the divine revela-
tion of God, the Mexican secularized the meaning of his
search whose objective was truth and, above all, beauty. As
Such, the mysticism of Gutierrez Najera was an aesthetic
mMilticism.

In the ascension toward beauty, one of the immediate
consequences of a mystic aesthetic was Gutierrez Najera's
eOncept of diction and stylistics generally. Just as the
religious mystic could not give direct communication of his
Visions except through the symbolic use of language and
figurative speech, Gutie'rrez Najera felt that the artist
necessarily had to go beyond imitation into figurative
language in order to communicate his spiritual feelings:

e.
La belleza, . . .no es una idea, sino la imagen de una

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744”.

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76

idea" (9235123.: p. 55). Any attempt on the writer's part
to restrict himself to a photographic, non-figurative reality
would be to deny a vision of beauty and place the work in a
'cércel mezquina de la servil imitacidn!” (Critica, p. 57).
In an attempt to communicate visions, however, metaphors and
adornments of speech by themselves are insufficient until
given form by an artist of talent and genius. The mysteri-
ous ability of talent to give words the ability to communi-
cate artistic truth made the artist into a sacerdotal per-
sonage. For this reason, Justo Sierra, as a poet, was a
”sacerdote" (Critica, p. 331+): Leconte de Lisle ". . .tenia

l and Jose Marti was

Is altivez de un sumo sacerdote“:
”Prefeta, apostol, misionero, sacerdote" (Cronicas Q “Puck”,

p. 132)e

 

Although any great writer was, by definition, a
Priest, the question of the sources of beauty for the indi-
vidual artist was not simply passed off as unexplainable.
First, the inspiration had to come from within: then,
through a process of conscious manipulation the raw material
01 inspiration was given form. There were two considerations
which operated in the source of an impulse which guided the
artist to form a work--one psychological and internal, the
Other external and mysterious (”yo no escribo mis versos,

no 103 creo:/ viven dentro de mi: vienen de fuera" Poesias

II! Do 31) e

\

1' Manuel Gutierrez Najera, “Leconte de Lisle”,

£3 Revista Azul, I (29 de julio, 1894), p. 203.

 

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77
The external source which stimulated an aesthetic
feeling was by its mysteriousness something incomprehensible
to the writer. He explained the nature of this impulse

metaphorically in various ways:

El alma del poeta es una lira. . .el lied aleman es
la pulsacidn de alguna de sus cuerdas.

(Critica, p. 171)

Los poetas. . .son como el arpa e61ica que se estremece
y vibra y canta en la espesura grata de los bosques, a
la merced del viento que la mueve.

(griiiee. p. 212)

Yo oia como un eco lejano, escondido en selvitica
espesura, la Neniae, e1 canto orfednico.

(Critica, p. 95)
By describing the external motivator as an Orpheic song,
Guti‘rrez Nijera reinforced the sacerdotal role of the
artist who through an epiphany revealed beauty. The lyre
and Aeolian harp, as representations of something other
than ordinary, corresponded to the idea that art had to
derive from talent or genius.

Along with the mysterious outer inspiration, an
inner voice operated. This, in effect, was the artist's
Subconscious. Subconsciousness is, of course, Freudian
terminology unknown to Gutierrez Najera: however, the total
“frost of his observations relevant to this point are equiv-
alent to a definition of the Freudian idea. The basic tenet
that l poet should give in to the “vuelo libre y espontaneo
‘19 3“ imaginacion' (Qriticg, p. 112) in practice was an

appeal for mental free association as inspiration. In the

 

78

Cr6nicas g3 “Puck“ he pointed out ". . .el valor positivo de

 

ciertos fendmenos de sugestién mental o aparente, lo que
llaman los sabios 'fantasia complementaria'. Los testigos
de un hecho dado, al referirlo, lo transfiguren involuntaria-
mente embellecie'ndolo" (Cr6nices _d_e_ ”£2315”, p. 88). Such,
he continued, was the nature of his cronicas where rigorous
scientific exactitude could be laid aside ". . .como en
estas ligeras cr6nicas volamos en pleno azul, en plene
fantasia, puedo dispensarme de todo rigor cientifico" (gag-
nicas (_1; ”M", p. 88). Without any feeling of exaggera-
tion, it can be said that the same method applies to his
Poetry and fiction.

Distant spiritual voices and unconscious mental
forces did not, however, preclude treatment of the external
world. As much was implied in the above statement: ”Los
testigos de un hecho dado, a1 referirlo, lo transfiguran.”
To communicate truth as a humanly apprehended experience,
the fact that it was refracted through a mental process
should be made evident in the work. The resulting product
resembles a combination of mental fantasy and empirical
concreteness. An introductory paragraph to a story stated
the interrelated nature of the internal andexternal this
Way: ”La distancia que separa un suceso de un suefio es

113318111 ficente . ”1

‘1' Manuel Gutierrez Nijera, Cuentos com letos,
ed. by E. K. Mapes (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econ3mica,
1958). p. 331. Future references from this volume will
be included in the text as Cuentos.

3“

 

79
The role played by the mind in the inspirational
state is purely receptive and excluded conscious intellec-

tion. Calculated rationalization in inspiration was ener-

getically rejected :

Cuando un poeta me dice: “Estoy haciendo una poesia”,
me escandalizo como si la tierra me dijera, ”estoy
haciendo una rose". Estes cosas no se hecen: eperecen.
E1 poeta es el arbol: la poesia es el ruisefior. Viene,

y se para en una rama y alli cante. Si la rema esta
seca, el ruisefior se va.

(fig—{$3.959 Po 330)
The exclusion of conscious manipulation to gain an
aesthetic stimulus is an important foundation of Gutierrez
N‘Jera's general theory of beauty. Beauty, if it rose above
I hollow artificiality, was intuitive: "Lo bello no se

define, se siente" (Critica, p. 55). Any other approach to

the creation of art was erroneous to the Modernist, for any
Innflber'of reasons. Imitation of nature with mirrored
accuracy gave a simplified, false, unsensitive picture of
reality which was appreciated only by the vulgar) man. Po-
llitical propaganda that did not derive from a sincere ideal-
iiflm was a miscarriage of good intentions, since art only
influenced social events but did not determine them. Art
'theories which prescribed rigid grammatical and formal rules
iror’writing such as those which emanated from the Mexican
Academy were stultifying.
The members of the last group were ridiculed as

I‘eactionaries that ”pordiosean en el umbral del Diccionario

Didiflldo frases de anticuado corte para encubrir la desnudez

y 18 mi-Seria del concepto' (Critica, p. 252). Any topic

80

this group could possibly conceive would have been accept-
able material to Gutierrez Najera, who was perfectly consis-

tent in his belief that the individual should extol what he

believed regardless of opposition from others. However, the

hd<>dernist was unwaveringly faithful to his idealistic orien-
tation that if the final product was beautiful it came
intuitively or subconsciously, rather than from calculated

re ason .
The setting aside of reason ended after the process

of inspiration was fulfilled. After distant voices or

Obscure psychic workings submerged into consciousness, their
artistic form came from patient, thoughtful craftsmanship.

Jos‘ Peon y Contreras was chided for writing poetry after a

laborious workday when his power of concentration was

We akened (este sisteme del sefior Pe6n y Contreras es mal,

mis sun, es pésimo" Critica, “p. 195). The same author

Chowed the defect of carelessly chosen forms which did not

1.” it the nature of his inspiration. Heroic actions narrated

in lyric forms or love complaints expressed through royal

c>1L‘.taves was a betrayal of inspiration. The object of reason

in art was to search for the best tools for presenting ins-

piration. Reason was used to select the form which con-

tained the inspiration:

Les formas poéticas no son, segfin nuestro entender,
sino los instrumentos de que el poeta se sirve pare
producir en el animo de sus lectores e1 efecto de
antemano preconcebido: asi pues, tienen que guarder
une extrechisima conexidn con la idea de que el enter
as he propuesto desarrollar.

(Critica, p. 149)

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81
{Elie problem which inevitably developed from matching

:1113piration to literary form was that the Mexican Academy,

tacrth in acceptance of new ideas and in allowing new forms

15c>r expression, was inhibitive in its role. Gutierrez

Pléijere's feelings on the restrictive role of the Academy
Eirld its members provoked some of his sharpest criticism:

. . .hombres temerosos de dios y de la gramatica:. . .
rateros que cercenan retazos de la sotana de fray
Luis de Ledn: . . .los neos, jurados enemigos de

toda suerte de progresos, solo cultivan la literature

embalsamada 0 de imitacidn: . . .Una corporecién de
literatos que cierra sus puertas a las ideas nuevas

y se enclaustra dentro de murallas infrenqueables, he
necesariamente, de corromperse como las aguas estan-
cadas. Es une momia y nada mas que una momia.

(Critica, pp. 248-52)
Gutierrez Nijera was careful to qualify his dislike,
Saying that conservatism or liberalism in itself did not
confer talent but that, in the final analysis, a liberal

Gift:titude was necessary to consider new ideas and to conceive

cthi‘new modes in which to express them. A continual breaking

with the past in a renewal of thought and form was in the

Very nature of great literature as is shown in the double

1“fixture of his attack.

The two fallacies of the Academy were "dogmatismo
iaglt‘amatical y la aversién a las ideas modernas' (Cpitica,
35". 251). The membership of the Academy was overwhelmingly
‘==Il.erical--if not actually priests, then monarchists and
.‘Jl:1.traconservatives--and its general attitude was easily a
gamma-y behind that of the positivists and Modernists.
thiirrez Néjera compared the Academicians to an extended

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82

list of nineteenth century greats whose ideas he considered

more palatable. The list, which began with Leopardi and

Hugo and ended with Justo Sierra, showed the same nineteenth

century Romantic preferences explained above. Religious

skepticism, eroticism, liberal politics and uninhibited
subjectivism were the most common topics which the Academy
would not consider, but to Gutierrez Najera were "e1 empuje
formidable de la e'poca" (Critica, p. 251).

In addition to the ideological blindness of the
Academicians, Gutierrez Najera was equally vexed by their
Pronouncements on form. Their preferences in style were as

devoid of merit as their choice of philosophy because of an

eIlaphasis on grammatical correctness. An overzealous concern

2t‘<>r commas, pronouns or pedantic points of syntax were in-
aIafficient substitutes for talent and inspiration. Good
Writers were "ateos del diccionario" (Critica, p. 248) who
had to be as edroit in breaking grammatical cannon as in
using it. The Academicians in their own poetic imitations
or the classics were unable to equal the original inspiratim

al’ld produced only mummified imitations whose rhetorical

flourishes resembled fake jewelry. Because of a backward-

l't‘ess in style and idea, a lack of talent and inspiration,
they were incomparable to those like Justo Sierra who could
IIlaaterfully execute a ”connubio de la inspiracion y de la

t Qrma" (Qritica, p. 255).
If anything comes through forcefully in the article

3‘71 the Academy, it is that art is not style alone but the

'e
...é

a.

u
a: a n
la
U
nu: r

 

83

impulse of a zeitgeist finding its appropriate manner of
expression. Innovation in style became peremptorily the
task of every generation, since man's thinking was continu-
ally changing. In the case of Gutiérrez Najera it was a
question of how to express artistically a late Romantic,
partlypositivistic, idealistic perspective. In order to
give expression to his own personal inspiration there were
‘VELrious ideas on style which he worked out for himself.

Since beauty and truth were supreme absolutes re-
vealed only to men of talent and genius, a special language
was needed to recreate aesthetic visions for the reader.
The artist in his role as priest had to invest language with
a magical quality which would faithfully recreate the exper-
ience of his inepiration. In order to convey that language
was an instrument of revelation and epiphany, Gutierrez
Néjera frequently applied the word ”hechizo" as a signal
that he felt a writer was successful. Jose' Marti's short
Stories were "hechicerescos" (Critica, p. 372) and his style
was "mégico' (123.31.): Federico Gamboa ”. . .hechiza por su
dosgaire" (Critica, p. 395). A good example of how language
EIaasumed mysterious, magical characteristics to transport
inspiration was a description of the politician Juan Meteos'
3Speeches, which were a ”cabalgata hist6rica, de una masca-
I‘ada, de un kaleidoscOpio, de vistas disolventes, de lin-
terns migica, de funcion de titeres, de algo que no puedo
cuajer en una sols frase" (Qritica, p. 473).

As well as pointing out the magical function

84
language had to perform, Gutierrez Najere specified limits
wherein language and style in the broader sense, could
carry out its intended objective. Above all, diction and
style had to conform to intellectual control. Perhaps
inspiration came gratuitously, but not expression. Simpli-
city and clearness is a characteristic of his own poetry
and stories and his criticism corroborates his preference
for this quality. Far from being an easy accomplishment,
Simplicity presented more difficulties and complexities
than met the eye. The German lieder ". . .por su misma
brevedad, por su misma sencillez, presentan muchisimas
clificultades y escabrosisimos escollos" (Critica, p. 122).
The greatest danger in simplicity was the facility with
which it degenerated into vulgarity. A prime example of
ideal simplicity was the .l_ig_c_l_ written by Heine, Uhland,
FliHchert and Geibel which was, in Gutierrez Najera's
e atimation, the epitome of good poetic execution.

Beyond language there were other areas where
Simplicity was desirable, if not required. All genres of
“t should possess a unity of intention in order not to
confuse the reader:

. . .una de las reglas que mis principalmente deben

observarse porque se derive de un principio filos6fico,

es evidentemente la de no quebrantar nunca 1e unidad

de pensamiento, ya sea en las composiciones draméticas,

ya en los discursos en prose o bien en las poesias

liricas.

(W: P- 160)

This touch of classic theory extends to other matters of

°°mposition where an appropriateness of interrelation

 

85

between form and idea is mandatory to prevent a reaction of
distaste or confusion from the readers

Tan ridicula fuera una composicion a César escrita

en seguidillas, como una humoristica letrilla en la

rebusta y levantada entonacién de la oda. El asunto

de una composicidn debe indicar desde luego cual debe

ser el metro que en ellas se use.

(Critica, p. 149)

The romange, since it is a ballad form, should allow only
themes propitious in nature to a ballad. A heroic ode
Should never admit any material that detracts from the
égzreatness of its subject. Royal octaves were inappropriate
for love complaints and redondillas and heptasilabas were
rldsver to be employed to describe heroic actions.

Not only should there be unity of thought and
fijppropriateness of style, but thought should be consistent
‘Vfith its own intentions. Zorrilla's poetry was beautiful
1>1ut nevertheless unsuccessful because its author tried to
égfilorify a nation by writing of its dead, medieval past.
With sharp humor, Gutierrez Najera ridiculed the poetry of
'1=lne bishop Montes de Oca for portraying elevated personages
5L!) the literary guise of lowly characters:

lQué andaban haciendo por el bosque y de noche dos
obispos? Serfa por lo que tienen de pastores: pero
hasta los pastores se recogen cuando cierra la noche.
Nos esa fue verdaderamente una imprudencia.

(ES—{3.3.2.9 Po 389)

The desire for simplicity and intellectual control

1¢¥<1 to a rejection of excessive abstraction. The critic

rE’égz'etted a misunderstanding between himself and another

'r‘i.ter because of ”una confusion grandisima, engendrada por

86
esa fraseologia empalagosa, gongorica y oscura" (Critica,
1).. 167). In different articles over-abstraction is referred
‘t<> as ”aberraciones del gongorismo" (Critica, p. Zhl).
\Nmriting on the limits of innovation in Cronicas gg ”£393”:
“Cmue procuremos hacer algo nuevo, santo y bueno es: pero no
alga descabellado 0 sin pies ni cabeza" (Cronicas (_i_e_ Ӥu_c_1_(_",
1?.» 90). Complexity was a treacherous quality, he said, in
Symbolist literature: ”Quieren hacer dramas que no sean
(llramas, sino otra cosa mas grande o distinta a lo menos:
rIcovelas que no seen novelas; poesia sin ritmo y sin rimag
iIDJrosa sin sentido comfin' (Cronicas Qg_"ggg§', p. 90).

In the process of enumerating opinions on uniformity,
harmony and consistency in theme and form, it appears that
Ciwutierres Nadera bears a likeness to the Academicians whose
ITNigidity he thoroughly despised. This, however, was not the
ease. The fact that the romance form was used primarily for
liaistorical narration did not prohibit its employment for
<>”ther materials. He thought it was equally suitable as a
Vehicle of philosophical or sentimental material. Most
noteworthy are some interesting contradictions in his mis-
givings about Symbolism. An acceptable conclusion was that
he was not against innovation, but was against bad experi-
Illcntation.

The mixed reaction to Symbolism is especially inter-
alilting in light of the Mexican's own innovations. The con-
‘3G5Iatration on mental processes rather than external repre-

a‘Bl'atatien, a feeling that mental images were the only

if

87
lcnowable reality, and that mental images in their natural,
tirrrationalized state did not divide reality into sharp lines
of focus was the artistic modus operandi of both Gutierrez
Néjera and the Symbolists. Time as a chronological measure-
Ineerat was false, straight measurable lines unbroken by light
were unreal, color images are often blurred, sensory percep-
tions of smell, sound, sight, touch intermingle through
mental refraction and association. Given this concept of
reality in combination with the belief that art alleviates
‘tlae dilemma of the finite human condition, the result was a
Spectacular kind of innovation revolving around psychologi-
cal oxymoron or synaesthesia. This mingling of the senses
ixicorporated into artistic creation, very appropriately
designated by Argueles Vela as ”sentido ecuménico del

1

mundo", was systematically worked into theory with an early

Series of articles published in 1876.
He began an attack on measured external reality with
a disavowal of imitation:

Si el dnico principio del arte fuera la imitacion,

un término supremo consistirfa en la completa ilusion
de los sentidos, y si tal fuese necesario, seria con-
venir en gue el artists mas sublime seria el espejo
que con m s fidelidad retratase los objetos. aError
monstruoso:

(Critica, p. 53)
There is more to this point in the context from which it is
taken than a statement concerning reality. Morality and
\

1 ~ Arqueles Vela, Teorfa literaria del moder-

nismo, (Mexico: Botas, 19595. P. 93.

.‘II
{in

.
1”:

‘I‘

V..
.II‘

88

value judgment are almost always inextricably involved in
every observation Gutierrez Na'jera made on truth or beauty.
Nevertheless, the idea is unmistakable that external reality
considered alone is an illusion of man's perceptive appara-
tus--”completa ilusion de los sentidos". Artistic repro-
ductions which depend totally on delineated visual repro-
ductions are received only by insensitive people who delight
in paintings of melons, flowers, well depicted trees and
Panoramic displays of history's dramatic moments. Following
a list of examples intended to illustrate the preferences of
those who do not understand man's grander spiritual capaci-
tYe Gutierrez Najera illustrated the contrast between imita-
tion of nature and what he considered truth by describing a
work of two hypothetical painters.

The material for both paintings would be the same--a
Study of Adam and Eve in paradise. In the first painting
there was an absolute fidelity of material detail. Adam and
EVG appear nude as nothing more or less than a happy couple
bathing in the privacy of a garden. The plants and birds
could be scientifically classified, a gardener could easily
choose flowers for a bouquet, the animals could provide a
z0<>logical collection and even insects appear in vivid de-
tail. Gutierrez Najera did not deny the existence of all
this factuality, but gave it only a partitive relation to
art: ”. . .este es _h_\_i__mu_§, esto es terreno prima: rio terci-

a1‘10 o cuarternario" (Critica, p. 59). It was not a true

 

pi<3‘tzure of the world's creation nor was the God represented

ea.
eV-‘u

 

89
in the work anything other than an entity who appeared as a
complement to other objects:

En sums, el pintor ha trasladado fielmente todos los
ejemplares que ha podido reunir de los tres reinos de
la naturaleza: pero Dios que hizo el original, no ha
dado una sola pincelada en la copia. Ante este cuadro,
nadie se acuerda del Genesis.

(Critica, p. 60)
The second painting, by contrast, laid the ground-
work for a spiritual, idealistic or psychological interpre-
tation of art and truth. In the last painting it is a pure
mental process rather than a draftsman's instrument which
sets the norm:
No se comprende bien qué arboles son aquellos: hay
acaso algun le6n con peluca y algun elefante que tiene
grandee narices en vez de trompa: hay faltas de correc-
cidn en el dibujo y grands escasez de detalles: empero,
la composicion es grandiosa: los pajaros cortan el sing
los brutos corren por la pradera mostrando su variedad
infinite y como negandose a la servil imitacion: el
aire y la luz lo bafian todo en olas de color y de ale-
gria, modificando y transformando los objetos. El pen-
samiento herido por aquella apariencia de verdad que
encierra el sentimiento de la verdad misma, y como un
angel que para llegar con sus alas al cielo toma impul-
so hiriendo con su pie la tierra, desde la obra del

artists as eleva hasta la grandeza de Dios.
He aqui el arte.

(Critica, p. 60)
On the surface it could appear that an application
01? the word "psychological” is reading more into the passage
than was intended. The use of God appears orthodox and the
ability of the artist to be lifted to the level of God‘s
8Peatness is traditional Christian mysticism. Remembering
howaver, that God is used symbolically as an explanation of

beauty and truth, and that Gutierrez Najera in other

a...

as.

9O
passages quoted above had said that his faith was destroyed
aa‘c: the time he was writing these lines (1876), one is left
with the idea that God has little relevance other than as a
secularized metaphor. With God used as a metaphor for
‘tzrtath, words like "espiritual", "Idealismo" and “sentimien-
to“ are obvious psychological instruments of truth's sublime
revelation.

In order to make his art correspond to the variety
0f mental projections provided through inspiration,
Gutierrez Najera theorized a fusion of arts to be incorpo-
rated into literary form. If there were no real separation
between color, light and concrete object, why should there
be a rigid classification of the arts? Such a separation,
he concluded, was not the case: "Lo que de la pintura hemos
dicho en nuestro ultimo articulo se extiende a todos los
demis ramos del arte que no son, en rigor de verdad, sino
1&8 multiples y varias manifestaciones de un solo principio”
(iritica, p. 60). Poetry, music and architecture were taxed
°qually with the objective of leading humanity from rigid
maFlicrialism to ”10s rayos del resplandeciente sol de la

bfilleza" (Critica, p. 60) and the highest form of beauty was
‘ Synthesized joining of the three:

. . .las creaciones artisticas, el cuadro, la estatua,
la musica que dejan enamorado y embellecida el alma
humans: y mas principalmente que estas artes, el

conjunto de todas ellas. . .y que las crea por medio
de la palabra.

(m: P0 114)
Essentially, Gutierrez Najera spoke of three

.pe:
fie ‘0

.:6A

to I:

ft

91
artistic modes: music, plastic (painting and sculpture) and
literary. 0f the three, music was the highest realization
of the spiritual realm: ”Convirtamos ahora nuestras miradas
a1 arte mas espiritual acaso, a la musica” (Critica, p. 61).
The interrelatedness of music to literature was implicit
in the assertion that the soul of a poet was a lyre or harp.
The primitive poetry which he admired and extolled so much
were not only poetry, but songs. There are several ways
Gutierrez Najera paid homage to music in relation to litera-
ture: "La poesia es el ruisefior” (Critica, p. 330). The
Columbian novel Maria was 'mfisica' (Critica, p. 217): ”e1
poeta debe cantar su fe” (Critica, p. 111). As far as his
own creative work was concerned there was no doubt concern-
ing Gutierrez Najera's wish to give it a musical affinity.
He put the question to himself in an article: '--LEs verso
0 press? --Es la musica tiernisima de Gutierrez Najera
respondi' (Critica, p. 93).

His praise of various musicians could hardly have
been more effusive. Beethoven, more than the voice of man
was a god, if not the very soul of creation itself. He
possessed the ineffable supernatural qualities which could
impose harmony over chaos in the same measure as God in the
biblical Genesis (Qrdnicas 93 “2295', p. 19). 0f Wagner's
Lohen in, a work often alluded to, Gutierrez Najera felt
he had never been able to capture more than a little of its
greatness for the printed page. Its music evoked in him a

profound religious emotion which was a gateway to eternity

92
(Egggg II, p. 181).

Music, besides being the most perfectly spiritual
art, was the one most easily understood by the masses. It
was "cl arte civilizador por excelencia' (Cronicas g; "2235}
p. 139). The suggestive possibilities of the medium were
infinite:

Mmfisica no se impone, no domina: es el lenguaje que
se acomoda a todas las pasiones: la lengua del leon,
que a fuerza de acariciar lamiendo el pie de su senor
hace una llaga. En una misma nota, piensa Fausto,
solloza Margarita y rie Mephisto.

(Critica, p. 73)
Music was capable of eliciting in the listener the synthesis
of sensory perception which was the basis of unifying the
different mediums of art. The music of Carl Maria von Weber
stimulated a combination of the auditory with the olfactory
sense (“trae perfumes desconocidos" Cronicas g2,"gggg*, p.
174) and at the same time the auditory to the visual
('ondula a manera de humo' Cronicas 93 ”2325', p. 175). If
the musician were successful he invested his music with the
same magic requisite to the literary medium. The opera
ngghfiuse; was a 'sagrado bosque“ (Cronicas g3,"§ggkf, p.
22), and with Sanson y Dalila 'cree uno percibir en esas
notas ensortijadas e1 hechizo" (Cronicasng ”2295?, p. 22).

The practical application of music to poetry was
contained in the nature of poetry itself as opposed to the
uneven pace of prose. Melodious harmony was intrinsic in

the nature of each metric line or in the combination of

lines with each other. Straphes also had musical potential

.F‘
'0‘.

.
I"
I0-

A‘J‘
VJ:-

'3'

93
through a process of ”armonia imitativa" (Critica, p. 156)
where the sound of syllables suggested the nature of action
described by the words. Besides harmony, euphony was
another term related to music which Gutierrez Najera em-
ployed regularly in approval of poetry.

The most abstracted form of music mentioned in
connection with poetry was in the thematic material of a
work. What the author had to say through meaning alone had
to be musical. Metrics and contrived harmony did not auto-
matically create music. Music derived from '. . .la intensa
y magnifica melodia que del sentimiento humano y del senti-
miento divino forman los grandee poetas” (Critica, p. 11“).
In another passage the categorical statement is made that
lyric poetry ”. . .no consiste en la disposicién métrica de
las palabras ni en la armonia de la rima' (Critica, p. 95),
which leads back to the fundamental notion that reality, art
or otherwise, does not consist of neat separations. Music
and poetry are inseparable.

Gutierrez N‘jera's ideas on music in prose were more
innovative than his statements on poetry. Traditional con-
cepts of poetry provided him a formula for harmony and
euphony which he saw little need to revise. In order to
work music into prose, the conventional distinction between
prose and poetry had to be set aside. Following the pattern
of synthesizing artistic modes, he re-defined prose as in-
separable from poetry:

. . .en achaques de arte, no hay poetas y prosistas,
sino artistas y no artistas. La prosa tiene su ritmo

9b
recondito. En Quevedo suena a carcajada: en fray
Luis de Granada, a himno sacro: pero una y otra sin
que el asceta ni e1 satirico se propusieran hacerlo,
tienen cierta cadencia especial y perceptible. La
biblia esta escrita casi en verso. . .La prosa de
Castelar. . .es en resumen, una sarta de octavas
reales agrandadas. En la de Renan abundan versos:
y en la profética de Carlyle, mas todaVla. . .Poco
importa que el verso entre: es un aliado. . .es la
musica del regimiento.
(91:212. pp. 95-6)
In prose as in poetry, a simple arrangement of words was
inadequate to create music unless there was a genuine in-
spiration: 'Las notas son como capsulas huecas, en las que
ponemos 1a miel de la dicha 0 el ajenjo del dolor” (Critica,
p. 216)e
Along with music, the category of plastic art was
the other artistic medium that Gutierrez Najera sought to
mold into verbalized art. In different places he mentioned
the relevance of painting, sculpture and architecture to his
aesthetic formula. The endeavor to incorporate plastic art
into literature was, in essence, an attempt to relate the
concrete external world to the mental processes. Gutierrez
Najera found in plastic art the same suggestive appeal to
the mind as in music. Rembrandt's paintings, for example,
had the surface aspect of interlocking light and shadow,
which on close inspection revealed new silhouettes and
strange figures slowly emerging from the dark and hazy
background. The experience of observing Rembrandt's art
was seeing anew '. . .como surgié e1 universe del seno del

caos a lavoz fecundante del Creador“ (Critica, p. 125).

In other words, Rembrandt fulfilled the priestly role of

95
providing an item of art which, practically as an actor in
its own right, displayed a vital force capable of trans-
mitting to the beholder's mind an eternal truth. The tangi-
ble character of painting made it ideal for illustrating
how to incorporate the perceived world into art.

Ignacio Altamirano was an exemplary model of a
writer who had created the same effect in words as a painter
who manipulated lines, colors, light and shadow. Gutierrez
Najera enumerated the qualities that he liked in Altamirano
in a review of the latter's Paisajes I Leyendas. Among the
paragraphs of physical description, what impressed the
Mbdernist was the effects of light, coloring and luminous
background. The final result was a true copy of ”108 multi-
formas cuadros de la naturaleza" (Critica, p. 236). Nature's
multifaceted reality was more than an intellectualized re-
production. The fact that the author went to the country-
side wae emphasized. Gutierrez Najera felt that for this
reason the true nature of the countryside became experienced
inspiration rather than a stale memory. The result was a
work which could, in turn, carry the reader toward the same
vision.

An observation with implied criticism is equally
revealing in determining how Gutierrez Najera wanted litera-
ture to reflect prOperties which were predominantly the
concern of the painter. He felt that colors had been for-
saken for lines and that these colors which Altamirano used

were dominated by the lines: ”Mas que el color busca la

96
lines. Pocas veces o nunca corre tras la frase policroma"
(Critica, p. 237).

There is another way in which Gutierrez Najera
equated painting and literature in his criticism. If he
approved of a writer's characterizations the writer was in-
variably equated with a painter, even if the characteriza-
tion did not involve tangible description. With reference
to characters' actions alone in Emilio Rabasa's Lg Bola, the
Modernist was moved to write "3! con que habil pincel pinta
a los personaje32' (Critica, p. 303). The connection par-
allels that between music and the thematic material of
literature described above in which a theme, even without
direct relation to sound, if sufficiently inspired is music.
In this case, intangible aspects of character equalled
painting. Reinforced again is the idea that the principles
of art are the same, that ideal artistic creation seeks a
synthesis of all art forms, with psychological reflection
the final norm for expression.

The ultimate dependency of plasticity to mental
processes is inherent in several observations on individual
characteristics of plastic art. Color as it relates to
emotions is the most salient example:

No puedo comparar la sensacion que en mi produce e1
recuerdo del lago (Patzcuaro) sino con la que me cause
la poesia de Lamartine: es una sensacién azul. aPor
que no atribuir color a las sensaciones si e1 color es
lo que pints, lo que habla en voz mas alta a los ojos,
y, por los ojos, al espiritu? I siente color de rosa
cuando recuerdo mi primers mafiana en la tierra caliente,
la salida del sol contemplada desde el mirador del

palacio de Cortes: siento color de plats cuando recuer-
do mi noche de luna en el mar, y siento color azul,

97

cuando vuelvo a ver en mi memoria e1 lago de Patz-
l
cuaro.

Beside relating individual colors to the senses, Gutierrez
Najera liked the polychromatic interplay of colors among
themselves. To achieve color effects in his own work the
Modernist sought an affinity with Teophile Gautier and
other French writers: 'Creemos en Gautier, buscamos 1a
paleta de los Goneourt”(Critica, p. 327). In another pas-
sage Gutiérrez Najera expressed his like of color contrasts:
Me encantan a mi estas oposiciones de colores y, esté
usted cierto, a1 encontrar en mis poesias una gardenia
blanca, de que a seguida viene una camelia roja.
Quizis por este gusto leo con tanto agrado a los pin-
tores literatos, como el admirable Eugene Promentin,
preocupados siempre en esos efectos de luz y de color.
Yo lo hago mal: pero Gautier, nuestra Gautier, lo
hacia maravillosamente.
(Q££E£E§: Po 318)
Along with color and light, particular attention
was given to lines and palpable physical form. Similar to
color and light, the ideal treatment of tangible form was
to describe it in a way that would reveal a psychological
experience: “Leconte de Lisle siente una lines y la burila
en el cerebro de los que saben leerle” (Critica, p. 95).
In an article addressed to Manuel Pugs y Acal, the Modernist
related both color and form to an emotional response:
. . .sentimos la voluptuosidad del color y de la

lines: nos fascina y encanta por ejemplo este
admirable verso de Diaz Mirdn: el puro y culminante

 

l. Manuel Gutierrez Najera, Cuentos color g3
humo, Prologue by Francisco Monterde (Mexico: Editorial
Stylo, l9h8), pp. 235-6.

98
pecho/ hinche y erige su boton de rose.
(Critics, pp. 326-?)

After projecting a synaesthesia of music, color and
form into verbal art, Gutierrez Najers carried the process
a step further and projected a combination of styles from
various literary movements of different countries and
periods. In this way he hoped to escape the tyranny of set
molds for reasons explained in the following quote:

zA que escuela pertenece el libro de Peon? En rigor a
ninguna. . .A mi me encantan estos libros vagabundos,
que no se entecsn en el pupitre de un colegio, que
corren saltan, cazan mariposas y corten todas las
flores que lee gustan: estos libros que amen infinite-
mente smando infinitas cosas: eetos libros son como
cases con ventanas ebiertae: estos libros en cuyas
paginas, traviesas y olvidadizas, tan pronto aparece
la pintura exacts de una vieja ama de llaves, como la
visién de 103 acres fantasticos. Tener escuela es
encerraree: es recibir la luz por una sols clsrsboys,
como los presos.

(Ellis-a: P- 306)
The enthusiasm for different schools in this passage reveals
the same relation between schools as between arts: all are
equally useful to the fullest reproduction of the artist's
vision.
The same vsriegating, spiritual broadening occurred
from studying the possibilities of foreign literatures:

Lo que primero se echa de ver en las poesias de
GustavoEBazJ, es que el autor conoce y ha estudisdo
varies literatures. No es de los que viven y mueren
dentro de la espafiola...En el estudio de los grandee
poetas extranjeros, se ensancha e1 espiritu como en
los viajee, y se educa y discipline el gusto. Be lo
que verdaderamente desenvuelve, y perfecciona las
dotes poéticas, no los tratadoe de retorica ni loe
libros de literature dogmatica. Gustavo Baz, por
este procedimiento, ha conseguido formarse un estilo
propia, que no es como el de otros poetas nuestros,

99
el indio trsbajendo para el amo espafiol, sino el
estilo independiente que tome lo que necesits y para
si: del inglés la frase concise: del frances, e1 giro
elegante: del espafiol 0 el italieno el perlodo
rotundo y armonioso.
(£211.93. p- 298)
For these reasons Gutierrez Najera declared himself an enemy
of literary schools. At the apex of his career in 189“,
with the publication of the Revista Azul, Gutierrez Najere
as director of the publication declared: 'nuestro programs
se reduce a no tener ninguno.“
In spite of Gutierrez Najera's seeming disclaimer to
a manifesto, his statement on the previous page--”El arte es
nuestro Principe y Senor, porque e1 arte descifra y lee en
voz alts e1 poems vivificante de la tierra y la hermonia
del movimiento en el especio"2--reduces the denial of set
program to a promise of avoiding rigidity and bigotry. The
exaltation of aestheticism in the Revista Azul was a direct
continuation of theories put forth years earlier in "E1 arte
y el materialismo”. Boyd Carter synthesized the content of
Gutierrez Nejera's first major article on beauty in the
following conclusion:
Manuel Gutierrez Najera tiene derecho sl titulo de
precursor tedrico del modernismo en el dominio de lo
estetico por haber tenido y defendido los eiguientes
puntoe de vista: 1. el arte no es imitecidn sino
creacidn: 2. el artiste debe ser libre de escoger su

tema y desenvolverlo a su gusto: 3. e1 objeto del arte
es la belleza: #. la belleza, no siendo una idea sino

 

l. Manuel Gutierrez Najera, “Al pie de la esca-
lera',';§ Revista Azul, I (May 6, 189fl), p. 2.

2. Ibid., p. 1.

100

la imagen de una idea, existe y se logre artistica-

mente en niveles simbolicos, distintos, superiores:

5. e1 arte represents el triunfo de lo ideal sobre lo

material, es decir, el triunfo de Ariel sobre Caliban:

6. la prepaganda no tiene nada que ver con el arte:

?. lo utilitario de indole material,'ee e1 enemigo 1

implacable del arte: 8. lo bello es util por ser bello.

A comparison of the content of "El arte y el mater-

ialismo' with the Revista gag; articles, all of which were
written just before the author's death in 1895, underline
the unity which exists throughout Gutierrez Néjers's work.
He began his career with very definite notions concerning
the human spirit and its precarious existence in a world
of scientific values. Motivated by doubt and metaphysical
uncertainties, Gutierrez Najere saw a solution in aestheti-
cism for the human dilemma. Beauty, in these circumstances,
was charged with freeing man from a finite existence and
ennobling the sordid realities of human life. In order for
beauty to perform such a task, certain modifications of
literary expression had to be undertaken. Literary form had
to adjust itself to accommodate the writer's vision. This
was accomplished by plumbing history for inspiration in the
art of all ages, searching the works of foreign literatures
for innovative possibilities, and eynaesthesizing into
literary material the properties of musical and plastic arts.
It is in this context, with Gutierrez Najera confronting

himself and the universe, that an examination of his sym-

bolic system should be undertaken.

 

l. Boyd G. Carter, Manuel Gutierrez Najera:
Estudio 1 escritos inéditos, pp. 7 -9.

CHAPTER II

VALUE: AESTHETICISM AND IDEALISM

Although Gutierrez Néjera seldom used the word
"value”, this term is a suitable denominator in understand-
ing his aesthetic intentions. Value, as seen in the pest
chapter, consisted of creating meaning for life in fervent
apposition to death and prosaic day-to-day existence. In
his personal life he cultivated an aristocratic demeanor in
a qualitative urge to remain above the sordidnese of
material existence, and in his writing he adopted an ass-
thetic idealism to accomplish the same purpose. The idea
appears centrally in his criticism and carries over into the
poetry and stories, that art in conjunction with a concen-
tration on idealization creates an ennobling dimension to
life for both author and reader.

As a consequence, much of Gutierrez Najera'e use of
symbol, no matter what ultimate meaning it acquires in
specific textual instances, derives from a basic motivation
of keeping the properties of art and ideality in continual
focus. Direct references to the world of art, literature
and music, artists as characters or Gutierrez Najera's
textual references to himself as a writer are characteristic

ways in which aestheticism is kept in the foreground.

101'

102

Idealism is made prominent with an imagery which suggests
value as related to the ethereal world of pure idea: birds,
flowers, precious metals, incense, objets QLEEE, smoke, fog.
In point of fact, the quest for value extends to the two
other major categories of symbolization--time and universal-
ity and immediate experience--to be examined in subsequent
chapters. The items mentioned above however, are singled
out because of their particular aptness in illustrating how
Gutierrez Najera undertook his personal expression of value.

Among the symbols which directly involve the names
of artists, their works, or some textual part of their works,
Gutierrez Najers chose by far the greatest number of allu-
sions from literature rather than music or the plastic arts.
References to music and the plastic arts are frequent and
important, but their presence is limited in comparison to
those from literature. The quantity of references to liter-
ature varies according to the nature of the work. In a
poem written to imitate the straightforward nature of the
German lieder, for example, there may be no literary analogy
whatsoever: in an uncomplicated, humorous prose vignette like
“Un quid pro quo' there is only one literary reference
(Espronceda, Cuentos, p. a) and two operatic references
(an_Giovanni, Cuentos, p. 3: L3 ineviata, Cuentos, p. 7).
A typical high countof author‘s names is found on page
twenty-two of the Cuentos completas where ten writers are
worked into the content of a single page with the following
order: Byron, Gerard de Nerval, Mary, Pedro Antonio

103
Alarcén, Chateaubriand, Anacharsis, Jules Verne, Flaubert,
Gautier and Dante.

Among the sources of literary references taken from
the ancient world, Greece was Gutierrez Najera's favorite
provider of aesthetic allusions. In a brief and unequivocal
passage he wrote that Greece was ”la msdre del amor y el
arte” (nggflgg II, p. 29?). Among Greek writers alluded
to, Homer predominates in a variety of metaphoric usages.
The quality of Homer as a poet is compared to the calibre of
a particular lady's beauty: “Como a Homero la Grecia, de tu
cuna diepfitanse los astros el tesoro' (Poesias I, p. 367).
In an ode to Hidalgo, Homer's name is entered twice to
correlate the greetness_of the two men (Poesias II, pp. 267-
70). By joining the Mexican historical personage to the
poet, Gutierrez Najera was underscoring the theory that
Hidalgo, whatever the nature of his calling, was an artist
by virtue of his great achievements. Not all references to
Homer were of a serious and grave nature. With a note of
levity, s personified cockroach appears in a story and
excuses his shabby appearance by proclaiming his inner good-
ness with a comparison between himself and Homer: ”aPiensa
Ud. que Homero andebs mejor de rope?" (Cuentos, p. 335)-

Personages from Homer's poems Offer certain analo-
gies. In a monologue, the gods from the Iliad are compared
to the lost_greatness of the imprisoned Frenchman, Lessips,
whose°eborted effort to construct the Panama Canal brought

him into disgrace (Cuentos, p. 36h). The episode of Odysseus

{his

I)

104
and the sirens was a logical analogy to commend the voice of
a singer in ”A una artists” (Poesias II, p. 291). In the
Cuentos a moralizing analogy is given to the sirens when a
prostitute in a moment of self deprecation regrets her siren
attractiveness in drawing an honorable lover to herself
after hiding the truth of her status (Cuentos, p. #06). On
a fantasy level, a comet is compared to Odysseus who found
a way to resist the sirens as the comet resisted the star
Venus (Cuentos, p. 161). Circe, who in Homer's poem turned
Odysseus' men into swine, is used in ”A Lydia” as a symbol
of deceptiveness (Poesias II, p. 275). Penelope was util-
ized more or less humorously in a farcical story to exagge-
rate the faithfulnees of a wife (Cuentos, p. 138). Cassan-
dra also appears in a humorous prose sketch where textually
there is only a physical comparison with the heroine ("sue
ojoe eran negros como los de Casandra" Cuentos, p. 97).
The fact that the heroine cannot inspire confidence in her
husband however, implies a broader connection to Homer's
Cassandra who could not convince the Trojans of her prOphe-
cies. Anecreon, another Greek poet, also draws attention
through occasional mention. Gutierrez Najera was attracted
to Anacreon'e poetry of love, wine and happiness which he
thought was a refreshing contrast to the metaphysical
anguish of late nineteenth century literature. In a poem
dedicated to a female acquaintance, Gutierrez Najera invokes
Anacreon with a rhetorical question: 'zEres la fresca y joval

campesina que Anakreén canto?” (Poesias II, p. 25). In "A

105
Justo Sierra" he laments the contemporary absence of a fee-
tive spirit seen in Anacreon'e poetry (Poesias II, p. 185).
In the Cuentos, there is a light-hearted reference to Anac-
reon in describing a lecherous old man as "absorto en sus
ideas anacrednticas” (Cuentos, p. #66).
The examples of Homer and Anacreon typify how other
Greek writers as varied as Sophocles, Seppho and Diogenes
are inserted into the texture of stories or poems to keep
the world of Greek literature before the reader. He also
makes use of several Latin writers although Gutierrez Najers
never felt an affinity for Rome equal to his love of ancient
Greece. Vergil, Horace and Ovid, among the Latin authors,
predominate. In ”A Justo Sierra” Gutierrez Najers asserts
that the spirits of Horace and Vergil survive in the person
of the poem's subject, Justo Sierra:
En él CSierrsj Virgilio, cusl un dios, habits
y cuando a Horacio sonriendo llama,
Horacio sends a la sagrsda cits.
(m II: P0 186)
These lines go to the heart of Gutierrez Najera's artistic
credo which took very literally the timelessnese of great
art. Horace, Vergil and Justo Sierra became one person
through their greatness, regardless of the space and time
barrier that separated them. In contrast to the above cits-
tion, Vergil and Horace appear as instruments of comic
exaggeration in a story entitled ”Historia de un pantalon'.
A fatuous Adolfo refuses to pay his tailor on delivery of

an order, conveniently forgets the transaction, and is

106
textually compared to Vergil's Aeneas: ”Disculpad, empero,
el olvido de este nuevo Eneas. . .no se puede ser fiel
eternamente a un pantalon“ (Cuentos, p. 370). The last two
sentences of the story refer to Horace in an equally light
tone: ”Horacio dice: 'El hombre pass 1a obra queda.‘ Pues
bien, he sucedido lo contrario: el pantalon peso, y el
sastre queda" (Cuentos, p. 371).

Ovid, like Anacreon, stands as a symbol of physical
love in various passages. In "A Justo Sierra" a longing for
a spirit akin to ”e1 tierno Ovidio" (Poesias II, p. 185) is
voiced. The same longing by a solitary poet appealing for
the lost world of Ovid appears in "Les slmas huérfanas":

amsdor de la muss pagans,
tu, nacido a gozar como Ovidio
en el coro gentil de las gracias.
(Essaiaa II, p. 158)

A relating of Plautus and Cicero to Mexico is worked
into ”Le Guerra Santa”. This poem, written in 1879, has an
obvious political motivation in sympathy with the social
goals of the positivists, who among their objectives, sought
the pacification of the country and s cessation of internal
wars:

y tras e1 largo betallar asoma
ejército viril de pensadores
venidos a pscifica jornada:
la grave Atenae suetituye a Rome.
(m I: P0 209)

The last line clearly states a cultural preference for

Athens over warlike Rome but the only literary figures

107
referred to by name in the poem are Romans. All good men,
says the poet, must put themselves to a civilizing process
like Plautus and Cicero:
se entregan con tesdn a la faena,
con Plauto se encaraman a la escene,
suben con Cicerdn a la tribune.
(Poesias I, p. 211)
Gutierrez Najera's favorite writer from the middle
ages was Dante. Early in his career he expressed feelings

of insignificance in comparing himself to the Florentine:

Que si me falta luz para ser Dante
tfi eres mas grande que Beatriz. . .

(Poesias I, p. 27h)

The same poem alludes to Paolo and Francesca, from Dante's
Inferno, whose love continually soars away from an unhappy
earth toward infinity. Francesca and Paolo also figure as
a pivotal reference point in a story which has a setting in
Mexico City. Alicia, the heroine of ”Una Venganza” receives
from the author a lengthy description as a woman of consum-
mate beauty, unhappily married to a banker. The author
foretells Alicia's fate with a comparison to Francesca which
is followed by a denouement which fulfills the prophecy.
Alicia and her lover are murdered by the wealthy husband,
a destiny which parallels that of Francesca and Paolo.

Another story, "Pia di Tolomei', has an even stronger
dependence on the Lgferno through an impressionistic sketch
inspired in the last four lines of Canto Five from
"Purgatory”:

108

Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia:

Siena me fez, diefecemi Maremma:

Salsi colui, che 'nnanellata pria,

Disposando, m'avea con la sua gemma.

(Cuentos, p. 22)

The narrator tries to understand why the image of Pie is so
strongly imprinted on his mind. As he ruminates on the
problem, he elaborates the ethereal qualities of Pie and
registers his disbelief of her adultery which had resulted
in her murder at the hands of a jealous husband. The names
of three different scholars enter into the discussion of
Pis's innocence with substantial quotes in Italian from
each. The problem of her uncommonly vivid impression is
resolved with the recollection by the narrator of a visit
to a provincial Mexican Vicarage. A painting with a profane
motif, mistaken by the priest for a madonna, had been dis-
covered there by the narrator. On the back of the ancient
painting was the following inscription: ”Ists fuit ills Pia
nobilie Domina de Tholomeie de'Senis" (Cuentos, p. 25). The
story, in its heavy dependence on the Igferno and criticism
thereof, constitutes one of the best examples of how
Gutierrez Najera not only enthroned art theoretically but
used it in a very practical way to weave into the fiber of
his own composition.

Shakespeare occupies the most prominent position
among the list of authors cited. Three poems and a novel
fragment manifest a Shakespearean inspiration in the title:
”Hamlet a Ofelia“, ”Con Julieta“, ”To be” and Lg_mancha g3
‘ngy_Macbeth, whose plot was not sufficiently developed to

109
clarify its intended relation to Shakespeare's Macbeth. "To
be” is a joining of the hopelessness in Hamlet's monologue
to Gutierrez Najera's pessimistic assessment of the human
condition where the intrinsic flaws of the world render man
helpless in the face of timeless human pain:
El dios que crea
es un esclavo de otro dios terrible
que se llama el dolor. . .
IY e1 especio,
el vivero de soles, lo infinito
son ls carcel inmensa, sin salida
de almas que sufren y morir no pueden:
(Poesias II, p. 106)
Suicide, the poet feels, is useless. The only alleviating
hope would be the sterilization of the eternal matrix which
gives life to the planet.

”Hamlet a Ofelia“ is an imagined monologue of Hamlet
which continues in the thematic vein of ”To be“ with the
difference that the former poem centers on the individual
rather than humanity generally. Hamlet, representing
Gutierrez Najere, recognized a loss of his faculties to
believe or to love, with a resulting desolation in his soul.
He rejects the rumor that he is crazy and asserts that his
distracted state is caused by a frustrated search for truth:

iLa verdad? 3N0 la sepas! Tetra nube
prefisda de relimpagos le envuelve
y el espiritu audaz que a ella sube,
deja su cuerpo en tierra, mas no vuelve.
(Poesias I, pp. 298-9)
”Con Julieta" treats the subject of love with a

physical implication. Ophelia usually represents a pure,

spiritual love while passages with Juliet abound in images

110
of sensuality: "nayades desnudas", "la boca enamorada que
me besa”, ”oprimiéndose pecho contra pecho” (Poesias II,
p. 8h). There is however, no lessening of pessimism:

Estes enfermo como yo, y herido
del imposible amor de que se muere!

(Poesias II, p. 83)
There is another reference to Juliet along with

numerous other tragic heroines in the Cuentos. The first
paragraph of 'Un drama en la sombre” lists a series of dramas
involving either tragedy or deep suffering--Oedipus, Phaedra,
Heloise y Abélard, and finally Juliet and Romeo--to make the
point that tragedy is a general property of humanity which
more often than not goes unnoticed in the soul of:

Ice obscuros nombres de seres ignorados para el mundo,

de seres que vivieron envueltos en los pliegues del

misterio, que jamas fijaron en si el ojo escrutador de

la sociedad y que solo la desgracia numera en en mar-

tirologio.

(Cuentos, p. 375)
Rather than concentrate, with an unembellished

account, on the horrid existence of "seres ignorados“, as
would a Naturalist, Gutierrez Najera begins the first sen-
tence with a comparison of the common man's lot with that
of literary masterpieces:

Hay dramas terribles como la mas pavorosa creacion de

la muss tragica: dolores secretes que superan a cuanto

puede idear ls fantasia: martirios horribles, que iguel

no tienen en los remordimientos de Edipo, ni en loe

celos de Fedra, ni en la desesperacion de la infortu-

nade Dido, y que pasan desconocidos para el mundo

envueltos en el sudario negro de la mas profunda
obscuridad.

(Cuentos, p. 375)

111

The previous examples of correspondence of value and
literature have been primarily of implication. His con-
stantly infusing literary allusions into textual material
to symbolize any number of given topics, substantiated his
belief that man needed the greatness of art because of its
intrinsic grandeur. Frequently this intention of keeping
before the reader an aura of grandeur by invoking litera-
ture is merely suggested, but in the above example the pur-
pose of using art as a tool of ennoblement is explicit.

Numerous other allusions to Shakespeare exist with
a variety of meanings and tonalities. In a mock-humorous
note, a poem proclaims that Hamlet's "to be” question was
inappropriate since man's perennial nature of obesity would
require an alteration of the question to "acomer o no
comer?“ (Poesias I, p. 220). In "Historia de un peso falso”
the tendency of a counterfeit coin to remain in the posses-
sion of its unfortunate acquirer is compared to the faith-
fulness of a dog, then two sentences later the analogy is
brought to Shakespeare: ". . .como Cordelia acompafid al rey
Lear” (Cuentos, p. 216). In a more somber poem, music is
related to Ophelia: "§g§g§ lag glas...ahi flots descolorido
y coronado do renunculos el cadaver de Ofelia“ (Cuentos,
p- 251:).

Goethe stands beside Homer, Vergil, Dante and
Shakespeare as another major literary figure whom Gutierrez
Najera invoked frequently enough to imply symbolic impor-

tance. More often than Goethe's name, his characters are

112
presented, creating a problem in claiming that Goethe is
involved since other nineteenth century writers used the
Faust theme. Gutierrez Néjera had either seen or read
several interpretations published after Goethe's Faust.
Gounod's EQEEE: Goito's Mefistofeles and Berlioz' Damnation
g2 Faust were all known to him and the fact that these
interpretations were operas which transposed literary
material into music was a strong attraction for a Modernist.
It is not unusual then that Gounod's Opera held as much

sway in Gutierrez Najera's estimation as Goethe's poem:

Gounod fue mas feliz que todos los maestros franceses
en empresas tales. D16 vida a “Fausto", pero vida de
él, no copieda ni refleja. De modo que tenemos dos
Faustos, el de Goethe y el de Gounod, separadss por
enormes distancias, uno soberano y otro principe de
poca fortune, pero ambos hermosos.

(Proses II, p. 177)

An early use of Goethe's name unequivocally related
Faust and Margarita to Goethe as a symbol of outstanding

expressiveness:

Si quieres tu ver descrita,
abre el Fausto inmortsl, y pon tu nombre
en donde Goethe puso: Margarita.

(Poesias I, p. 368)
Other references to Faust and Margarita however,
are not so clearly taken from Goethe. The passages in which
the two are related to Siebel would point to Gounod, since
Siebel is more prominent in the Frenchman's opera. In "A
Matilde Olavarria” there is no mention of Faust at all, only

Siebel and Margarita. Siebel represents Gutierrez Néjere in

113
the poem and Margarita corresponds to ideal purity. Marga-
rita as a symbol of ideal purity is the most frequently
recalled figure from the Faust theme. Gutierrez Najera
was perfectly capable of empathizing with Faust as in
the following verses:
Quiero entrar... y deténgome callado
cual Fausto en el jardin de Margarita.
(Poesias II, p. 22)
However, the point of emphasis is Margarita. Gutierrez
Nijera much preferred Hamlet as a male protagonist to Faust,
which is another indication of how Gutierrez Najera saw
himself positioned in the world. The crisis of metaphysical
uncertainty and preoccupation with death were of such inten-
sity that he could write more often and at greater length
on the desperate Hamlet than on Faust. The latter was not
happy with life, to be sure, but basically he was more
serene in nature than Hamlet.

Textual citation of modern French writers or some
aspect of their work account for the largest category of
literary symbolization. An extended list includes Boileau,
Voltaire, Hugo, Verlaine, Nerval, Balzac, Lamartine,
Prudhomme, Halévy, Murger, Houssage, Rob, Vigny, Baudelaire,
Saint-Pierre, Zola, Gautier, Dumas and Kock, to name only
those which are obvious. In viewing the spectrum of French
writers, the question obviously arises concerning whether or
not this list and the ways in which Gutierrez Najera
utilized it casts light on how dependent he was on French

114

literature. In a sense, an enumeration of foreign authors
cited by Gutierrez Néjera leaves the question unanswered,
leaving possibilities for discussion in an only slightly
better perspective. Unquestionably, the quantity of French
names bears witness to an immense fondness for French liter-
ature. But at the same time, none of the French writers
receive the lavish praise given either Homer, Vergil, Dante,
Shakespeare or Goethe. One is left with the impression that
for thought, content, or philosophy Gutierrez Najera pre-
ferred artists of northern Europe, or this is suggested by
parenthetical statements on Shakespeare and Germany. On
Shakespeare's work: '. . .en mi fragil barca de vela lati-
na. . .voy a perderme en esa inmensidad' (Prosas II, p. 69).
On Germany: 'Cuna de los heroes y los genios, madre del
saber y de la ciencia” (Critica, p. 118). Although there is
no disrespect for the French mind, Gutierrez Néjera felt
that the French, in the final analysis, excelled over every-
one else aesthetically and therefore served as a source of
technical innovation:

La poesia francesa es muy coqueta y muy hermosa:

cuesta trabajo levantarse de su muelle canapé: pero

aunque estoy enamorado de ella, debo confesar a usted

que nos va a dafiar algo su champagne. . .El excesivo

amor a la frase, a los matices de la palabra, ha dado

a Francis esa poesia de los "decadentes' que es como

un burbujeo de pantanos.

(Critica, p. 327-8)

Caution, however, should be uppermost in trying to

extract a conclusion from statistics in this instance.

115
References to the German Heine are very scarce, yet the
poetry of Heine, just to give one example, is far more impor-
tant to understanding what Gutierrez Najera wanted to do
with his art than a word count would indicate. The point
that remains constant and unquestionable is that Gutierrez
Néjera could, by constantly infusing literary names from
France or any other country into the text in similes and
metaphors, symbolically keep art ever present in the
reader's mind.

Of the few eighteenth century French writers cited,
Voltaire appears with the greatest frequency. In the poem
“La misa de las flores' Voltaire and Boileau provide a
negative contrast to nature as symbols of stultifying city
and parlor life:

Boileau se queda en el aula
y Voltaire en la ciudad.
iMhsa, al campo: tAbre la jaula!
(Poesias II, p. 233)
In a more laudatory use of Voltaire's name, but with a touch
of humor, an elegant female protagonist is compared to Vol-
taire: ”. . .1a escéptica, la desengafiada Julia, aquel Vol-
taire con faldas" (Cuentos, p. 70). With a double reference
to Homer and Voltaire, another passage has the Frenchman's
name as an adjective: ”Chryseis‘Cdaughter of Apollo who was
given to Agamemnonj, menos crédula y algo volteriana. . .'

(Cuentos, p. nun).

A group of Romanticists-~Hugo, Vigny, Musset, Nerval,

116
Lamartine, Gautier, Balzac, Murger--constitutes the most
quoted French literary school. Gutierrez Najera conspic-
uously identifies himself with Victor Hugo in "La novela de
tranvia'. The story, in which a streetcar ride is utilized
as the structure for an impressionistic sketch, relates the
Mexican author to the French poet in the first sentence:
”. . .recorrer las calles, como el anciano Victor Hugo las
recorria, sentado en la imperial de un omnibus" (Cuentos,
p. 15h). Another story uses a Hugo character for a simile
to portray a protagonist: ”Era 61 como un Hernani, por
fuerza de la miseria' (Cuentos,p. 236). Passing to other
Romanticists, a scene from Vignyfs drama Chatterton, where
a poor gentleman throws away a fortune in Jewels for a
lady is compared to the process of betting on horse races
(Quentos, p. 174). The story "Pia di Tolomei' contains
sight lines of poetry in French quoted from Gerard de Nerval
concerning an experience of Nerval's in which a memory sen-
sation brings a seemingly supernatural recollection from
another life (Cuentos, p. 21). Lamartine is used as a sym-
bol of subjective expression in the preface to the story
entitled ”En secrete" in which the narrator elaborates on
the difference between revealing one's heart to a friend and
to a public through print. The public, concludes the narra-
tor, is more sympathetic: "E1 escuché las jeremiadas de
Lamartine, y escudrifié los misterios de su vida” (Cuentos,
p. 288). Except for being a subjective artist, the use of

Lamartine's name is obviously arbitrary. Balzac himself is

t"

I”

”N

117
the protagonist of a mythological fantasy "Balzac y el Dios
Proteo“, adapted from a story by Banville. Murger's charac-
ter Mimi metaphorically describes a store clerk: ”Y cada vez
la rubia grisetita la Mimi de un Murger sin editor, martillea
mas vivamente las baldosas” (Cuentos, p. 348).

There is a broad sampling of other nineteenth cen-
tury French writers, although no other literary group is so
strikingly represented as the Romanticists. Proudhon’s
theories on private ownership of property correspond to the
blind tendency of lovers to steal affection heedless of the
rules of social decorum: ”Parece, sin embargo, que la mayor
parte de los amantes profesan e1 principio de Proudhon: la
propiedad es el robo“ (Cuentos, pp. 289-90). Auguste
Vacquérie is invoked to corroborate Gutierrez Najera's dis-
like of government bureaucracy in its mechanized treatment
of individuals (Cuentos, p. 2u1). Baudelaire is called on
for a quote to describe a woman as possessing ”. . .1a gra-
cia infantil de los monos. . .“ (Cuentos, p. 176). Verlaine
and the Swiss novelist Edouard Rob metaphorically portray a
character Gutierrez Nadera characterized as mystic: ”Mi
amigo, e1 mistico, a lo Verlaine y a 10 Rob, . . .” (Egggr
325, p. 2H6). La duquesa Job is described as a typical
grisette from Paul de Kock's novels of middle-class France
(Poesias II, p. 19). The novels of Zola are involved in a
comparison with Mexico City: "Para vivir ahora en Mexico,
como para leer una novela de 2015, se necesita irremisible-

mente llevar cubiertas las narices” (Cuentos, p. 81).

118

The examples of literary citations which have been
described in the previous paragraphs fall far short of a
complete examination of the subject. Nevertheless, the
scope and use of literary references explained above typify
how Gutierrez Najera seeks to give his work an aristocratic
tone by sharing with the reader his fund of knowledge.
The two other types of aesthetic reference (plastic art and
music) used in the poetry and stories are more important
in a sense than the literary references, although numeri-
cally fewer. With literary material his accomplishment
was limited to reinforcing a philosophy of value created
through aestheticism. With references to music and plastic
art, not only is aestheticism reinforced through imagery but
the nature of literature as a written medium is changed.
It was Gutierrez Najera's intention to make literature much
more than literature. To briefly recall his literary theory
described in the last chapter, he wanted spoken and written
art to take on, insofar as the imagination would allow, the
properties of painting, sculpture and music. A recurrent
invocation of the names of painters and musicians was a
partial fulfillment of this desire, in addition to the
purpose of creating value through creation and invocation
of art.

Almost all of the literary allusions which stand out
in the poetry and stories relate to a specific man. Either
the author's name (Dante, Homer, Voltaire, etc.) or a

character from his work (Hamlet, Beatriz, Circe, or the

f..- .2 a .-a. 3 .1; ME. ..1 a; We. KIM.

119
grisettes of Paul de Kock) is placed in the text. With
music there is a large body of imagery without relation to
a specific artist. The insertion of words like music, notes,
lyre, piano, viola, song are as prominent as specific
musicians, composers and their work.

In numerous instances the word music or an equiva-
lent is used, as when Gutiérrez Najera calls his life "una
estrofa del himno del dolor” (Poesias I, p. 107). Music in
another poem is the soft, ethereal quality of a woman:

'Eco dulce y armonioso
de musica que se aleja:
(Poesias I, p. 145)
Still another strophe praises the life-giving force of art:
Pero la musica blanda,
revive, palpita y anda
sumisa a la voluntad:
esta dormida, no muerta:
si queréis verla despierta,
tocad, artistas, tocad!
(Poesias I, p. 31h)

The textual insertion of musical instruments is the
most frequent means of relating music to literature. The
lyre, which in Gutierrez Najera's literary theorizing was
employed metaphorically to describe poetic inspiration,

serves the same function in the creative part of his work.

a1 consagrarte tiernos mis cantares
las vibraciones de mi tosca lira.

(Poesias I, p. 35)

120
mi pobre lira
tan solo en tu mirada
dulce se inspira
(W I: P- 83)
Numerous other instances of the lyre are correspondences
between music and poetic expression: "Mi pobre lira/ sélo
exhale sollozos" (Poesias II, p. 309). Occasionally he
simply invokes music without a specific symbolic function
other than appealing to something aesthetic: "a1 trovador
errante que de su lira arranca/ mil himnos. . ." (Poesias
II, p. 305).

The piano is important in its repeated use as a
symbol in both poems and stories. In the first of two poems
entitled "Efimeras' a piano is the central image which
serves the same symbolic function as the lyre which usually
represents poetic inspiration. A silent, duster-covered
piano is slowly losing its soul from disuse ("...la negra
tapa/ tiene la forma de un ataud" Poesias I, p. 335) after
' the departure of a beautiful maiden who played it. The
piano is then compared to the poet who feels a loss of
dreams and poetic inspiration in the same way that the piano
longs for music: ‘como esas notas estan mis versos" (Poesias
I, p. 336). A piano is also a crucial part of the imagery
in "La serenata de Schubert”. Here the piano is not only
related to art but to life and death. After the last notes

of the Sonata have faded away:

tY’nada exists ya! Callé el piano...
fue suefio, pero inmensa: tel de la muerte!

(Poesias II, p. 206)

121
Actually, life and art are practically identical here, as
well as elsewhere since art to Gutierrez Néjera was genius,
quality or a form of value and anyone who lived without
aspiration to these qualities was a living cadaver or,
simply stated, dead. Another textual use of the piano in
the story entitled ”La sopecha infundada" contrasts in tone
with the above examples which were written in moments of
total seriousness. A jealous husband walking through a
garden realizes that his wife, in the company of a male
friend, is no longer playing the piano and rushes into the
parlor, breathing a sigh of relief as he sees his wife and
friend innocently conversing: but doubts rush again to the
poor husband's mind in the last line of the story: "iRayos
y centellas. . .lase habia cambiado el traje. . .!' (92337
Egg, p. 100). The piano presented in this story without
fanfare is a centerpiece of the scene and a turning point
of the plot and constitutes one of any number of passages
where a piano appears as a small contribution to an atmos-
phere of artistic refinement.

Other instruments serve in the same manner as the
piano and lyre. In the poem 'Las almas huérfanas” the harp
is an instrument on which solitary man tries to console him-
self playing 1ove songs (Poesias II, p. 154). In "musa
blanca' the author compares his poetry to the sounds of a
lute which is in turn compared to the singing of birds:
'“5Hay pajaros que canten cual canta mi laud?” (Poesias II,

p. 62). "Non omnis moriar' relates how poetry contains the

122
poet's past memories which are accompanied by viola music:
'sollozando a1 compés de las Violas..." (Cuentos, p. 302).
In "Primers Pagina' a silver clarinet announces the presence
of Greek nobility (Poesias II, p. 305). ”Albores primaver-
ales” utilizes a guitar for its ability to evoke memories
(Poesias I, p. 150). Organ music in ”Acuérdate de mi”
corresponds to the poet's heavy mood of gloom (Poesias I,
p. 168).

In addition to musical instruments, the names of
composers and musical works are recorded. One of the poems
most often quoted in anthologies, ”La serenata de Schubert“,
is a tribute to both the composer and his work. The first
lines are a tribute to the composer's expressiveness:

50h, que dulce cancion: Limpida brota
esparciendo sus blandas armonias,
y parece que lleva en cada nota
muchas tristezas y ternuras mias.

‘ (Poesias II, p. 203)
The next line ”iasi hablara mi alma. . .si pudiera!‘ makes
Gutierrez Nijera a descendant of critics like Poe and Scho-
penhauer who held that music was the highest form of expres-
sion. The entire poem is a catalogue of the suggestive
possibilities of the music which produces visions of color,
fantasy, emotion and memory recall. The last lines of the
poem, already examined above, suggest that the silence which
follows the music is of death.

The name of Offenbach, which recurs with a certain
frequency, is exclaimed over in a paragraph in which

Gutierrez Najera departs from a thread of narration to give

123

CI

this biographical note relevant to Offenbach:

Recuerdo que juntando, ochavo a ochavo, mis
pobres economias de colegial, reunia la fabulosa suma
necesaria para comprar un billete de paraiso. . .Enton-
ces cursé primero y segundo afio de mitologia en la
Bella Helena. Desde entonces soy duque: 50h! si
supierais c3mo amé a la Gran Duguesa!

(Cuentos, p. 310)
Although the names of musicians are much less fre-
quent than those of literary figures, their presence in a
single passage can be as numerous. In the following lines,
for example, the names of four composers are used to des-
cribe the beauty in one piano note:

En cada tecla, dormida ahora
vibraba e1 alma que canta y llora,
Rossini, Thalberg, Gounod, Mozart:

(Poesias I, p. 335)
Painter's names, like those of musicians, occasion-
ally fill a passage. The following paragraph from the
story “Mi inglés', written in 1877, not only illustrates
the employment of painters and their masterpieces but is
important as possibly the first thoroughgoing piece of

Modernistic fiction:

zQué paisajes, que grupos, qué figuras! En primer
término y como presidiendo aquella aglomeracién de
obras maestras, veiase a Ticiano, e1 rey del colorido,
aquel que tuvo por musa a una bacante y que ahog6 su
poesia, su sentimiento en la opulenta cabellera que
caia como una lluvia de oro sobre la nivea espalda
de su amada: a Giorgione, con la firmeza de sus lineas,
la naturalidad y soltura de sus ropajes y el atrevi-
miento de sus toques: a1 Tintoretto, aquel que amaba
el perfil de Miguel Angel y el colorido de Ticiano: a
Bassano, el gréfico pintor del Arca de Noe: a Boschini
con sus cuadros de guerras y matanzas: a Pietro Suzino,
a Sebastian del Piombo y a Pablo e1 Veronés por ultimo,

124

el gran sefior de la pintura, el artista por excelencia,
el rey de los pintores venecianos.

(Cuentos, p. 13)
The psychological or idealistic function this paragraph
serves in the story is also important. Considered alone,
the temptation would be to view the paragraph as a Parnas-
sian orchestration of form, line, color and evocation of the
past from an objective point of view. The context however,
is quite different as evidenced in a line from the para-
graph: ”. . .alli la fantasia volaba como la mariposa. . .”
(Cuentos, p. 13). The entire story as it develops in the
last scene is a dream from which the narrator has been un-
expectedly awakened. The rapid enumeration of painting is
intended as a phantasmagoric, almost kaleidoscopic presen-
tation, as is everything described in the story. The men-
tion of London fog on the first page and the description of
different effects of light inside Lord Pembroke's mansion
throughout the story add to the dream atmosphere. The final
distinguishing mark of a personal rather than impersonal
viewpoint is the first person narration from the story's
beginning to end.

The names of artists are rarely used in a cluster
such as that in ”Mi inglés”. Usually a name appears alone
and is unobtrusively recorded as a metaphor, then passed
over for other subjects and images. In the story entitled
'Aquél era otro L6pez", a man of limited knowledge is com-
pared to Velasquez' idiot of Coria (Cuentos, p. 231). In

the poem "Para e1 album de una hermosa' a lady's beauty is

125

likened to a canvas by Rubens (Poesias II, p. 25). A story
portraying the death of an unknown artist parallels his life
with that of the Italian Renaissance artist Sandrea Schia-
vone (Cuentos, p. 249). The face of Leonardo da Vinci's
Gioconda provides an analogy for a beautiful woman:

Ella, sonriente, gozando en las pasiones que inspira

sin participar de ellas, asoma su cabeza de Joconda

por la portezuela del cupe y saluda con la mano

enguantada 0 con el abanico a los platonicos adora-

dores de su cuerpo.

(Cuentos, p. 137)

The paragraph which follows this passage extends the meta-
phoric comparison to the Mona Lisa, in that no one can
determine from the unrevealing expression on her face a
sign of approval or disapproval for her admirers.

A number of images have their origin in the plastic
arts but with no connection to the name of a specific artist.
The word ”gothic", in an implied relation to architecture,
is an oft-employed word in this class. In the poem ”De
blanco” a gothic altar is listed among objects evoked by
the color white (Poesias II, p. 16?). The poem "Con los
muertos“ has the image of a woman silhouetted by a gothic
window (Poesias II, p. 90). "Gotica vidriera' (Poesias I,
pp. 225) in "La noche de San Silvestre” provides a combined
atmosphere of light, color and ethereal mysticism. Pia di

Tolomei in the story was portrayed as a “dams g6tica”

(Cuentos, p. 24). The poem ”Primers pagina' uses a combi-

nation of gothic and Arabic architectural references: ”ara-

biga ventana', “alcazar es tu album”, 'g6tico saldn”

126
(Poesias II, pp. 305-7).

In the process of enumerating the names of writers,
musicians and painters it would be easy to overlook the name
of the artist whose presence is perceived directly or indi-
rectly on every page: Gutierrez Najera. Virtually the en-
tire work is written in the first person. The poetry is
predominantly lyrical and elegiac. The short stories are
either written in first person narration or in a third per-
son narration so strongly subjective in nature that there
can be no mistake of the author's nearness to the material.
Among the passages with first-person point of view,
Gutierrez Najera continually keeps the reader conscious of
the fact that the story teller or poet is above all an
artist who is inviting the reader to participate in an
idealistic aesthetic experience by reading what the author,
Gutierrez Najera, has created. Several of the poems are
essentially statements on art and literature. "Solo ante el
arte", written in 1880, is important as an early enthrone-
ment of aestheticism which took precedence over orthodox
Christian ideas of eternality. “Nada es mic” is a descrip-
tion of how the poet composes from an intuitive inspiration.
”A Justo Sierra” (1888) is a significant statement of
Gutierrez Najera's formula of alleviating a fear of nothing-
ness (”la sombre dense”) through art. These are only the
conspicuous examples of the artist speaking theoretically on
art. Parenthetical statements recur in the text to keep the

reader reminded that he is being addressed by an artist.

127
The following quote is typical of the poet's references to
himself as an artist and his conscious identification as
such:
Busco en mi alma lo mas obscuro,
lo mas secreto que exista en mi,
la estrofa virgen, el verso puro...
iy nada encuentro digno de ti!
(Poesias II, p. 77)
The stories, like the poetry, abound in unobtrusive
remarks intended to alert the reader to the fact that a work
of art is being created or that the narrator is a lover and
connoisseur of art. One of several techniques for beginning
a story is simply to let the reader know that the author is

about to tell a story:

Temi no hallar asunto para escribir mi articulo
de hoy, y he aqui. . .

(Cuentos, p. 32)

Te escribo oyendo e1 ruido de los filtimos carruajes
que vuelven del teatro.

(Cuentos, p. 135)
Esta cronies se debe leer con pararrayos. Mientras
escribo retozan las enormes nubes tempestuosas,
asaltando en tumulto el firmamento.
(Cuentos, p. 198)
Este cuento yo no 10 vi: pero creo que lo sofié.
(Cuentos, p. 225)
The first several paragraphs of "Cuento triste”
comprise a miniscule statement on art and its place in the
author's life. Ostensibly written to the narrator's absent

sweetheart who has requested poems as a remembrance, he

explains the difficulty of writing verse because his

128
imagination is left desiccated by the emptiness of his soul.
The problems of the soul have been occasioned by the separa-
tion, not only of narrator and sweetheart, but also of the
narrator from the cosmos. The first disillusion is love,
which, in Gutierrez Najera's extension of love's meaning, is
not a small matter. The sea which separates the lovers is
more than physical distance since the narrator's capability
for love itself has evaporated: ”Hubo un momento en que crei
que el amor era absoluto y finico' (Cuentos, p. 151). The
fact that loss of love is not a problem restricted to the
two lovers is underscored. Man generally is hollow and
empty: "Toqué a la puerta de muchos corazones y no me
abrieron, porque adentro no habia nadie” (Cuentos, p. 151).
In his isolation from love the author feels he has lost
paradise: "Yo vuelvo ya de todos los paises azules en que
florecen las naranjas color de oro" (Cuentos, p. 151).
Giving value to the trivial is suggested in the next para-
graph: 'Hablemos ambos de las cosas frivolas, esto es, de
las cosas serias' (Cuentos, p. 152). The verb form hints at
an urgency for artistic creation which in another line is
explicit. Speaking of love's inaccessibility the narrator
affirms: ”Preciso es, sin embargo, que te hable” (Cuentos,
p. 151).
A paragraph on the problems of writing is inserted

in the middle of ”Noche lluviosa”:

Vaya Ud. a escribir con esta noche una cr6nica alegre

y retozona! Yo pienso en la vecina que aguarda a su.
novio, en el poeta que construye castillos en el aire,

129

en la griseta que va camino de su casa, y en el pobre
senor cuyos pobrecitos hijos mueren de hambre y miedo.

(Cuentos, p. 351)

Without the insertion of this paragraph the story is a
threading together of mental divagations by the narrator.
The paragraph's insertion however, gives an underlying mean-
ing to the story that the action is a result of the author's
casting about for material. His art-~cr6nica in this case--
is an effort to rise above human problems by portraying some-
thing ”alegre”. The problems which move the narrator range
from the metaphysical (the poet and his dreams) to the per-
sonal (the young lady's loss of love) and the social (the
frightened, starving children). The last paragraph attempts
to relate a happy experience from the writer's past but ends
nevertheless on a note of emptiness.

Other stories have artists as principal figures.
These are Gutierrez Najera's most fully realized vehicles
for discussing the circumstances surrounding man, art and
the world. The aesthetic imagery was of necessity limited
in scape of statement and often intended to do little more
than suggest ideality. Artist characterizations, by con-
trast, present a rounded out picture of Gutierrez Néjera's
thoughts on art as value in minute shadings. Eight stories
concern artists linked tapically to death, love, society,
idealism, their art, or some combination of these t0pics.

”El Alquiler de una case” is a good beginning point

to illustrate Gutierrez Najera's treatment of artists and a

discussion of their precarious existence. The plot concerns

130

a young man who inquires about renting a room. That the
prospective tenant is an artist is given almost parentheti-
cally: Ҥl_inguilino: joven, flaco, muy capaz de hacer ver-
sos” (Cuentos, p. 447). The antagonist of the plot is a
landlord who obviously symbolizes for Gutierrez Najera an
insipid and repressive middle class which subjects anyone
of worth--an artist in this case--to indignities. The land-
lord is developed as a good natured, even well-intentioned
person whose insensitiveness appears somewhat humorous
(”gordo, de buen color, bajo de cuerpo y algo retozdn de
caracter” Cuentos, p. 447). He begins the interview with a
series of impertinent questions and observations. Since the
future tenant is a bachelor, the landlord insists that the
young man must have a mistress, and brushes aside objections
claiming openmindedness with one qualification:

. . .pero, mire Ud. . . .me disgustaria espantosa-

mente que la novia de Ud. fuera morena... . . .Dejemos,

pues, sentado que, si la casa 1e conviene, se obligara

Ud. por escrito a que todas sus amigas sean rubias.

(m. p. 448)

Among other indignities, the future tenant has to undress:
'. . .es una formalidad indispensable. No quiero que mis
inquilinos seanlenfermos." (Cuentos, p. 440). The last
article of the rental contract underscores a middle-class
disdain of art: ”Art. 6°-- Los artistas y los literatos que
vengan a visitar a1 inquilino, subiran por la escalera de
la servidumbre” (Cuentos, p. 450). The last question is a
routine "LPor que dej6 su antiguo domicilio?" The poet's

nonchalant answer ends the story: “--5Yo, por nada! Porque

131
arrojé por el balcén al propietario" (Cuentos, p. 451).

The most significant aspect of the conflict in this
story between artist and middle-class mentality is not so
much the direct discourse on the subject but the tone of
the humor and pessimism. The way Gutierrez Najera has the
landlord phrase the interview tells more than what the land-
lord actually says (i.e., I don't like sickly-looking men,
artists, brunettes, and I like to have my own way). The
nature of the comic exaggeration points out the depth of the
author's bitterness. The landlord's unexplainable preference
in women, the bizarre act of undressing a prospective tenant
and the artist's suggestion that he had killed a former land-
lord betray more bitterness than the humorous treatment might
indicate. Obviously this is comic exaggeration, but its
tone unmistakably points to a depth of disillusionment.
There is an additional point related to the nature of the
humor, which makes criticism of the middle-class existence
in this story all the more emphatic. The insensitivity of
the landlord is presented with a matter-of-factness which
indicates not only that he inhabits a dehumanized world but
that, such as it is, the author refuses to identify with it.
So opposed is Gutierrez Najera to the middle-class modes
and values that he gives only a detached and bemused depic-
tion. This matter-of-fact presentation of the outlandish
is an early characteristic of what becomes pervasive in
twentieth century literature, notably among such writers as

Kafka.

132

A bitter but bemused tonal presentation of a world
without values underlies a major attraction to Gutierrez
Najera as a writer, and the fact that this is much more
characteristic of his prose than his poetry partially
accounts for the fact that the prose is held in higher cri-
tical esteem.

Other stories give more detail to the way in which
art was enthroned and the difficulty this entailed. The
story ”Historia de una corista“ is a typical example of the
role of an artist in the world. The artist of the story is,
as the title suggests a chorus girl who sketches the story
of her life in a letter to the author. The nature of her
work as chorus girl is not exactly the highest form of ar-
tistic aspiration, which she readily admits: ”Yo no aspire
jamas a vivir, como artista, del teatro' (Cuentos, p. 59).
Yet she still symbolizes artistic perfection because of the
beauty of herself as a person: "Mi belleza magnifies y
extraordinaria. . .' (Cuentos, p. 59). As a symbol, the
chorus girl embodies an aesthetic object itself as much as
does her performance.

The letter is written at a point in the actress'
life when all illusions have been lost and her physical
beauty is fading. Her first sentence shows a preoccupation
with this fact: "Con el pie en el estribo del vag6n y lo
mejor de mi belleza en la maleta, . . .(Cuentos, p. 57).
She also points out the plainness of her surroundings which

foreshadows the frustration she is about to describe. The

133

candle by which she writes is a poor substitute for a star,
her roommate is snoring on an iron bunk, and in order to
distract herself in her frustration, she writes:

. . .me entretengo en trazar garabatos y renglones

como Uds. los periodistas, hombres que, a falta de

Champagne y de Borgofia, beben a grandee sorbos ese

liquido espeso y tenebroso que se llama tints.

(Cuentos, p. 57)

Writing represents for the actress what literature is for
Gutierrez Nijera: an opportunity for creating something of
worth out of nothingness and at the same time squarely
facing the fact of life's restrictions.

The actress' life parallels Gutierrez Néjera's view
of the human condition. To begin, the origin of reality is
not knowable and consequently mankind is orphaned. Symboli-
cally, the actress is an orphan: "No sé en donde naci'
(Quentos, p. 58) and she continues that her parents probably
forgot her a few weeks after her birth and assumes that the
old lady who adopted and mistreated her could have had
little concern for the welfare of others. In this orphaned
state, man is without a definite moral norm. The chorus
girl admits that she customarily enjoys spending the money
of others, that she lacks modesty in showing herself on a
stage dressed in ”. . .el traje econ6mico del Paraiso”
(Cuentos, p. 58) and uses the theatre as a place to market
her beauty. Her initiation to a promiscuous sexual life at
an early age is mentioned and Gutierrez Najera makes her
loss of virtue a symbol of mankind generally with a quote

from Victor Hugo:

134

En los zarzales de la vida, deja

Alguna cosa cada cual: la oveja

Su blanca lana, el hombre su virtud.

(Eggntgg. p. 58)

The loss of virtue however, does not imply a lack of desire
for something more meaningful. She likes Mexico City be-
cause ”Ests es la primers ciudad en que me tratan como se
trata a una sefiora” (Cuentos, p. 60).

A more practical problem of physical discomfort
accompanies the more philosophical dilemma of moral insta-
bility and the abandoned state of man. Of course it would
be possible to say that the material discomfort of the cho-
rus girl is a symbolic underpinning of her moral state:
however, it seems that the fact of hunger and misery is men-
tioned too often to have only one symbolic level of meaning.
The plainness of her present surrounding is recorded in the
first paragraph. Her childhood was one of overwork, punish-
ment, lack of food and squalid living accommodations. An
entrance into the theatre in order to sell her body was
equally unsuccessful: ”. . .vivia penosamente, codesda por
la miseria y victims de las privaciones" (Cuentos, p. 59).

A trip to America was unrewarding. The ankees, with their
vast quantities of money, appreciated all good merchandise
with the exception of women and the Cubans appreciated women
but lacked money. In Mexico she finds a wealth of courteous
journalists and elegant dandys but no money.

The possible solution to all of the problems is
symbolized by material wealth which, it can be assumed,

135

represents more than physical comfort since the chorus girl
embodies for Gutierrez Najera not only a woman, but beauty
itself. She describes the attaining of aristocratic status
as a culmination of her ambitions but as she is writing her
life story realizes that such a future ambition is as nebu-
lous as her origin:

Pero say! ningfin principe ruso, ningfin lord inglés

se puso a la vista en esa larga temporads. Yo

supongo que los principes rusos son unos entes

imaginarios que solo han existido en el cerebro

hueco de los novelistas.

(Cuentos, p. 59)

Any level of meaning which is read into the above
quote gives man and his ambitions little comfort unless it
be the consolation of a struggle. No matter how long the
chorus girl contemplates her unhappiness, total fulfillment
is beyond her grasp. Such, it follows, is also the fate of
beauty, truth and idealism.

”Stora y las medias parisienses” makes much the same
point as ”Historia de una corista”. The setting of the story
is a somewhat exotic Paris during the rainy season when the
moisture gives the city an atmosphere like Amsterdam or
Venice. Most noteworthy in the confusion caused by the wet-
ness is the effect on Parisian women who, undaunted, refuse
the mobile comfort of carriage or omnibus. Irrespective of
class (”. . .ya sea comics, loss 0 gran sefiora. . .' Cuentos,
p. 82) all walk, with the result that in their hurried rhy-
thm, careful steps and jumping small puddles they have to

raise their dresses just enough to reveal ”. . . una pierna

136
esbelta, aprisionada en la tirante media, cuyo tejido espeso
ilumina la luz con rayos de oro" (Cuentos, p. 82). Stora,
a poor bohemian, falls in love with the Parisian stockings
and when it rains takes to the streets to observe them. He
is so intent that he comes to recognize all of the feminine
legs of Paris at a glance. For hours he wanders in the rain
following stockings of one color and then another. Poorly
dressed and with worn out shoes, he succumbs to illness
which a season in warmer climates does not cure. He returns
to Paris neither restored to health nor cured of his desire
to look at pretty legs and takes to the wet streets until he
falls ill and dies.

Stora in this piece is an artist whose only finan-
cial support is the occasional income from his poetry. He
explicitly represents the idealistic dreamer and the beauti-
ful legs of Parisian women represent the aesthetic quality
of poetry:

Si, aquel Paris fangoso es el triunfo de la mujer,

que, toda agilidad y luz, cruza las calles, suelta y

garbosa, como la estrofa alada de una oda: y por la

misma raz6n, a1 propio tiempo, es el paraiso del

sonador que sigue a las mujeres.

(Cuentos, p. 82)

Poverty and human misery serve to accentuate Stora's dedica-
tion to dreams. The misery of his life is dwelled on in a
paragraph which, for so short a story, is rather long. In
the midst of his solitude, hunger, and general deprivation

he cherishes only the wealth of his dreams, stimulated by

the stockings, which are compared to material wealth. When

137

it rained: "Tomaba entonces posesion de Paris, y creyéndose
duefio de un dominio mas grande y rico que el de Salomon,
. . ." (Cuentos, p. 83). Stora's passion for his dreams
made him walk day and night in rain to watch the stockings:
". . .haciendo provisiones de recuerdos para esos dias in-
terminables que pasaba componiendo nocturnos para piano"
(Cuentos, p. 83). His own ruined shoes caused his feet to
bleed and pneumonia almost ended his life when an unexpected
event suddenly gave Stora material wealth. Unexpectedly, he
gained a fortune on the stock exchange and his doctors sent
him off to the south and warmer climates. Poverty with
ideals wins over wealth and physical well-being as Stora is
irresistibly drawn back to Paris and death. In death, the
author pronounces Stora's wealth of imagination superior to
riches: 'aQué principe, que millonario, que Nabab, ha satis-
fecho sus caprichos como Stora, duefio con la imaginacién de
aquel Paris, que su deseo invencible 1e habia conquistado?”
(Cuentos, p. 84).

The pessimism and humor in this piece are joined in
the same curious mixture explained above. The humor in a
bedraggled bohemian stalking the rainy streets of Paris to
stare at legs tends to cover a stark pessimism which comes
through on closer inspection. The misery of Stora's room,
his hunger, illness caused by the cold rain, and his death
are dwelled on too extensively for the narration to be only
a funny story. Equally important, several statements on the

legs and stockings give them more meaning than a mere

138

instrument of comedy. A description of the pretty feet
echoes Gutierrez Najera's theory of literature when he says
they resemble ". . .hadas milagrosas. . ." (Cuentos, p. 82)
and that the ankles ”. . .forman una armonia de lineas y
colores. . ." (Cuentos, p. 82). The kaleidoscopic display
of colors is another characteristic Gutierrez Najera is
perfectly serious about: '. . .las medias rosas, las medias
multicolores rayadas en espiral, 0 las graciosas medias
grises con su violets bordada en una punts?” (Cuentos, p.
83). Gutierrez Najera's idea on the approach to reality
most capable of making man happy and independent of his
material surrounding is perfectly illustrated in the follow-
ing quote:

En ocasiones se adelantabs a la mujer que seguia:

con uns ojeada rapids le miraba los ojos, 1a boca

y el cabello, solamente para cerciorarse de que

aquellas gracias correspondian a las que imaginaria-

mente 1e habia dado, y para ver si aquella media,

rose 0 blanca, estaba bien 0 mal acompsfiads. Pero,

en rigor de verdad, Stora conocia muy pocas caras.

(Cuentos, p. 83)

Happiness was not in the women, or even in the stockings
and legs in their objective reality, but was contained in
their idealistic—~thst is, mental or psychological--reality.
The closer the artist can move toward pure idea the better,
which is why only a suggestive part of the woman's body is
important. If pretty ankles and multicolored stockings
stimulate the imagination, then they create the ultimate

form of happiness and are beautiful. For this Stora

perished willingly and, in Gutierrez Najera's estimation, as

139
a wealthy man .

The death of an artist is also the topic of "Un 14
de julio", except that in this story every shred of humor
disappears to emphasize Gutiérrez Najers's deep preoccupa-
tion with death. A starving Parisian artist, his wife, and
six children make a suicide agreement to end their misery.
The youngest child overhears the conversation and innocently
asks the meaning of "to die”. The mother explains death as
”heaven” which represents the ideal Gutierrez Najera's char-
acters reach for but never attain. The children are eager
to leave for the paradise filled with toys for everyone but
want to wait a day in order to see Bastille Day celebrations,
especially the fireworks. The fourteenth of July, with its
gayness, represents another emblem of happiness beyond the
grasp of the family. The fireworks typify the false hope
of the celebration: ”Si, el cohete sube: también resplande-
ciente, quiere llegar a las estrellas...pero en el sire se
spaga” (Cuentos, p. 250). Death, as it turns out, is also
an illusion. The family returns from the celebration,
closes up the room and then a coal fire is started. Every-
one is asphyxiated except the mother who survives: “. . .no
la quiso la muerte” (Cuentos, p. 250). Death becomes an
ideal on the same plane with heaven and the beauty of fire-
works, but is nevertheless just as remote from the mother
who is held imprisoned by life.

The symbolism imbedded in this story again has a

double level of meaning: one practical and terrestrial, the

140
<rther idealistic. There is a stated intention of presenting
here not only a spiritual anguish but also a materially de-
prived family:
Voy a referiros una breve y triste historia, y voy a
referirla porque hoy habrs muchos semblantes risuefios
en las calles, y es bueno que los alegres, los felices,
se acuerden de que hay algunos, muchos desgraciados.
(Cuentos, p. 247)
As in other stories, the poverty Gutierrez Najera writes of
is too vivid to symbolize only the debasement of art. The
responsibility of six children is described as a product of
poverty: 'aYa sabéis que la pobreza es muy fecunda!” (9223:
Egg, p. 24): and the prevalence of the word hunger appears
repeatedly in the story. The surviving mother is left with
an eternal memory of her children ”. . .hambrientas y asfix-
iadas. . .” (Cuentos, p. 251).

A concern for the survival of art is equally at
stake as revealed by the plot. Between the artist-husband
and the wife, it is the artist-husband who dies with the
children, as if to say suffering and poverty live but art
dies. The paintings were unmarketable in spite of the vast-
ness of the city which, in its agitation, buries the human
voice: 'iEs tan grands Paris! {Hay en sus calles tanto
ruido! {Es tan dificil percibir alli la voz de un hombre!”
(Cuentos, p. 248). The painter's attempt to sell his last
work gains only the gift of some stamps for the children to
play with. The stamps remind the artist of his professional
ancestor Schiavone who, in the sixteenth century, was recom-

pensed for a masterpiece with a bouquet of roses whose

141
petals provided his family with their last meal before
death.

The oldest daughter, fourteen years old, represents
Gutierrez Néjera's skepticism regarding the satisfactory
resolution of man's ambitions. Like the chorus girl but
without humor, the daughter is herself an aesthetic symbol:
”sErs hermosa, y se iba sin que el mundo la hubiera cono-
cido!“ (Cuentos, p. 249). Of all the family she was the
most undeceived by life and understood ”la muerte hospeda-
dora' (Cuentos, p. 249). Her disillusionment encompassed
art, human festivity, and the promise of heaven: ". . .no
engafiaron sus ojos los fuegos artificiales: no engafiaron su
imaginacion las promesas del cielo” (Cuentos, p. 249-50).
This sentence succinctly covers the range of the author's
own assessment of the world. Not only does he not believe
in an afterlife, but his one consolation for this life--
aestheticism-~is in this passage an equally false hope for
arriving at a state of happiness.

The problem of death is passed over for love in
”Juan e1 organista”. Juan, whose artistic expression is
music and painting (*. . .sabis tocar e1 piano y el organo:
pintaba mediansmente: . . ." Cuentos, p. 263) has the same
physical limitations of many other characters. He is poor
and orphaned. The poverty is accentuated by the fact that
his parents were people of means who were able to educate
Juan: therefore, in his poverty a knowledge of what life

could offer was all the more vivid in his mind. There is no

142

indication however, that the organist is reaching for mone-
tary comfort so much as love. Love, as was seen in the past
chapter, had a meaning far broader than a simple male-female
attraction, although a physical attraction is not left out
completely: ”. . .sinti6 la punts de los senos de Enriqueta
rozando uno de sus brazos” (Cuentos, p. 273). The prevail-
ing force of love is toward a purified idea.

The plot offers two examples of Juan's attempt to
gain an ideal love. In the first instance he marries un-
wisely and loses the purified ideal through his emotional
blindness and the human weakness of his wife. The blindness
is a direct consequence of his poverty: I

. . .los pobres, en materia de amor, son faciles de

contentar, especialmente si tienen ciertas sficiones

poeticas y han leido novelas. Al amor que sienten se

une la gratitud que les inspira la mujer suficiente-

mente desprendida de las vsnidades y pompas mundanas,

para decirles: ”Te quiero”. Creen haber puesto una

pica en Flandes, se admiran de su buena suerte. . .

y cierran los ojos. . .

(932232.51: P0 264)

Through this failing, caused by socio-economic status, Juan
married the vain and petulant daughter of a wealthy family.
Juan's wife, through her own weakness of character, agreed
to marry beneath her financial status which placed her in
the same impoverishment as Juan. Having known better days,
she acutely missed the banquets, theatre, carriages and
clothing her husband was unable to provide. The only last-
ing happiness she offered the musician was a daughter, since

she soon began secretly returning to her old social circles

with financial aid of friends and finally accepted a lover.

143
Gutierrez Najera is not harsh in his criticism of Rosa be-
cause her struggle is essentially the same as that of her
husband, i.e., an attempt to bridge the gap between reality
and ideality: ". . .el desnivel entre lo sofiado y 10 real
. . ." (Cuentos, p. 266). Her vanity is plainly stated but
her frustrations are nonetheless valid and real: ". . .1a
continua contemplacién de la opulencia ajena y las lecturas
romanescas. . .produjeron en Rosa un disgusto profundo de la
vida. . .' (Cuentos, p. 266). After her husband learns of
the adultery, he also looks at his wife with a certain
understanding and, without thought of vengeance, leaves
Mexico City with his daughter. Rosa dies shortly there-
after.

The second attempt to reach an ideal plane through
love has a remote provincial setting where Juan is taken
into the employ of a wealthy plantation owner as a tutor for
his daughters. Slowly an idyl begins between Juan and the
younger daughter, which reawakens in Juan the possibility
of realizing the ideal: ”. . .la idea de que sus suefios no
eran de todo punto irrealizables, como a1 principio sos-
pecho, fue ganando terreno. . ." (Cuentos, p. 271). The
daughter here is more than just a woman--she is the catalyst
for something greater. Gutierrez Najera's equating her with
"suefio‘ is carried a step further in the next sentence where
the verb to believe, ”creer", takes the prominent position
in the sentence over the words ”carifio“ and ”amor“: ”Este

interpretaba tales muestras de carifio como prendas de amor,

144
y hasta lleg6 a creer. . ." (Cuentos, p. 271). In the next
sentence the suggestion that Enriqueta is a finite object
which represents an eternal ideal is made by giving the word
”ilusiones" prominence over the woman Enriqueta: ". . .Enri-
queta le amaba y que tarde o temprano realizaria sus ilu-
siones” (Cuentos, p. 271).

The sudden appearance of Enriqueta's fiance and her
marriage rudely ends the second possibility for realizing
the ideal state. This last disillusion destroys the organ-
ist in spite of the fact that he has been portrayed as
strong and determined. He steadfastly refused to let his
wife receive money from relatives: 'Mientras encuentre yo lo
necesaria para comer, no reciberé limosna de ninguno' (Qgggr
Egg, p. 265). His reaction upon learning of Rosa's infi-
delity was one of fortitude: ”tranquilo en su colera' (Qggge
Egg, p. 266): he left the city because ”No queria sufrir las
risas de unos y las conmiseraciones de otros” (Cuentos, p.
266). Before admitting to himself a love for Enriqueta he
waited until signs of her affection were undeniable and with
the announcement of Enriqueta's marriage, Juan withdrew into
himself, hiding his grief. With consistent tenacity, Juan
refuses to believe his dreams have been shattered until
asked to provide music for the wedding. Playing the music,
he poured his grief into the task and with the last note he
died, thinking of ”ilusiones muertas' and ”locos suefios”
(Cuentos, p. 276). The ideal is never reached but it can be

presumed that the striving continues and is passed on to the

145
daughter Rosita, who weeps over her father's body in the
last sentence.

An unrelenting pessimism again appears in ”Aquél
era otro L6pez' with a slightly different theme. L6pez has
to struggle with a society which is a blind, amorphous,
insensitive mass. Specifically, the acceptance by respon-
sible people of simplistic positivistic interpretations of
human nature and the sluggishness of government bureaucracy
are the two social instruments that destroy L6pez.

Consistent with Gutierrez stera's tendency to give
characters a superlative quality, Lopez is an artist and a
genius who, in his outer countenance, is not easily iden-
tifisble with the majority of people who surround him. An
absent-mindedness, slowness to respond and a habit of day-
dreaming gave the impression that he lacked intelligence.
In the first paragraph:

En efecto, L6pez no sabia nada, y por eso, tal vez,

creianle tonto. . .se le olvidaba comer, se le olvidaba

trabajar, se le olvidaba todo. . .Cuando se le

preguntaba algo, respondia a la pregunta que otro

1e habia hecho el dia anterior:

(Cuentos, p. 231)

The first sentence of the second paragraph clears up the
author's attitude toward Lopez: 'Asi son los tontos: pero
dicen algunos que de igual suerte son los sabios" (Cuentos,
p. 231). L6pez, even though a brilliant musician, is hope-
lessly unable to support his family with his talents.

Through a chain of unfortunate circumstances, Ldpez is

linked to the murder of his wife's godfather to whom the

146
poor musician was appealing for financial help. The trial
and imprisonment of L6pez is the occasion taken by society
to publicize its simplistic interpretation of an artist and
then, through the sluggishness of its bureaucracy, to destrqr
him.

The trial was so thoroughly a case of an entire
society against an artist that the defending attorney was
ineffective because of his psychological dependence on the
legal bureaucracy: 'Ese defensor habia sido Agents del Min-
isterio Publico durante muchos afios, y conservaba 1a costum-
bre, e1 habito de husmear y descubrir en todo un crimen"
(Cuentos, p. 237). The straightforward, unassuming nature
of Lopez only accentuated the difference between L6pez and
his surroundings: '. . .le parecia por su desfachatez y por
su aplomo, un monstruo" (Cuentos, p. 237). The defending
attorney, attracted by L6pez' attractive wife, conjures up
in his imagination a sexual involvement between the wife
and godfather which serves as his defense argument: ”. . .
entonces la causa seria muy defendible, hasta simpatica. . r
(Quentos, p. 238).

The prosecutor, by contrast, was enthusiastic about
an opportunity to display his theories:

En su elocuente peroracidn habl6 de la ley de la
herencia, del atavismo, del medio ambiente, de Lom-
broso, de Maudsley: result6 de sus indagaciones
laboriosas que L6pez no era hijo de L6pez, sino de

otro Lopez: y alls salieron a danzar la madre, e1
padre, y toda la familia del presunto reo.

(We. 1» 238)

147
Rather than describe L6pez' happy and privileged childhood
as it was, the prosecutor invented a childhood to accommo-
dats his positivistic theories. A promiscuous mother, an
unknown father, a dishonest uncle were linked to a suppo-
sedly dissipated life, all working together to produce a
given product. The accusation was sprinkled with words like
”iatavismo! :medio! ISpencer y Lombros02. . .aUn détragué:
IUn artista frustrado! aUn neur6tico!“ (Cuentos, p. 238).
The eloquence of the prosecution gained a twenty year sen-
tence for Lopez.

The second ordeal of L6pez begins when the actual
murderer confesses in a way that leaves no doubt of the
artist's innocence. The jailer refuses to release L6pez
until given final word from the judge, and the court becomes
embroiled in a war over technicalities. In Gutierrez
stera's opinion the entire legal system functions on the
same level as practitioners of positivism, neither of which
represent anything on a practical level resembling truth:

Es decir, era inocente para la verdad, para el

sentido comfin: para el Derecho, para la Justicia,
para el Cddigo no lo era. . . .En fin, porque 1a
ley...y porque e1 Cddigo...y porque Laurent...en

fin, sque no! E1 que mat6 y el que no mat6 se que-
daron en la circel.

(9.9311332: P0 240)
L6pez' imprisonment continues indefinitely until his wife
has to prostitute herself and the son is imprisoned with his
father. When freedom is finally granted to Lopez, he goes
into the street and kills the first man who resembles a

judge and is, in turn, executed. The last page is a

148
statement by the author which excoriates society as an
entity: ”Hay algo mas odioso que todos los asesinatos
juntos: el asesinato de un solo hombre cometido por toda una
nacion” (Cuentos, p. 241).

The story obviously has a strong affinity with
Naturalism, especially in the basic elements of the plot.
The innocent Lopez gradually degenerates in prison until the
”bestia humans" (Cuentos, p. 241) motivates him to kill a
man. His wife Rosa is slowly reduced under the impact of
environment to demeaning manual labor and eventually prosti-
tution. The son, who is a child when L6pez is imprisoned,
turns to alcohol and delinquency serious enough to be im-
prisoned with his father. The plot, with a tinge of irony,
shows how the simple, science-oriented philosophy of the
prosecutor actually becomes a reality. The final accusation
is not so much against the positivist theory as a blind and
senseless application of the theory. The important point,
however, that L6pez is an artist, overrides an ambiguous
treatment of positivism. The first half of the story des-
cribes L6pez as an artist, which signifies in the final
analysis that not just a man is destroyed, but an artist.
The action begins in a village where Lopez is happy, lives
in harmony with nature and develops his talent only for the
pleasure of himself, his wife and child. His parents had
left Lopez orphaned which, in Gutierrez Najera's writing,
invariably represents a state of mankind deprived of Chris-

tian assurances of an afterlife. As a result, he turned all

149
the more fervently to his art and a love for his small
family. The artist's downfall began with his relocation to
Mexico City where the artificiality of life--such as study-
ing music in a conservatory for the sake of study rather
than pleasure--spoiled the harmony of his peaceful exis-
tence. Poverty finally forced the frustrated artist to the
fateful encounter with his wife's godfather. His murder,
previous to L6pez' arrival, was blamed on the artist because
of his circumstantial appearance immediately after the
crime. With the eventual execution of L6pez, society is
killing an artist and, by implication, art itself.

Most of the stories described above concerned res-
trictions placed by life and society on art and artists.
The impossibility of realizing dreams, love, a fruitful
existence, escaping death, or being imprisoned in life have
been variously viewed. "El musica de la murga" gives a more
constructive picture of what art is and how it serves to
lift man above the circumstances of a bland existence. The
story is a description of a dance hall musician concentra-
ting on the meaning of his performances to himself and the
narrator with brief glimpses into the musician's life.

Approximately the first third of the story is an
introduction to what the narrator will say about a violin-
ist whose name is not given. The first sentence in French
("Cigit 1e bruit du vent" Cuentos, p. 254), records the
words spoken over Orpheus' tomb: here lies the murmur of

the wind. Although the murmurs die, they are still eternal

150
because "Lo que pasa alzando apenas un rumor muy leve y se
extingue cual si otro mas recio soplo lo apagara. . .”
(Cuentos, p. 254). Gutiérrez Najera's dance hall musician
will provide his own murmur in the eternal linkage of
sounds. All of the sounds are part of Gutierrez Najera's
belief in an idealistic cerebral reality which makes all the
sounds a '. . .beso rapido de Psiquis. . ." (Cuentos, p.
254). The remainder of the introduction elaborates on these
basic truths of art. Three other musicians are described
who belong to the chain of ethereality. The first musician,
Juventino Rosas, is appropriate because he was a popular
musician similar to the unnamed artist of the story. Al-
though he is deceased, Rosas' music is immortal and eternal.
A selection of adjectives and nouns used by the narrator to
convey the meaning of Juventino Rosas' music illustrates
the point:
. . .valses elegantes y melancolicos. . .dama herida
de muerte. . .diafanas. . .camelias inmortales. . .
rumor de viento. . .tristes como presentimientos. . .
flota descolorida. . .cierta neblina tenue. . .
(Cuentos, p. 254)
The appearance of a second musician is motivated by
the memory of Juventino Rosas. The sadness of Rosas' music
brings to the narrator's mind the sad story of Campoamor's
"El gaitero de Gijdn”. Twenty lines of the poem are cepied
in the text describing the piper's sadness at having to per-
form after his mother's funeral and emphasizing the happi-
ness he contrives in order to earn a living. The narrator

says nothing about the piper after quoting the description

151
from Campoamor. It can be assumed that he is part of art's
timeless existence since his presence is linked to Juventino
Rosas and also because the piper stimulates the recall of
another musician. The sadness of the piper is linked to
Te6filo Pomar, another barroom musician depicted by Federico
Gamboa in his Naturalistic sketches Empresiones y recuerdos.
Gutierrez Najera has taken forty-one lines from different
parts of Gamboa's piece which illustrate the aspects of
Pomar's life and art which Gutierrez Najera wishes to pre-
sent. The first lines describe the musician in a satisfying
relationship of love: ”. . .1a mujer amada que rie de
nuestras locuras y las comparte y nos arrulla y nos enlo-
quece...” (Cuentos, p. 255). The next quote pictures a
stark gsrret after the affair has ended. Following this,
and most important, the longest quote describes the effect
of disillusionment on Pomar's music. Gutierrez Najera
states in the only substantial remark of his own on Pomar
that he had to continue performing in order to live. Pomar
approaches the piano and plays in an effort to lift himself
above ”tanta prosa" and ”tsnta amargura” (Cuentos, p. 255).
Rather than playing a discordant arpeggio, his music becomes
warm, delicate and voluptuous. In the middle of the barroom
Pomar withdraws into himself and the further abstracted he
becomes the more absorbing his music is to the listeners.
The musician, by his inner dependence, ends in giving a su-
perlative creation: ”Y entonces se abstraia por completo, no

respondia a nadie: noche hubo en que improvisara una danza

152
. . .” (Cuentos, pp. 255-6).

Following the short presentation of Juventino Rosas,
the piper and Te6filo Pomar the narrator, as part of the
story's psychological thread, begins to discuss the princi-
pal musician of the story: "Otro mfisico a quien traté de
cerca“ (Cuentos, p. 256). The anonymous musician also plays
for public dances with the difference that the ballrooms in
which he performs are more elegant. Time is imprinted on
the musician's face not only by the elementary fact that he
is physically old but also by an appearance which suggests
he has remote ancestors who were also artists. Like many
other Najera characters, the musician suffers from more than
his portion of worldly problems. His poverty is accentuated
by the opulence of his audience and he, an old man, has to
spend nights far from his young wife who, according to the
narrator, gives his jealousy a legitimate foundation. Be-
cause of this background, the musician expresses himself
through his violin with a consequent suggestiveness which
surpasses the other performers. Recalling the effect of the
violinist's notes, the narrator describes the music:

. . .esas notas transparentes y fragiles, esas notas
que brillan como lagrimas y que suenan como una esquila
de cristal herida por la varita de alguna hada, se
pierden y se extinguen poco a poco en la obscuridad,
al amanecer. El ruisefior ya no canta: pero e1 cristal
solloza todavia.
(W: P0 258)
\ The suggestiveness of the music stimulates the narrator to

remember in a short time sequence the principal events of

his own life.

153
After the music ends the artist tells something of
his biography. He has to perform as a means of livelihood:
". . .yo necesito dinero para mi y para mis vicios” (Cuentos,
p. 258). His vices are not seen in a moral sense but as a
condition of life. They are repulsive to the musician, not
precisely because they are vices, but because the musician
wishes to elevate and give dignity to his weaknesses:
Me repugnan esos vicios, no porque lo son, sino por
envilecidos, por canallas. Quisiera dignificarlos,
ennoblecerlos, vestirlos de oro, en la copa, en el
cuerpo de la mujer, en el albur.
(W: I)0 258)
The possibility of doing away with human weakness and the
struggle to create value by rising above his predicament is
rejected: ". . .porque aqué me quedaria?” (Cuentos, p. 258).
Being left without the struggle reminds the musician of
death. He renounces the idea of suicide because of uncer-
tainty of the afterlife. This fear is like a touch of in-
cense which remains from childhood when he served as an
acolyte and had believed in Christ because he never knew
his own father. His music as a consequence, is not just a
livelihood, but an instrument to create value: "For eso,
despechado, busco los que llamsis 'parsisos artificiales' ”
(Cuentog, p. 259). The struggle, however, is inescapable
because the music he creates and performs becomes part of
the sordid ambiance of the ballroom which puts the violinist
in a vicious circle that only death can end.
"La odisea de Madame Theo" is the best presentation
of the ideological world of art. The story gives a clear

154

demonstration of how "art” to Gutierrez Najera was not just
something ”nice", but was intimately related to the nature
of the universe. In ”El arte y el materialismo" he spoke
emphatically of the spiritual nature of man as opposed to a
physiological interpretation. Art, as the highest manifes-
tation of mental reality, was defined as a representation
of eternal spiritual truths. Madame Theo constitutes a
superlative embodiment of this theory. The story is pure
mental fantasy and, as such, represents truth:

De esta manera, peregrina e inaudita, vino a1

mundo 1a encantadora artista de opereta que hoy

aplaudimos en el teatro Nacional. Los biografos

diran que no es asi: pero los bidgrafos sesudos

se equivocan.

(W. p. 186)

Madame Théo is a fictional description of the French singer
Louise Theo, whose visit to Mexico during the winter of
1882-83 was a spectacular success.1 Gutierrez Najera des-
cribes her as mother nature's most beautiful creation.
After mother nature finished the creation of Madame Theo,
she was uncertain where to place her. On earth her beauty
would be destroyed and in heaven her lively charm would pro-
hibit her an entrance. She decided that the safest place
was limbo, where she caused such a commotion by her beauty

and malicious humor that a guardian angel removed her. The

guardian angel was unsure where to place Madame Théo: "Si la

 

1. Enrique de Olavarria y Ferrari, Resefia
histdrica del teatro gg_Mexico, II (Mexico: Editorial
Porrua, 1961), pp. 1059-53.

155
llevo a1 infierno, va a aumentar la concurrencia. Si la
llevo al Paraiso, trastorna a San Elias" (Cuentos, p. 183).
Finally he deposited her on the star Venus. From Venus Ma-
dame Théo, in the company of two other French singers, Mary
Vallot and Mlle. Buisson, escaped on a train of comets and.
came to earth. This is truth and a triumph of the spirit.
Madame Théo is not a creature of man's imagination but of
mother nature who "sabe mucho, mas que todos los artistas
de la tierra" (Cuentos, p. 180).

The fact of Madame Théo's double reality, artistic
and ideological, points out the double nature of Gutierrez
Néjera's drive toward truth and value. Art by itself is the
most important consideration because it was given preponder-
ant emphasis. Art is however, a product of the mind and has
its foundation in idealism. Much of Gutierrez stera's
imagery and symbolism as a consequence, concentrates on
idealism presenting art as a tacit partner. For example, a
bird, the color blue or a beautiful woman (not necessarily
an artist) can be representations of only an idealistic
reality but the implication is always present that by pre-
senting them as such, art is also served. Statistically, it
is easier to identify imagery which represents the idealistk:
struggle than the aesthetic impulse, especially in the poems.
The names of musical instruments, artists, musicians and the
like are numerically small in comparison to the prevalent
use of bird or color imagery, both of which invariably carry

an implication of idealistic symbol. The same applies to

156
the stories where, among eighty-eight selections given in
the Cuentos completos, ten have artists as the central
figure. It can justifiably be said however, that all of
Gutierrez stera's characters relate to some aspect of the
struggle between idealistic truth and the materialistic
limitation of man's possibilities.

Although a complete examination of the imagery which
pertains to some aspect of the idealism versus materialism
polarity cannot be presented within the framework of the
present study, several examples will serve well to illus-
trate a characteristic diversity of these images and their
functions. The underlying idea expressed in the criticism
that art was a finite representation of eternal truths sug-
gests the symbolic role of the image: something from the
material world used emblematically to convey a picture of
ethereal, intangible reality or truth. Gutierrez Najera
chose his symbolic imagery from what can roughly be out-
lined in three categories: 1) symbols from nature 2) sym-
bols from material items of value and 3) symbols of
color.

Nature, in accordance with Gutierrez Nijera's Roman-
tic leaning, is a place unspoiled by man where the artist
can go for the idealistic imagery in his work. The Modern-
ist's nature is not however, quite so secure as it was for
the early Romanticists. Esteban Echeverria could give an
unqualified appraisal of nature in the first half of the

nineteenth century:

157
iCuantas, cuantas maravillas,
sublimes y a par sencillas,
sembr6 la fecunda mano

de Dios alli! tCuanto arcano
que no es dado a1 mundo ver:

1
Gutierrez Najera, typical of late nineteenth century wri-
ters, was too isolated from a tidy cosmic order for such a
simple unquestioning worship of nature. Happiness had to
come from within and nature use was restricted to providing
an imagery to create a world of illusion. Nowhere is this
stated more clearly than in "Los tigres de Chiapas' with two
significant sentences, one at the beginning of the story,
the other at the end. The first sentence is practically a
formula of typical Romantic nature imagery:

El monte en cuyos cedros se retuerce rugiendo el

huracén: la roca suspendida en el vacio: la caserna

por cuyas negras soledades se queja e1 viento de

la noche y la ola pujante que se encrespa, azotando

rabiosa e1 maderamen de los barcos, son los grandee

y soberanos espectaculos que asiendo e1 alma con

sus garras invisibles la obligan a ponerse de rodillas.

(932.22g. p. 316)

The last words of the sentence give the clue that this pas-
sage is not intended to represent a physical connection be-
tween the author and actual trees, wind and mountains. The
action following this introductory sentence narrates the
capture of a tiger, then in the last paragraph the narrator
explains his interest in overcoming the tigers: '. . .me

complazco en oir narrar esas aventuras 0 en leerlas dentro

del gabinete acolchonado. . .' (Cuentos, p. 319). In other

 

1. Esteban Echeverria, Eg cautiva (Buenos Aires:
Editorial Sopena, 1962), p. 14.

158
words, it is not so much what man does by action that satis-
fies as much as a spiritual capacity to give meaning to his
actions. Another sentence is more explicit: '. . .renuncio
a1 prestigioso cuadro de la naturaleza virgen“ (Cuentos,
p. 320). The value of action is not denied by these obser~
vstions on hunting. While the narrator is entranced by the
beautiful illusion of the hunt in a region of unspoiled
nature, at the same time, he sees the desolate area in its
socially deprived reality:
La civilizacién no ha de pararse y el gobierno tendra
forzosamente que pensar en abrir expeditas vias de
comunicacidn, . . .Entretanto, aun ue nos reciban con
repiques y cohetes en cada poblaci n y rancheria,
aunque los indios nos lleven en hombros como a santos,
aunque los ayuntamientos nos festejen y los tigres

pronuncien discursos de bienvenida en las cercanias de

Pedro Ruiz, yo no dejo que me seduzcan tales strac-
tiVOSe e e

(9.322.323: P0 320)
Nature in general means for Gutierrez Najera what ”Los
tigres de Chiapas” suggests. He is completely undeceived
about the ability of man to find absolute happiness anywhere
on earth-~even in remote, primitive Chiapas--but must turn
inward for the pleasures of contemplating the possibility
of pure ideality.

The search for material from nature to represent
mental visions of ideality commonly centers on objects which
suggest the ethereal: sky, clouds, birds, butterflies, the
sea, and flowers. Each of these either has a quality which
is movable, intangible, or mysterious and can serve as a

correlative to pure ideas. Flowers with their ephemeral

159
existence and supreme beauty correspond to ideality, life
or art itself. The most sustained use of flowers for sym-
bolization is in the poem “La misa de las flores“ in which
flowers fulfill an idealistic function of magically unifying
the author, his art, and the world into a single organism.
The process could actually be considered a mystic experience
in the sense that the author apprehends the flowers and
through a process of fantasizing, carries them from the em-
pirical world to the world of pure idea. Nature and flowers
are tied specifically to art in the first strophes of the
poem:

iMusa, al campo! :Abre 1a jaula!
iSefiores versos, entrad!

Beba e1 madrigal coqueto

en los lirios vino blanco,

y pensativo e1 soneto

descanse en rfistico banco.

(Poesias II, p. 233)

Since the author addresses poetry in the second person it
can be assumed that the poetry is his own and that the ex-
perience he is about to describe passes through his own
mind. Nature is given a supernatural characteristic through
an elaborate comparison of flowers to church furniture, in-
struments of the eucharist, vestments, worshipers and priest.
Among thirty-four strophes the following flowers are listed:
EEgEg, ggggg, malv , jazmin, tuli an, azshsr, mar arita,
ggggggggg, asionaria, clavel, heliotrogo, trinitaria,

azalea, azucena, violets, dahalia, iridea, or uidea, rosa,

160

ensamiento, gardenia, trébol, gEgEg, pervinca, madreselva,
and gododendro. A tulip is the priest: doves holding orange
blossoms comprise the altar: a rhododendron represents a
monseigneur: a daisy serves for a font: lilies are candles
and the flames are myrtles: white lilies are novitiates:
orchids form temple walls: a gardenia is the host. These
are a sampling of the ways in which flowers are used to re-
create a mass for the sake of poetry and ultimately, ideal-
ism.

Birds are also used with considerable frequency to
embody the same idealistic qualities. The word ”wing" with-
out mention of a specific bird invariably corresponds to an
ascension toward pure idea away from the materially prosaic:
“stodo lo que sube al cielo/ tiene alas!” (Poesias II, p.
176). In the verses ”A Virginia Reiter” the last two lines
summarize the effect of her musical voice as that of a
genius which creates life, spirit and ”alas" (Poesias II, p.
215). which by implicit analogy makes “wings” the equivalent
of art and idealism. The names of numerous birds are given
textually to buttress the idea of a struggle for ennobling
ideals. Unattractive birds provide an ominous presence of
death in the nightmarish ambiance of ”El suefio de Magda“:

Unicamente las lechuzas, de ojoe amarillos, comenzaron
a revolotear en torno de ella. De pronto un cuervo de
torcido pico y seme ante a1 ave Rock que habits e1
Himalaya, 1e arranc las pupilas a mordidas.
(m: P- 202)
In ”Tristissima Nox' night is compared to ”la muerte

aparente de los seres” and ”la vida profunda de las cosas“

161

(Poesias II, p. 36) and the following bird imagery is given
to reinforce the idea: g1gg,gictélopes, gggg, cuervo, ggjgr
‘ggg_nocturnos, torvas lechuzas (Poesias II, p. 38, 40). The
same poem gives an illustration of bird imagery used for the
opposite effect, to portray life, art and illusion, as day
dawns and other birds begin to sing:

A la voz de la alondra, en los encinos

los zenzontles contestan: los pinzones

con las t6rtolas charlan en los pinos,

y en el fresno rebullen los gorrionss.

(Poesias II, pp. 43-4)
Swans and butterflies are two symbols related to

wing imagery which fit closely with Gutierrez Néjera's
desire to fuse into his art a feeling of elegance as well as
pure idea. The swan was employed by Gutierrez NAjera early
in his career. Pia di Tolomei, in the story given her name
(1878), is compared to a swan in the first paragraph: ”. . .
trae insensiblemente a la memoria a las mujeres--cisnes de
las leyendas alemanas!“ (Cuentos, p. 20). Two years earlier
when Gutierrez Néjera was seventeen, he compared his soul to
a swan (Poesias I, p. 111). The butterfly as a symbol of
pure idea is totally appropriate in view of its ancient use
as a material representation of Psiquis. Besides being tra-
ditionally apprOpriate, the butterfly by its physical nature
easily lends itself to a representation of Gutierrez Najenas
ideas. Its small body is fragile like life. The compara-
tively large, brightly colored wings in movement are practi-
cally an animated kaleidoscOpe and the mental association

suggested by butterflies is pleasant and aesthetic: flowers,

162
blue sky, and verdant nature. The poem "Mariposas" uses
butterflies as a controlling image which examplifies the
range of their suggestive possibilities. In sundry places
they are compared to life (”Una chispa de luz les da vida”):
love ("iAsi vuelan y pasan y expiran/ las quimeras de amor
...”): the human soul (”esas alas brillantes del alma“):
illusions ("ilusiones que sois. . .”): death (“las que
tienen las alas muy negrss y se acercan en ffinebre ronda”):
and the mysterious nature of a cosmos whose beginning and
end are unknowable ('aQuién conoce sus nidos ocultos?/ AEn
qué sitio de noche reposan7') (Poesias II, pp. 135-7).

Other items of nature or natural phenomena follow
the pattern of selecting material which has an intangible.
characteristic and is suitable as a symbol for ideas. Much ‘
of the nature imagery, such as birds and butterflies has a
close connection to air. Clouds, fog, light rays, wind,
sky, snow, sunrise, smoke, dew, rain and volcanos are common
symbols. Perhaps the volcano seems incongruous in this list:
however, the volcano, by its height, can be as intangible
and majestic as a cloud.

Rain, contrary to what one might expect, was not
necessarily an unpleasant phenomenon for Gutierrez Najera.
His description of Mexico City during the rainy season is
interesting in this respect. Rain obviously relates to a
somber mood ("las paraguas se abren, como redondas alas de
murciélago" Cuentos, p. 155), yet it seems as if the author

welcomes a rainy atmosphere as evidenced by a following

163

comment on the city under the rain: "e1 delicioso cuadro que
la ciudad presents en ese instante" (Cuentos, p. 155).
Another quote makes the same point but relates rain to art
as well as the mysterious world of spirits: ”E1 ruido de la
lluvia es el mejor acompafiamiento de los versos. Si los
duendes tuvieron una orquests, asi seria" (Cuentos, p. 350).

Neblina, niebla, gggg, glggg are used in different
contexts but invariably with an underlying symbolic intent
for portraying something ethereal and pure. In "De blanco”
neblina is virginal, niebla is the fiber of a white tunic
which covers a feudal tower, nieves are chaste beauty and
the white veil which falls on a girl's shoulders is a Eggg
(Poesias II, pp. 167-9). Niebla is the only word in the
list which is not tied to an abstract noun: however, fog in
this case is the abstract quality which spiritualizes a
white tunic. Moving to other nouns of intangibility used as
spiritual symbolization, "gEgg impalpable“ (Poesias I, p.
198) represents a love which is unattainable to the post:
the smoke spirals produced as the poet smokes remind him of
his solitude (Poesias II, p. 59): gEgEg is the abode of ggr
trellas which are illusions (Poesias I, p. 98).

A striking example of air-related symbols in the
Quentos is the introduction to ”Juan el organista“. A three
page introduction to the story describes the rustic setting
in a remote valley. The‘most lyrical paragraph describes a
volcano whose elevated, snowbcovered peaks resemble a sleep-

ing woman (obviously the Mexican volcano Iztaccihuatl):

164

La nieve de los volcanes, como el agua del mar,

cambia de tintes segfin e1 punto en donde esta e1

sol: ya aparece color de rosa, ya con blancura

hiperbérea y deslumbrante, ya violada. Muchas

veces las nubes, como el cortinaje cadente de un

gran talamo, impiden ver a la mujer blanca y la

montafia que humea. Es necesario que la luz,

sirviendo de obediente camarera, descorra e1 pa-

be116n de hfimeda gasa para que veamos a los dos

colosos.

(W. p. 262)

This description acquires a special emphasis within the
introduction by constituting the most elaborate portrayal
of any single part of the valley. The untouchable volcanos
which are occasionally hidden by clouds of white lace and
the spectacular effects of light all combine to form a
symbolic spectacle of the beauty for which mortals continual-
1y reach. The "mujer blanca" undergoes two ordeals in the
author's eyes: her privacy is lost to prying human eyes and
in the afternoon she appears moribund. Something of the same
fate befalls the organist in the following narration as he
is frustrated in his quest for love and then dies.

A final source of nature symbol which deserves
attention because of its prevalent textual appearance is sea
imagery. An early poem, ”Para que”, written in 1880, em-
ploys the sea and a boat as controlling images. The sea is
consistently presented as the mysterious cosmos which sur-
rounds life, a boat. This perfectly traditional symbology
is invested with Gutierrez Néjera's own interpretation.

There is a reiterated lack of faith in God:

AAd6nde navegamos? aquién rigs la faena?
AA qué las inquietudes, las luchas y la pena,

165
si el capitan maltrata, y el término es ruin?
(Poesias I, p. 292)
There exists the possibility of suicide: 5. . .es un crimen/
lanzarse desde el mastil a1 seno de la mar?" (Poesias I,
p. 292). Although the option of suicide is rejected, the
deep feeling of pessimism remains. In another poem the
mysterious, unfathomable sea symbolizes the world of ideas
rather than death: "Los mares de la idea/ tienen también sus
rudas tempestades” (Poesias II, p. 143). The last section
of ”A Altamirano“ pictures the writer facing the sea:
as acerca e1 sol'y puéblanse las ondas
como de duendes aureos que, traviesos,
luciérnagas acuéticas semejan:
(Poesias II, p. 221)
The glistening light on the sea giving off a supernatural
glow is the future path over which South American poetry
will voyage:
' una joven, la muss americana
llorando se despide en la ventana
del poeta divino.
y entre besos resp6ndele e1 poeta:
- Me voy y vas conmigo: tfi eres mis!
(Poesias II, p. 221)
However much the tonality may vary the sea is still the mys-
terious beyond, on whose nature man can only speculate, pro-
phesy or dread. ‘
In addition to the symbols taken from nature, a
considerable body of symbolic imagery is taken from material
items of value such as gold, diamonds, linen, silk, urns and

chalices. Although this aspect of Gutierrez Najera's art

166
has traditionally been identified as French Parnassian in-
fluence, it does not mean that he was partly Parnassian but
that he is again searching the world for inspiration adapta-
ble to his idealistic art formula, to which he held with
considerable conviction. As a result, the function of this
category of image is fundamentally the same as nature
imagery. Gutierrez Najera chose specific objects which were
important as symbols for higher spiritual meaning.

The high monetary value of jewelry and precious
metals, plus the common association of these objects with an
aesthetic, aristocratic ambience make very appropriate materb
isl for representation of exalted spiritual norms. In addi-
tion, the bright colors, an ability to reflect light, and
the general tendency for a jewel or golden object to stand
out give these symbols an ethereal intangibility not unlike
birds, flowers and clouds. Typical words used in this sym-
bolic manner are: marmol, ggg, marfil, erla, diamante, gig-
bastro, lata, bronce.

Marmol usually appears as a symbol of death. Con-
sidering Gutierrez Najera's obsession with death, it is not
surprising that marble is the most frequently employed
symbol in this group. In ”Lipids” he wrote:

:Cuéntos amigos en los sepulcros
de blanca marmol o piedra gris:

(Poesias I, p. 269)
In another poem youth's passage and death's approach are
separated by a marble gateway:

La juventud se aleja. De mis brazos

167

desasirse logr6 con'agil brinco:

y en el umbral de marmol, indecisa,

mirandome con lastima y ternura,

para que mas codicie su hermosura

me dirige 1a filtima sonrisa.

(Poesias II, p. 285)

Hamlet is portrayed with a face of "blanco mérmol' (Poesias
I, p. 300). Death however, is not the only correlative sug-
gested by marble. In ”A Hidalgo' marble is related to
Hellenic art: "la marmérea desnudez helena” (Poesias II,
p. 268). Even though marble was an evocation of ancient art
for Gutierrez Najera, it was still not external and objecti-
fied Parnassian marble but marble for subjective feeling and

internal illusions:

Solo para mis suefios cobra vida
e1 mfirmol de la hermosa Galatea.

(2922.29. II, p. 12)

Gold, like marble, also has different implications.
Sometimes gold represents some measure of idealism and is
favorable: other times it stands for materialism and is
reprehensible. A totally idealistic employment is given the
following lines written to a lady: '. . .vive mi alma/ entre
tus rizos/ como ave prisionera en jaula de oro” (Poesias II,
p. 13). In 'Mariposas' one of the butterflies-~described
above as symbols of ideas and illusions--is golden and sym-
bolizes heaven: ”la de oro, promesa de gloria“ (Poesias II,
p. 137). Poetry is metaphorically called golden in ”A la
Corregidora”: ”Hay versos de oro“ (ggggigg II, p. 261). In
direct opposition to these exuberant applications of gold an

equally somber note is struck in other places. With the

168
story "La moneda de niquel” gold becomes a false illusion
and a symbol of materialism: ". . .del mismo modo pagan tu
carifio las monedas de oro y las mujeres rubias' (Cuentos,
p. 323). Other passages in the same story are even more
pessimistic: '. . .el oro es vampiro: bebe sangre” (Cuentos,
p. 324). The second use of gold to embody materialism and
finite worldly aspirations is as prevalent as its symboliza-
tion of idealistic perspectives. Gold as an equal of money
is too ready a symbol of materialism to allow it only an
idealistic characteristic. With other objects of material
worth this is not particularly the case. Since Gutiérrez
Néjera's underlying philosophy defines man as possessing a
spirit, and further proposes that the greatest value in life
and art comes from ministering to the spirit, the overwhelm-
ing majority of symbols are intended to buttress this basic
spiritual nature rather than symbolize the opposing forces
of materialism which continually pull man downward.

Other valuable material objects symbolizing the
drive toward the world of ideality are marfil, erla, gggp
gggEg, alabastro, and gEgEg. Ivory figures among various
objects which suggest whiteness which, in turn, always rep-
resents a form of purity. In "De blanco”: '. . .brillan las
gotas del agua/ en su arabe peine de blanco marfil“ (Poesias
II, p. 168). Pearls are linked to poetry in "La miss de las
flares”:

iCuéntas perlas en el musgo
hay para tu cuello, copla:

'(Poesias II, p. 234)

169

The glistening properties of diamonds are equalled to the
intangibility of light in ”Primers pagina": ”se truecan en
diamantes los étomos de luz” (Poesias II, p. 306). Alabas-
ter is entered metaphorically to describe the back of a
beautiful lady ('sobre el terso alabastro de la espalda"
Poesias I, p. 224), and converted into more than a cold
visual symbol by the use of ”terso alabastro”, which implies
a tactile quality as much as a visual quality. Silver is
tied to music in ”A la Corregidora”: '. . .hay notas de
plats” (Poesias II, p. 261). As examples accumulate, the
consistency with which Gutierrez Najers used material ob-
jects of value as an extension of his theory of literature
is perfectly demonstrated. Above, for example, each concrete
material item is tied one way or another to an abstract
noun, a spiritual norm or activity such as writing poetry.

Different cloth and garments deserve mention because
of their persistent appearance. The tunic appears as a
symbol of spirituality or purity. Frequently the tunic has
a color affiliation to whiteness. In ”A Vicente Riva Pala-
cio" the tunic is used to relate to children, hence inno-
cence, purity, etc: ”Con tunicas blancas se acercan los
nifios“ (Poesias II, p. 251): in ”[Mientras ufana 1a risa...J"
the human soul is a tunic (Poesias II, p. 177): and in
'Mirtos' physical erotic love is given a higher spiritual
interpretation when in the first verse the poet appeals to
the lady he loves ”con blanca tunica cubierta“ (Poesias I,

p. 271). Among cloth or related material used as symbols

170
are: gggg, Eggg, gggg and encaje. Silk scarves are juxta-
posed with air in “A la Corregidora” (". . .alos pérsicos
chales/ ds sedas joyantes a1 sire tended!“ Poesias II, p.
262) and a silk knot guards the innocent virginity of a
young lady:

No ha tocado jamss mano ninguna
de su corpifio los sedosos nudos.

(Poesias II, p. 17)
Linen is prominent among objects suggested by whiteness in
"De blanco”:
Entremos a1 templo: la hostia fulgura
de nieve parecen las canas del curs,
vestido con albs de lino sutil:
(Poesias II, p. 168)
The same poem also uses lace to create an effect of trans-

parent whiteness:

. . .cual nube de gasa que cse lentamente
y viene en tus hombros su encaje a posar.

(Poesias II, p. 169)

Vessels are another category of images which plays
a role in the struggle between materialism and idealism.
All of the vessels--g§EEg, anfora, gggg, bucaro, and co a--
are obvious aesthetic emblems pgg,gg_in addition to usually
relating to a magical world of Christian sacrament or an
equivalent of the pagan deities. Gutierrez Najera invari-
ably connects vessels to either a magic function or even
more commonly, a simple spiritual correlative: love, soul,
illusions, art. The chalice, the sacramental vessel, corres-

ponds to purity (”e1 caliz que no toca mis que la mano pura'

 

vawwv ~

171

Poesias I, p. 198), or in "A Hidalgo" a chalice is the magic
cup which a finite existence prevents the poet from posses-
sing: ”ipasa, Padre, de mi, tu caliz de oro!” (Poesias II,
p. 268). Anfors is variously the vessel of love (”e1 énfora
de todos mis amores' Poesias I, p. 273), of dreams (Poesias
I, p. 276), or the flowing lines of a woman's body (Poesias
II, p. 255). .Urns, in a like manner, are containers for
spiritual essences or objects which stimulate a spiritual
experience. The following is a sampling of words of spiri-
tual significance tied to urn: gggg (Poesias I, p. 226),
ggg; (Poesias I, p. 231), ygggg (Poesias II, p. 301). Gone
versely, urn relates to death which, along with materialism,
is the direct opposite of spirituality: ”la delicada urna
de mirmol en que reposa la que nunca volvers” (Cuentos, p.
207). In another negative reference a broken bucchero sig-
nifies the loss of ideality:

Ni una flor en el bucaro roto...

Ya no agitan sus alas de nieve
despertando a la luz mis ideas:

(Poesias II, p. 150)
gggg is given the most diaphanous, hence ideal or spiritual,
characteristic in ”A Dyonisos' when the poet calls it an
”aura caps” (Poesias II, p. 295).

Color symbolism deserves the emphasis of a special
category equal to symbols from nature and symbols from
material objects of value because of the pervasive employ-
ment of color imagery. There are, in effect, two distin-

guishable kinds of color symbolism used by Gutierrez Najera.

172
One distinguishable tendency is to use colors in a tradi-
tional correspondence of meaning and readily fits into a
discussion of Gutierrez Najera's creation of value through
idealism. The second use of color is to correlate color and
intuition and will be discussed in a subsequent chapter.
Obviously, there are instances where the two functions
merge: however, a dual usage is undeniable. The convention-
al use of colors involves ascribing characteristics to
color--purity, spirituality, death, materialism--which are
common to Spanish literature, if not the entire Occidental
literary tradition. Numerically the colors with a predeter-
mdned meaning are few and relatively uncomplicated in sym-
bolic significance. The frequency of their appearance may,
nevertheless, be far in excess of whatever a small quantity
and uncomplicated function implies.

White and black usually represent a life-death
polarity and, by extension, idealism and materialism. Blue,
with its obvious connection to mysterious properties of sky
and sea or the beauty of flowers acquires a consistent
embodiment of aestheticism and spirituality which to
Gutierrez Nijera were the same entity. Yellow is a resem-
blance of death or illness and consequently materialism.~

Of these four colors, white and black are the most
common. Several poems and one story have white and black,
or words implying whiteness and blackness, in the title.
Among the poems are: 'Pagina negra', "Luz y sombre”, "Mi

casa blanca", "Muss blanca", "De blanco', 'Blsnco.-Pslido.-

173
Negro.", “Tan blanca vas por la existencia humans“, ”A una
ultra rubia", ”Cay6 la blanca nevada“: and the story "El
vestido blance”. Black, with variations, is some form of
death or spiritual desolation. In 'Pégina negra” black is a
night in the poet's life when he realized there was no God
and that human illusions were unreachable. With “Luz y
sombra" black is the pall which hangs over his soul and luz,
or white, is the innocence of his sweetheart: ”mi alma
negra sombra, la tuya blanca luz" (Poesias I, p. 108).
White can occasionally relate to both life and death. In
'Blanco.-Pilido.-Negro.” white has both meanings in two
lines:

pilida y blanca como una muerte...
5N0: ...;Como un ingel que s1 cielo vs!

(Poesias II, p. 199)
Obviously the poet has trouble deciding to himself whether
white should be a deathly pallor when he opts for the eter-
nal whiteness of an angel. Death again assumes the counts-
nance of white in “Cayo la blanca nevada":
Cayo la blanca nevada
sobre el jardincito mic
y mi alondra enamorada,
bajo la nieve enterrada,
qued6se muerte de frio.
(Poesias II, p. 331)
In all of the other pieces where white is a controlling
image it has a meaning of life, eternity, light or ideality.
For example, ”Mi casa blanca“ is a domain of doves, dreams

and love ('. . .mansidn de palomas,/ que es nido de suefios,

morada de amor” Poesias I, p. 137), all of which are

174
consistent symbols of ideality to Gutierrez Nejera. "Muss
blanca” is an incarnation of poetry which brings hope to the
poet and through her ministrations assures him of immortal-
ity:
En gie junto a mi lecho, velando mi reposo,
ser 8 como la estatua del engel Silencioso
que sin hablar nos dice: iTu alma es inmortal!
(BEES—$3.9. II: P- 61“)
Blue has long been closely associated with Gutierrez
Nejera, not only because of its appearance in his poetry and
fiction, but also because of his editorship of the Revista
Eggl,(1894-5). In the first issue of the Revista Egg; an
explanation for the title blue was given on the first page:
A! por que azul? Porque en lo azul hay sol, porque
en lo azul hay alas, porque en lo azul hay nubes y
porque vuelan a lo azul las esperanzas en bandadas.
El azul no es selo un color: es un misterio...una
virginidad intacta.
(Critica, p. 534)
The images associated with blue are readily identifiable as
those explained above which serve as emblems of ideas and
absolute norms. Sun, wings, clouds, flight are juxtaposed
with the unblemished (”virginidad”) and also a mysterious
reality. Blue, in short, is mind, soul, spirit or life and
in Gutierrez Nejera's interpretation a foundation of his
aesthetic idealism: ”Y bajo e1 azul imposible. . .brota el
verso, como de cuerno de oro e1 toque de la diana: y corre
ls press, a mode de ancho rio“ (Critica, p. 534).

Antecedents for a symbol of mental reality or mys-

terious intangibility in blue are numerous. Jean Cirlot

175

notes in his Dictionary g; Sygbolism several variations on
blue.1 The ancient Egyptians let blue represent truth: to
medieval alchemists it represented heaven: and the Hopi
Indians let blue in different shadings of light and dark
represent day and night. Long before Ruben Dario published
Egg; (1888), Gutierrez Nejera gave a spiritual-mental qual-
ity to blue. Early in his career (1876) he wove blue into
a poem with this observation: ”Es blanca tu conciencia y
azul tu pensamiento” (Poegias I, p. 108). In the same poem:
'tu corazen es puro como el azul del cielo“ (Poesias I,
p. 107). Thus, in his earliest poetry the symbolic meaning
of spirituality for blue was established. This remained a
constant until the high point of his career, when he began
editorship of the Revista AggE.

A final example of the employment of blue from the
Cuentos will serve to illustrate the way in which Gutierrez
Nejera conceived of what this chapter considers symbols of
value. In “La mafiana de San Juan” the author says in the
first sentence: "Pocas mafianas. . .tan azules como esta
mafiana de San Juan“ (Cuentos, p. 141). In other words, this
particular day is one of flawless perfection. Nevertheless,
the story consists of a minute detailing of how a young boy
dies needlessly as a trick of fate: '50h,.mafianita de San

Juan! (Tu blanco traje de novia tiene tambien manchas de

 

sangre!” (Cuentos, p. 145). Blue, and in the last sentence

 

l. J.E. Cirlot, g Dictionar g; S bols, (New
York: Philosophical Library, 1962), pp. 50-4.

176
white, are possibilities which are not reachable for man.
They serve only as indicators of something eminently desir-
able but forever beyond reach. This has been reflected
repeatedly in the way Gutierrez Nejera uses symbols in this
chapter. An aestheticist, he logically uses artists or their
creations as symbolic images in his own writing, then in his
treatment shows how they inhabit the same materialistically
confining world he feels himself to inhabit. Whether por-
traying Hamlet or a chorus girl, the struggle between impri-
sonment in materialism and freedom toward art and idealism
is always present. Many symbols, other than those from the
art world, serve as an attempt to create the unreachable
plateau of idealism. Symbols ofnature are usually of an
intangible, fleeting, fragile quality such as clouds, wings,
flowers, water. Other symbols are of a very concrete mater-
ial property but still consist of things that are not easily
attainable: gold, precious stones, delicate art objects.
All of the symbols, from artists to colors, were an attempt
to create something of value through means of art and

ideality.

CHAPTER III

SPACE AND TIME
A major effect on Gutierrez Nejera's writing, resul-
ting from a decision to make idealistic reality the founda-
tion of his work, was a special concern for space and time.
After deciding that true art was not what the eye perceived
so much as what the mind reflected, the scape of his writing
could expand to encompass everything conceivable. The mind
could thus carry the author toward eternality in time and
toward universality in space. Concerning time, Gutierrez
Nejera visualized his life and problems in the context of a
stream of eternal recurrence. As for space, the mind could
make Paris and London as near to the author's person as his
sown Mexican capital. The first paragraph of "Rip-Rip el
aparecido” is a capsule presentation of this idea. The
first sentence establishes that the narrative is a totally
cerebral rather than a limited visual phenomenon: ”Este
cuento yo no 10 vi: pero creo que lo sofie' (Cuentos, p.225),
then follows a statement praising the ability to thus make
the mind embrace universality in space and time:
(Que cosas ven los ojos cuando eaten cerrados!
Parece imposible que tengamos tanta gents y tantas cosas
dentro...porque, cuando los perpados caen, la mirada,
como una sefiora que cierra su balcen, entra a ver lo
que hay en su casa. Puss bien, esta casa mis, esta

casa de la sefiora mirada que yo tengo, o que me tiene,
es un palacio, es una quinta, es una ciudad, es un

177

178

mundo, es el universo..., presents, e1 pasado y el
futuro.

(W: P0 225)

In considering universal space, Gutierrez Nejera
sought fully to enjoy through a cultivated cosmopolitanism
the vastness which could unfold in the mind. Contrary to
what might be supposed, this did not imply a rejection of
Mexico but a more enthusiastic acceptance since he loved his
native country and city all the more for comprising a part
of the universal whole.

Generally, the universe was seen as an extension of
the battleground for the struggle between spirituality and
materialism. A foreign country seen in this light is
usually somewhat idealized and the question arises as to
whether or not an idealized Paris really has a foothold in
reality. To Gutierrez Nejera it did if this was what the
mind found there, but at the same time he recognized that
foreigners were subject to the same limitations of finite
existence that he was. As a consequence, foreign and exotic
places are not automatically given a value status by virtue
of being foreign or exotic.

The exact manner in which Gutierrez Nejera viewed
exotic places is illustrated in a story which does not
correlate Mexico and a foreign country but a small village
and the Mexican capital. The topic of the story is a young
girl who dreams of visiting Mexico City. According to
Gutierrez Nejera there are two ways in which a hypothetical

young lady dreams of the city. If she has not visited the

179
capital before, it exists in her mind as returning friends
and novelists have described it: "Es un maridaje de las
narraciones exageradas y los cuentos fantesticos" (Cuentos,
p. 39). On the other hand, if the young lady has already
visited the city at the prOper time, such as during Holy
Week festivities, '. . .no son estas diversiones fabulosas,
sino perfectamente reales. . ." (Cuentos, p. 39). It can be
assumed that fog-filled London is to Gutierrez Nejera what
Mexico City is to the village dreamer, which suggests a
more somber interpretation of the story. Mexico City is a
dream to the girl because of its rarity and newness in her
experience and also the hypothetical young lady arrives at
a moment of festivity which may not be common. Gutierrez
Nejera reminds the reader of the tenuousness and unreacha-
bility of total happiness when in the last lines the girl is
awakened from her reverie by the common reality of her vil-
lage environment. It can be concluded that the polarization
of happiness in a world of pure idea and misery caused by
physical limitations was not resolved through cosmopoli-
tanism. Gutierrez Nejera had to be content with the modest
advantage that, in cosmopolitanism, he could expand himself
somewhat as a finite person, he could find idealistic sup-
port in the laudable qualities of other cultures and, of no
less significance, he could take satisfaction that he was
paying homage to the true universal nature of man. In the
final analysis, universals of human character rang truer

to Gutierrez Nejera than limited national aspects.

180

Working from this perspective, Gutierrez Nejera
filled his pages with names of foreigners, quotes from
foreign literature, imitations and adaptations of foreign
authors, foreign settings for stories and continuous corre-
lations between Mexico and foreign countries. An example of
the range of Gutierrez Nejera's personalized universe is
given in “Pia di Tolomei" in a long digression on travel.
The narrator begins by first establishing that it is a men-
tally conceived world that interests him and to gain this
world he need not go a step beyond his library where, in an
easy chair with a cigar, cup of coffee and a travel book,
he can travel the whole world “en alas de la invisible loco-
motora de la fantasia” (Cuentos, p. 21). An inventory of
authors who assisted and places he has mentally visited
follows: Gautier led the narrator through Italy, Rome with
its museums, the catacombs, the Vatican, Florence and Naples:
Dumas, Lamartine, Stendhal and Taine also assisted with
travel accounts. He singles out for praise the philosophic
tone of Taine and the colorful descriptions of Gautier, whom
Gutierrez Nejera fondly refers to as ”Theo” (Cuentos, p.21).
Arséne Houssaye was his guide to Venice, Lord Byron the
Adriatic Sea, Gerard de Nerval the mysteries of the Orient,
Mery led him to India, Chateaubriand to North America, Flau-
bert to Carthage and lastly, Gautier is listed again as a
guide to Egypt. The talent of these authors offer the
narrator, he contends, a universal experience (”e1 universo

todo ha pasado como visien kaleidoscepica a mi vista”

181
Cuentos, p. 22) without the bothersome experience of indi-
gestion from the food of different places, uncomfortable
trains, prosaic coaches and the economic exploitation
generally practiced on tourists. It is noteworthy that all
of the writers enumerated are literary figures, making them
a conspicuous illustration that whatever interest Gutierrez
Nejera has in cosmopolitanism, it is always going to have a
close relation to art. ‘ .

In describing how cosmopolitanism is incorporated
into Gutierrez Nejera's writing, a measure of its impor-
tance is indicated by the number of stories which are,perme-
ated by a foreign ambience. -“Mi ingles' is not only one of
these stories but is doubly important for its early date,
1877, which makes it one of the earliest examples of thor-
oughly Modernist prose. The story acquires an idealistic
foundation through the narrator's presentation of thepiece
as a dream. There are two characters who figure in the
story, Milord Pembroke who is the center of the narration,
and his Andalusian wife who never appears, in spite of the
storyteller's strong desire to behold her famed beauty.

Pembroke, who is linked to the narrator in the first
words of the story ("Milord Pembroke, mi amigo” Cuentos,

p. 9), shares the same value system with his author. The
Englishman strongly feels the confinement of his London
environment and decides to travel. A description of the
aspects of London which are confining to Pembroke underlies

the idea that a foreign or exotic country does not acquire

182
value just because it is exotic. Pembroke's English life
and surroundings consist of those objects Gutierrez Nejera
uses repeatedly as symbols of ineffable plateaus of idealis-
tic beauty. Among Pembroke's possessions and environment
are his vast estates whose rents give him the life of a
prince, his purebred horses, membership in a club, a theatre
box, the London fog, the English girls, and the soot and
smoke from the factories. Except for the factory smoke and
soot, Milord Pembroke's surroundings are practically an
itemized list of the symbolic material employed by Gutierrez
Nejera to represent his mental visions and aesthetic exper-
iences. Yet to Pembroke, his routine was tiresome and his
surroundings ugly and monotonous so he set out to see other
lands 0
Pembroke's journey around the world is described in
a paragraph and is of more than casual interest because of
its resemblance to Jules Verne's Around The World 23 Eighty
Days (1873):
En Paris se enamore de una discipula de la Taglioni.
En Alemania estuvo a punto de batirse por sostener la
prioridad del vino sobre la cerveza. En Italia iba a
ser victims de una vendetta corsa. Caye en las redes'
de un marido celoso en Portugal. En la India se salvo
por accidents de las garras de un tigre que 1e habia
atrapado en cierta caceria, y en China estuvo a punto
de casarse con una viuda malabar, renuente a morir en
la hoguera por su esposo.
(Cuentos, p. 10)
Continuing in the same tone of light humor, the

narrator relates another incident of the Englishman's life

which points up Gutierrez Nejera's acknowledgement that

183
foreign people and things have their limitations. The
story-teller had been impressed with the serene calm with
which Pembroke had undergone the series of travel ordeals.
Unfortunately, the Englishman's composure was put to a test
which shattered any notion that he was ”formado de granito"
(Cuentos, p. 10). In the course of a calm discussion in a
circle of friends, the question arose whether or not an un-
faithful wife should be punished. Everyone had expressed
himself except the normally reserved Pembroke, who finally
gave his opinion which shattered the image of calm serenity:
"Es que yo hubiera descuartizado a1 amante, a vista de la
esposa, y despues hubiera sacado a esta los ojoe en presen-
cis de sus hijos" (Cuentos, p. 11).

The remainder of the story concerns a visit to
Milord's estate and presents the Englishman in a more favor-
able perspective with an elaboration of how he has decorated
his estate to suit his cosmopolitan interests, totally in
harmony with the narrator's feelings. First the house and
its surroundings are described. In the narrator's words
only a Venetian painter could justly depict the beauty of
the gardens and architecture. Pembroke has formed his gar-
dens on a universal rather than on a narrow English standard:

En aquel jardin se han reunido, por un esfuerzo
poderoso del dinero, los erboles y plantas de mes
extrafios climas y mes remotas tierras. E1 cedro
del Libano y el cactus de la India as entrelazsn

y juntan a los perfumados bosquecillos de naranjas.
El floripondio de alabastro y el nenfifar de flexible

tallo crecen a1 lado de la camelia aristocretica y
del plebeyo nardo.

(Cuentos, p. 12)

184
The interior of the house maintained the same cosmopolitan
air. Among the tapestries, crystals and finely upholstered
furniture were: "Mueblaje de madera china", "grabados repre-
sentando escenas y paisajes suizos“, and 'un bosquecillo
artificial de plantas exeticas y rarisimas flores' (Cuentos,
pp. 12-3). The room where Pembroke read was a “salen chino
can sue abigarrados tepices, sus jeroglificos extrafios”
(Cuentos, p. 13): the dining room was a 'comedor indio”

(Cuentos, p. 13): but perhaps the most spectacular part of

 

the exotic collection was the collection of Venetian paint-
ings which were worthy of a museum. After admiring the good
taste of Milord Pembroke's palace, the narrator is offered
an introduction to the most prized part of the estate--
Pembroke's Andalusian wife. Just as she is about to appear
the narrator is awakened from his dream by the inopportune
entrance of a servant with a breakfast tray. The piece ends
with a series of imprecations, objects thrown at the servant,
and the unpleasantness of an overturned breakfast tray. For
the few happy moments of the dream, the narrator was able to
do as Pembroke when he tired of his London surroundings--to
encircle the world and bring part of it back to vary the
routine of his existence.

”Mi ingles' makes the point rather plainly that a
man of universal interests is more in harmony with himself
and hence with reality than someone who restricts himself to
the circle of his immediate environment. Other stories with

foreign settings are less direct and homage to

185
cosmopolitanism has to be either assumed or stated secon-
darily alongside a more prominent theme. "Elisa la ecuyere"
is an example of a foreign setting whose primary objective
is not necessarily cosmopolitanism but nevertheless a cer-
tain value on universality is stated or implied in several
digressions. Essentially, the story concerns a female
circus rider who symbolizes the possibility of attaining a
status above common materiality. The fact of her foreign-
ness and international fame become an integral part of the
ascension to pure ideality.

The piece begins, much as ”Mi ingles', with
Gutierrez Nejera establishing a link between himself, Mexico
and, in this case, Europe. The narrator has attended the
performances of a circus in Mexico and through a French ac-
quaintance, is told of the marvelous splendor of the cir-
cuses in Paris. To illustrate, the Parisian tells the his-
tory of the particular performer Elisa la ecuyere. The
foreign scape of the story immediately extends to the rest
of Europe. Mlle. Elisa is by birth Austrian and at the same
time a talented individual who transcended her native coun-
try through her art. Elisa's Austrian parentage and the
advantages this bestows on her are dwelt on at some length:
"Era austriaca, romentica y nieta de un gran fabricante de
jabones”. . .“Como austriaca, tenia e1 hechizo de sus com-
patriotas, la sangre hirviente y el diablo en la mirada”
(Cuentos, p. 102). Being Austrian and Romantic gave her a

quality which ranked high in Gutierrez Nejera's value

186
system: ”Romentica, dejebase arrastrar por el vuelo huraca-
nado de un suefio infatigable" (Cuentos, p. 102). The grace-
fulness of Elisa's conversation resembled “esa seda fin de
la poetics Alemania” (Cuentos, p. 102). The implication of
speaking with the smoothness of German poetry amounts to.a
description of Gutierrez Nejera's own theory of art:
. . .dejaba correr su palabra de fiebre: todo pasaba
alli, por entre aquellos labios que pronto se ponian
secos, todo: repidas visiones, dramas mindseulos, reyes
y reinas con suntuosos trajes de oro, mundos enteros
vestidos de claridad. Sin contar lo que saltaba, de
vez en cuando, de su cabeza loss a su boca grave:
improvisaciones de deseos, concepciones de realidades
sobrenaturales, un chorro de grandiosidades cemicas,
todo esto semejante a girones de pfirpura, remendados,
valiere lo que valiere, pero con esa seda fins de la
poetics Alemania.
(922m. 1:. 102)
These characteristics attributed to Austrian and German
literature and their close connection to Gutierrez Nejera's
theories, are yet another indication that of the foreign
literatures which influenced the Mexican, it is German Roman-
tic idealism which emerges as the basis of his art.

Elisa's Austrian background however, was not all
that defined her. Being a person of higher caliber ("una
alma elevada' Cuentos, p. 101), she felt a vocation for the
circus. This, of course, entailed a struggle with family
and middle-class mores. After a year's confinement in a
convent, Elisa's family capitulates and allows her to follow
her inclinations. After describing her entrance and success

as a circus performer the narrator emphasizes that, by

following her superior vocation, she has acquired the

187
stature of a person who surpasses the boundaries of one
country or one language.

The morality and appropriateness of following an
inner voice is sanctioned when Elisa, after becoming famous,
returns to the city and the convent to encounter her con-
fessor and mother superior. Both priest and mother superior
give approbation in almost the same words with the differ-
ence that the nun is more emphatic. Confessor: "LPor que
estes en el Circo? Pero no hay necesidad de decirselo..."
(Cuentos, p. 105). Mother Superior: “-5Que es lo que has
ido a buscar a1 Circo? Si, ya se...pero querida nifia, se
tambien que siempre eres la misma, y que en todas partes
puede uno conservar su noble corazen..." (Cuentos, pp.105-6).

An international value is placed on Elisa's talent
and nobility through a wide acceptance by foreign audiences.
This is made more or less explicit in a passage describing
the farewells as Elisa departs from different countries:

letanias de adioses, balbucidas entre sollozos, en

frances, en alemen, y sobre todo, en esa lengua

universal tan bien comprendida, de las legrimas.

En Viena, en Berlin, en Pestto, en Breslau, en
Hamburgo, en Dresde, en todas partes. . .
(m: P0 101*)

The last two paragraphs of the story detail how Elisa has
been accepted by the cream of her native Austrian society
(”la emperatriz de Austria. . .los Metternich, los Esterhazy,
el baren Orzy, e1 principe de Lichtenstein, e1 baren de

Edelsheim" Cuentos, p. 106) and an international Paris

circle (”la baronesa de Rothvillers. . .1a duquesa de

188
Fitz-James, la baronesa Alphonse de Rothschild. . .1a
baronesa de Ruthenstein. . .Mackenzie Grives, e1 conde de
Medena, los Esphrussi, e1 conde de Barri, el general Ipara-
guerra, Basily, Frogonard, d'Etreillis”(Cuentos, pp. 106-7).

The story entitled "Cinco afios de prisien" is inter-
esting not only as a manifestation of universality but also
as a linkage of idealism to activity completely removed from
the world of art--in this Case, diplomacy and engineering.
The short piece consists of a fictionalized account of how
the Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps, might have reacted
after the failure of his project to construct a Panama canal.
Divided into two sections, the first describes the aged
Lesseps defending himself, recounting his past glories as
diplomat and builder of the Suez canal: the second portrays
the defeated Lesseps sentenced to five years of prison and
begging for mercy.

The account is obviously fictionalized and represen-
tative of Gutierrez Nejera's own feelings since it clearly
departs from the actual facts of the incident. Lesseps, in
fact, passed into senility and died before he could know of
the sentence. According to a note by E. K. mapes: 7

En febrero (de 1893) el Tribunal de Paris condene
a Lesseps y a su hijo Carlos (su colaborador) a cinco
afios de prisien y a una multa de 3,000 francos. Sela
este filtimo comparecie ante e1 tribunal, pues Fernando
Lesseps, anonadado ante la magnitud del desastre de su
obra, fue victims de una somnolencia senil (que permi-
tie a su familia ocultarle su condena), muriendo a1

poco tiempo...a los 89 afios de edad.

(Cuentos, p. 363)

189
Lesseps is presented in the first section as a vehicle for
various ideas, among which are the notion that Lesseps is
not just a Frenchman but also a citizen of the world: "Mi
querida fue Francis. Mi enamorada, ls humanidad' (Cuentos,
p. 363). Several paragraphs later Lesseps' monologue re-
turns to the same theme of uniting himself to his country
and the world: “Gloria para mi, gloria para Francis, gloria
para el mundo' (Cuentos, p. 364). This treatment of Lesseps
contributes to the pattern which began with "Mi ingles” and
”Elisa la ecuyere”. Gutierrez Nejera chooses a foreigner
for characterization then, by statement or implications,
links himself to the character and as a final step causes
the personage to adopt a universal perspective.

In "Cinco afios de prisien", like the other stories,
cosmopolitanism is an integral part of a general idealistic
scheme of values. Lesseps says, ”yo me 11amo la gloria"
(Cuegtos, p. 363) and the rest of the monologue, including
the claim to universality, becomes an interpretation of what
he means by glory. Although Lesseps is not an artist he is
a genius (“To me llamo e1 Genio' Cuentos, p. 343) which, to
Gutierrez Nejera, is the same since art is genius. Lesseps
feels that his work should magically, like a work of art,
possess the intangible characteristic of glory which trans-
cends their material nature: "IbaEyOJa la inmortalidad para
decirle a Homero: cantadms” (Cuentos, p. 363). In one way
or another the condemned old man returns obsessively to

what he feels was the effect of his work and his glory. His

190
engineering feats were conceived in altruism, 'di tanto a la
humanidad y mes a Francis“ (Cuentos, p. 364) and a priestly
spiritual fortitude:

Tuve fe en mi destino, fe oriental, fe con alma
de sol, fe con medula de leen. Habia unido dos mares,
como sumo sacerdote que une las manos de dos novios.

Y anhelaba oficiar de nuevo en otras nupcias inmortales.

(W: P0 364)
Brokenheartedly, Lesseps reminds his accusors that they
allowed him the luxury of believing himself spiritually
immortal, and in doing so makes the connection between him-
self and the properties of religious rites: “Como habia de
ver si quemabais incienso en torno mio e iba yo por el
mundo, como los dioses dela Iliada, envuelto en una nube”
(Quentos, p. 364). While enjoying his idealistic glory
Lesseps describes his position with images of height and
loftiness and, in disgrace, with images of dirt and lowly
creatures:

aQue sabeis vosotros de esos aturdimientos, de
esos vahidos, de esos vertigos que se sienten en las
cimas? veo delante de mi la toga obscura que parece
tiznada y huele a hollin: veo ratones que corren,
gatos que stisban: yo he sido eguila.

(911323.93: Po 364)
References to contemporary foreign countries are
fewer in Gutierrez Nejera's poetry than in his fiction.
Mention of ancient Greece, Rome and the literary past of
modern European countries is common and corroborates an
interest in universality: however, references to past

civilizations, histories and literatures imply an additional

interest in time and so will be discussed later. The reason

191
for the difference of attention for foreign countries be-
tween verse and prose is not difficult to explain. Poetry
is usually employed by Nejera as a direct expression of his
own emotions while the stories arrive at the same objective
allegorically. The author, by symbolically explaining his
own feelings in the person of a fictionalized character,
has more freedom of location and consequently Gutierrez
Nejera's interest in foreign countries is more fully devel-
oped in the stories than the poetry.

Although the treatment of foreign countries is more
predominant in the fiction, there are several noteworthy
examples in the poetry. Such is the poem entitled "Francis
y Mexico” which is filled with hyperbolic praise of France.
The first of three parts is addressed to France and extols
her spiritual contribution to humanity:

Francis, Francis, la urns transparente
en que el humano espiritu se agita:
inmensa, eterno corazen, en donde
toda la vida universal palpita:

Erss la madre de los pueblos, eres
como enfora de amor inagotable,
mfisica que deleita los oidos,

y el ala para todo lo que vuela!
(Poesias II, p. 351)
It is obvious that the author's eyes are not fixed on France
alone but France in relation to the rest of the world and,
furthermore, he sees the same idealistic virtues in France
that he found in Austria or would find in England, Spain and
Italy. The ultimate contribution of France, expressed in the

192
last two lines, is to philosophy and, more important, to
art:

para el grave filesofo 1a forma,
para el artista y el cantor la idea:

(Egfifiiéfi II: P0 352)
In the second part Gutierrez Nejera describes as-
pects of nineteenth century French history and speaks of
France in relation to himself and Mexico. He first estab-
lishes his connection with France and a common Latin bro-
therhood:
aAh! no sere yo nunca quien te injuris
mofa haciendo y balden de tus tristezas,
siente e1 hervor del corazen latino
y si me duels, a veces, tu destino,
convierto ls mirada a tu grandeza.
(amiss II. p. 352)
Nevertheless, Gutierrez Nejera qualifies his admiration for
France. He is particularly critical of her imperialistic
ambitions, which he contends are not in the true spirit of
French greatness but of an internal sickness: ”la pobre en-
ferma devorada por la lepra de viles ambiciones” (Poesias
II, p. 352). A combination of greatness and lowly ambitions
gives France a choice of destinies. Her spiritual greatness
is equivalent to life or eternity and her imperialist ambi-
tions lead to “las aguas plomizas de la muerte" (Poesias II,
p. 353). The decline of French power in the nineteenth cen-
tury at the hands of various countries is justified and
represents: "las grandes represalias del derecho“ (Poesias
II, p. 353). The poet points out especially the ill-fated
French attempt to dominate Mexico through Maximillian. The

193
last two lines of the second section emphatically admonish
France that the world has changed, thus implying that she
also must reform:

ya no hay Cesares, Francis, en el palacio,
ni plants de invssor en nuestra tierra!

(Poesias II, p. 353)
The third section, which begins with a proclamation
of universality, is addressed to Mexico and upholds the
pattern already seen in the fiction. Gutierrez Nejera sees
himself as a Mexican, but only a Mexican in relation to
universal norms. He begins:
Los pueblos son hermanos: Dios no quiere
este odio universal, esta locura,
esta guerra implacable que convierte
a1 mundo en un tablado en que pasea
esa terrible tregica: la muerte.
(Poesias II, p. 353)
This quote probably contains the key to the poem. Published
on May 5, 1882, Gutierrez Nejera in writing ”esta guerra im-
placable que convierte a1 mundo en un tablado” is probably
alluding to the fact that in the previous months France was
‘engaged militarily in imperialist expansion in Indochina,
Tunisia and West Africa.1 The materialistic motivation of

France's expansion reminds the poet of Mexico's chronic

civil wars and again he states the problem in universal

 

terms:
Es preciso arrojar del santfiario
1. Guy Chapman, The Third Republic g; France:

The First Phase 18 1-18 4 (London: St. Martin's Press,
1962), pp. 212-3, 2 -59.

194

a aquellos mercaderes de la tierra

que juegan a los pueblos y si pierden

pagan con la moneda de la guerra.

(M II: Po 35“)

War, civil or international, is not blamed on ethnic differ-
ences but the same inherent condition of man that makes him
capitulate to the unconscionable drive for materialistic
satisfaction. ”Francis y Mexico" makes universality an
integral part of the thematic material. No other poem is
quite so direct on the subject.

Certainly the most novel way Gutierrez Nejera estab-
lished a cosmopolitan standard for himself and his art is in
the series of fourteen prose selections which E. K. Mapes,
in his edition of the Cuentos placed under the heading
'Adaptaciones e imitaciones'. Each selection has a foreign
setting and the way in which the adaptations incorporate
Gutierrez Nejera's own predilections with the material of
foreign writers gives a meaning to the adaptations alto-
gether consistent with his universal standard of reality.

The possibility of plagiarism is somewhat blunted by
the fact that Gutierrez Nejera usually states in the text
that he is relating a story of another author. In each case
he picks a foreign author and the acknowledgement generally
contains a laudatory remark about the author or the source.
The following acknowledgements, contained in the first

lines, are typical:

Catulo M. lo refiere, y Catulo M. es un hombre
a quien es cuerdo creer bajo su palabra. . .

(W! p0 “'15)

195
De un curioso y ameno libro que, con el titulo de
Lg historia natural gg accien, acaba de publicar en
Paris e1 marques de Cherville, . . .
(EgggEgg, p. 421)
Yo se de una leyenda que Alphonse Daudet ha recogido
en una de sus obras, y que hace abrir desmesuradamente
los ojos. . .
(Cuentos, p. 435)
In a few instances a source is not cited but Profes-
sor Mapes could reasonably conjecture adaptations by the
nature of the piece, such as "Las desventuras de Mr. Chucker”
where an elaborate description of London and the surrounding
area make a secondary source inevitable. ”La inundacien",
another adapted story which does not cite the source, has
been studied at length by Boyd Carter.1 Professor Carter in
his investigation uncovered a number of possible sources
including poems, news items, a historical essay, and short
stories, all on floods, which show slight resemblances to
Gutierrez Nejera's own story. The possible correspondence
between these sources and ”La inundacien” are minor however,
in comparison to a story by Zola: ”Les quatre journees de
Jean Gourdon” taken from Nouveau contes g,flgggg, 1874. In
his concluding paragraph Boyd Carter expressed a certain
surprise at the extensiveness of Gutierrez Nejera's borrow-
ings:
Sin embargo, encierra el escrito de Manuel tantas
semejanzas con el de Zola que no puede menos de

extrafiar que el poeta no se lo atribuyera abierta:
mente a1 jefe del naturalismo literario. aPor que

 

1. Boyd G. Carter, Eg_torno g Gutierrez Nejera
(Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1960), pp. 177-204.

196
tal descuido? aPor que no pense ni por un instants
que a1 usar los mismos nombres de los personajes de
Zola y otros detalles de cuento tan bien conocido, no
se le pudiera acusar de tratar de tomar 1a propiedad
literaria de otro? 5N0 habia mencionado a Zola cuando
adapte "Les fraises”, cuento que se public6 en el mismo
libro que "Les quatre journees”? Ademes, Lera probable
que en mero labriego hablara como hace hablar el poeta
a aquel personaje? zNo encierra e1 poeta con comillas
1a enters narracien del labriego? AHabria hecho eso
con el propesito deliberado de prevenir a sus lectores
de que era una adaptacien lo que leian? AEstimaba e1
poeta que sus propias contribuciones a1 cuento fueran
tantas que le tocaba e1 derecho de firmarloz En sums,
de lo que mas se puede acusar a Gutierrez Najera es de
un descuido y no de plagio.
The obviousness with which Gutierrez Nejera takes other
people's material and embues it with his own interests makes
the adaptation a literal implementation of his theoretical
statement: '. . .nos es preciso vivir en ese mundo creado
por la fantasia de los artistas de todos los siglos, de
todas las edades. . .' (Critica, p. 115). There are unde-
niable practical reasons such as the mechanical rush of
newspaper production and new possibilities for technical
innovation he wrote of in ”El cruzamiento en la literatura”
where it was theorized that national literatures remained
alive and vigorous only when receiving fresh inspiration
from the vantage point of other countries. The present
examples, nevertheless, achieve a meaning considerably more
important than these limited practical goals. Gutierrez
Nejera, in his enthronement of art, could fuse his creative-

ness with that of someone else such as Emile Zola and in

 

l. 4 Boyd G. Carter, Eg torno g gutierrez Nejera,
pp- 203- .

 

197
the process become one with Zola. Through this means he
expanded himself beyond his person and country toward a
universal norm.

“Las misas de Navidad' illustrates how Gutierrez
Nejera could join himself through his work to another au-
thor--in this instance a Frenchman, AlphonSe Daudet--by
giving an adaptation of another writer's short story which
is connected to several original paragraphs of his own work.
The first part of the story is Gutierrez Nejera's own and
by means of an impressionistic sketch of a Christmas Eve
street scene, he lets the narrative thread develop until it
introduces a topic which reminds the narrator of Daudet's
story. The last part of the story consists of Gutierrez
Nejera's adaptation of the French tale.

The first paragraphs by Gutierrez Nejera contain
several characteristics which readily mark it as his own
creation. Not least among these traits, and especially
pertinent in discussing his cosmopolitanism, is the foreign
setting. Although a specific country is not mentioned, the
cold weather and falling snow eliminate Mexico as the place.
The opening scene is a detailed description of city streets
the afternoon before Christmas. In the description, color
and the effect of lighthng are recorded in various places to
give the impression of more than a dimensional material
quality. Typical is the following: ”La luz de las hogueras
y de los hachones, 11ameando velozmente, comunica a las

fisonomias ese reflejo purpfireo que ilumina las pinturas

198
venecianas” (Cuentos, p. 433). Immediately following the
sentence on light an aesthetic symbol is recorded. Among
the crowd the narrator singles out the aristocratic presence
of "sefiorita C." with a child at her side: "Es 1a Diana de
Juan Goujon en el mercado“ (Cuentos, p. 433). As night
closes over the city, the narrator begins to ruminate on the
mysterious nature of Christmas Eve, a night of memories and
resurrections. Christmas Eve customs of different countries
are briefly mentioned. These customs serve to remind the
narrator of a French tale by Daudet which describes a super-
natural event of Christmas Eve. In this way a perfectly
natural transition is made from Gutierrez Nejera's own wri-
ting to the adaptation from Daudet. Gutierrez Nejera has
allowed his narration to follow a natural train of thought
until suddenly the appropriate moment comes to introduce
Daudet's "Les Trois Messes Basses”.

The French tale is given in almost identical form as
the original. Daudet's story in its most basic plot struc-
ture of a mysterious event is adapted to Gutierrez Nejera's
own section. There is another unity--that of language--
which Gutierrez Nejera has maintained with his own section.
Even though Gutierrez Nejera copies the original piece al-
most sentence for sentence, the language is markedly his
own, as shown in the following comparison:

--Oui, mon reverend, deux dindes magnifiques
bourrees de truffes. J'en sais quelque chose, puisque
c'est moi qui ai side a les remplir. On aurait dit

que leur peau allait craquer en retissant, tellement
elle etait tendue...

199

--Jesus-Maria! moi que aime tant les truffes...
Donne-moi vite mon surplis, Garrigou...Et avec les
dindes, qu'est-ce que tu as encore apergu a la
cuisine?...

--Oh! toutes sortes de bonnes choses...Depuis
midi nous n'avons que fait plumer des faisans, des
huppes, des gelinottes, des coqs de bruyere. La
plume en volait partout...Pui de 1'etang on a apporte
des anguilles, des carpes dorees, des truites, des...

--Si, reverendo padre, dos cabritos: dos cabritos
llenisimos de trufas. Yo mismo he ayudado a rellenar-
los. Su piel, fuertemente estirada, daba traquidos de
angustia a1 entrar a1 horno.

--Garrigu...el sobrepelliz! {Dios mic! 5Y0 que
deliro por las trufas! aDos cabritos, eh? AY que mes:

--Lo mes apetitoso y exquisito. Desde en la manana
nos hemos ocupado solamente en desplumar faisanes,
pavos y pichones. Una nube de plumes, danzando por el
sire, nos rodeaba constantemente. En seguida vinieron
las anguilas, las doradas carpes y las truchas.

(Cuentos, p. 435)
A more literal transference of French to Spanish is easily
possible. Gutierrez Nejera chose his own style with its
indefinable gyacia to which almost every critic who has
written on Nejera refers. This conscious fusion of a for-
eign author's material into the Mexican's writing is prob-
ably the most explicit way of implementing his ideas on
universality in art.

Much the same pattern is followed in the poetic
adaptations, perhaps more so, since metric adaptation re-
quired more radical changes from French than prose. 'Versos
de oro” adapted from Frangois Coppee's 'Ritournelle” shows

how Gutierrez Nejera had to make the poems more uniquely his

 

l. Alphonse Daudet, ”Les Trois Messes Basses:
Conte de Noel”, in French Short Stories, ed. by Douglas
Labaree Buffum (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927)
P0 12“.

200
own than the stories. Following are the Spanish and French
original:

Por rubios trigales de espigas doradas
a1 soplo primero del mes tentador,
iremos buscando las cosas aladas,
las eureas abejas, los versos de amor.

Los pinos enhiestos sus copas levantan,
yo cifio tu talle de esbelto bambfi:
oigamos, mi vida, las cosas que cantan:
yo ritmos sonoros y pejaros t6.

Siguiendo e1 arroyo donde evidas toman
frescura las aves despues de volar,
iremos buscando las cosas que aroman
y versos y rosas podremos hallar.

Amor, si 10 quieres, hare que ese dia
la luz resplandezca cual nunca luci6.
Sere yo poeta, y te poesia,
t6 seres mes bells, mes amante yo!

(Poesias II,pp. 395-6)

Dans 1a plains blonds et sous les alles,
Pour mieux fairs accueil au doux messidor,
Nous irons chasser les choses ailees,

Moi, la strophe, et toi, le papillon d'or.

Et nous choisirons les routes tentantes,

Sous les saules gris et pres des roseaux

Pour mieux ecouter les choses chantantes,

Moi, 1e rhythms, et toi, 1e choeur des oiseaux.

Suivant tous les deux les rives charmees

Que 1e fleuve bat de sss flots parleurs,

Nous vous trouverons, choses perfumees,

Moi, glanant des vers, toi, cueillant des fleurs.

Et l'amour, servant notre fantaisie,
Fera ce jour-la l'ete plus charmant:
Je serai poets, et toi poesie. 1
Tu seras plus belle, et moi plus aimant.
Although the indebtedness of the Spanish version is obvious,

Gutierrez Nejera's interpretation is patently his own

 

1. Francois Coppee, Poesias de Frangois Copgee
(Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1373) PP.-51-2.

201

expression. The deviations from the original are made con—
sistently within the framework of the Mexican's thought
patterns. Porfirio Martinez Pefialoza, commenting on the
poetic adaptations, noted that ”salts a la vista la difer-
encia".l The title 'Versos de oro" is a color synaesthesia
typical of the Mexican: ”soplo primero del mes" as an image
of intangibility would also be common: ”pinos enhiestos"
very possibly is there because the pine tree is common in
the Mexico City valley: ”yo cifio tu talle” makes the Spanish
poem more suggestive of eroticism than the French and again
eroticism is a motif which recurrently appears in the
Mexican's work. A deviation in the third verse adds bird
imagery to the scene which constitutes another symbol of
intangibility or idealism. The deviations do not have to
imply a rejection of Coppee's images or thoughts. Certainly
Coppee's intention of identifying woman with nature and a
consummate source of poetic inspiration would be heartily
approved by Gutierrez Nejera. However, by taking the poem
and minimizing this central theme and allowing his own
characteristic thoughts and imagery to enter, Gutierrez Ne-
jera could assert himself as a person and an artist in a
way that transcended his limited physical and national
surroundings.

This continuous struggle by Gutierrez Nejera to pro-

ject outward into space is basically the same motivation

 

l. Porfirio Martinez Pefialoza, quoted from
Margarita Gutierrez Nejera, Refle'o, p. 86.

202

behind his concern with time. Both are something infinite
into which the author struggles to extend himself as a per-
son. With space an attempt was made to achieve infinity
through universality in art. The same goal is the object of
a preoccupation with time. The author wants, through his
art, to survive into the future and at the same time become
a segment of the past. If art is sufficiently founded on
talent and inspiration it becomes a truth which is integral
to a direct continuing line of posterity's great accomplish-
ments and consequently makes the author as much a part of
the past as the future. This, briefly, is the same idea
which was seen in his criticism and finds embodiment in his
fiction and poetry.

Time is generally more problematic for Gutierrez
Nejera because of its abstract nature and the arbitrariness
of its measured chronology which nevertheless reminds the
author that his physical existence is perishable. Space and
universality were not without complications: however, the
threat to the author's physical existence was not so severe
as with the question of time. Gutierrez Nejera was unsatis-
fied with his limited physical environment but the possibil-
ity of giving his writing a universal character was simple
in comparison to ascertaining that his works would survive
chronological time and his personal demise. Numerous paren-
thetical remarks in the fiction and the poetry attest to the
measure and complexity of Gutierrez Nejera's comprehension

of what time was, its effect on him, and how this relates to

203
his art.

As mentioned in the first chapter, there is little
Gutierrez Nejera could say about the future except that its
unknowable character oppressed him. In his creative writing
some of the most beautiful lines give expression to this con-
cern. One of his most frequently quoted odes, “Non omnis
moriar”, addresses itself to this problem. Ostensibly based
on Horace's Ode XXX from Book Three, it does in fact take its
point of departure from a central theme of the ode:

non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei
vitabit Libitinam: usque ego posters
crescam lauds recens, . . .

. . .ex humili potens

princeps Aeolium isrmen ad Italos

deduxisse modos.
Gutierrez Nejera gives an analogous statement in the first
verse:

3N0 morire del todo, amiga mis!

De mi ondulante es iritu disperso,

algo en la urns diafana del verso,

piadosa guardare la poesia.

(Poesias II, p. 301)

At the same time the poet proclaims his survival through
poetry, he defines the essence of what he wants to survive
as: ”Hondos recuerdos de fugaces dias' (Poesias II, p. 301).
It is from the double aspect of ”Hondos recuerdos” and
”fugaces dias" that most of the symbolic material derives.

Although ”hondos recuerdos” by its textual meaning refers to

 

l. Quintus Heratius Flaccus, The Odes g; Horace,
trans. by James Michie (London: Rupert Hart-Davis,
1964), p. 216.

204
the poet's life, in other poems Gutierrez Nejera's desire to
keep the past alive goes beyond his personal experience in
order to capture from the past's broad historical spectrum
anything worth keeping alive. His attitude to ancient
Greece typifies the nature of how the remote past was sought
after:

Mas tambien, 30h, postal, sentias
de otrs luz, de otrs fe la nostalgia:
eras tfi para Grecia: en las naves
de la Chipre riente sofiabas,

y tambien sollozando decias:
:Oh mis dioses, mi Atenas, mi patria!
(Poesias II, p. 158)
The ”fugaces dies” or the quickly passing characteristic of
time is the other side of Gutierrez Nejera's concern for
time which is given symbolic embodiment in various ways. In
a poem: "sHuyen los afios como raudos naves!/ repidos huyen..:

Qoesias II, p. 287). As the author views time a feeling of
desperation appears:
iOh‘ven! es tiempo sun: yo hare que guards
mi corazon tu amor y lo sujete...
Yo quiero amar, vivir...es tarde, es tarde,...
(Poesias I, p. 230)
An effect of tedium can also result from the pressure of

passing time:

El tedio, del dolor hijo bastardo,
en mi espiritu habits come duefio,
Ven pronto...con los filtimos claveles
se fueron las postrsras mariposas.

(Poesias II, p.51)

Although static eternal time is described here as

205

distinct from fleeting time, the two in practice are not
necessarily separate entities since a concern for the serene
stillness of a great work of art from the past is in itself
an attempt to arrest the fleeting moment. If all great art
works are products of idealism, idealism lifts them automa-
tically away from finite chronology. The artist from the
story entitled ”Aquel era otro Lepez” illustrates the way
true idealism loses track of measured time:

. . .se le olvidaba comer, se le olvidaba trabajar, se

le olvidaba todo, y en contemplar las patas de un

insectc, las hojas de una plants 0 e1 ccrrer de las

aguas, perdia el tiempo, sin darse cuenta de la per-

dida.

(Cuentos, p. 231)

In this light, a reference in Gutierrez Nejera's writing to
a historical or personal past automatically implies a desire
to rise above moving chronology.

All of the artists, musicians, and literary figures
or aspects of art works enumerated in the last chapter take
on an additional meaning. They were described as symbols of
aestheticism but it can be easily demonstrated that they
also constitute a wall against time. Succinctly stated,
poetry in the poem ”A Justo Sierra” is defined as a "con-
suelo inmortal' (Poesias II, p. 184).

To survive and diminish the importance of measured
clock time is only part of Gutierrez Nejsra's concern for
past time. Equally important, the idea is embedded in his
thinking that he is not only coming to terms with the clock,

but also that a psychological, idealistic view of time and

206

<eternal recurrence is in fact reality. The situation is
‘parallel to his attitude toward idealism generally. Ideal-
ism is two things: it is value, and constitutes value by
virtue of the fact that it is also reality. His view of
time is likewise an interpretation of reality and at the
same time a route to eternality.

Some of the digressive, parenthetical statements in
the stories and poetry are as explicit on time's nature as
in the criticism. Speaking of the eternal duration of truth
which finds recurring embodiment in different people,
Gutierrez Nejera addresses a young lady in a story to this
effect: '-Cuandc miro esos cjcs y esa boos, creo en la
transmigracien de los espiritus. Vive en Ud. e1 alma de
Cleopatra” (Cuentos, p. 147). The idea of time's true
nature consisting of a spiritual-psychological manifestation
is given in a definition of the human heart: "e1 corazen es
un reloj humano“ (Poesias I, p. 256). Two following lines
of the same page reinforce the idea that time is psychologi-

cal rather than measured units:

Hace un afic, dos, tres...5Yo no se cuentos:
Un siglo me parece todavia!

(Poesias I, p. 256)
Perhaps the best statement on time however, is the one given
at the beginning of the chapter where the statement is made
that the different tenses of time--past, present, and fu-
ture--are indistinguishable in addition to being part of an

idealistic universe which is unbounded by finite space.

207

In order to summarize and give the above paragraphs
some utility for describing how time is concretely symbolized
in literary material, it can be said that anything Gutierrez
Nejera incorporates into his writing which has a relation to
the past (mythological figures, literary characters, authors,
historical personages, memories from the author's own life
or the life of his character creations) becomes a symbol of
idealistic eternal time which the author yearns to attain
through art. The possibilities for illustrating this time
symbology are almost as vast as the author's work itself:
therefore, only a representative selection follows which
most aptly shows how time is symbolized.

One outstanding manifestation of material taken from
the past for expression of timeless reality is the employ-
ment of mythological references. The mythological figures
were very much a part of the ancient Greece which Gutierrez
Nejera wanted to keep alive. He saw her glory not only in
her art but also:

. . .en las ninfas

que desnudas riendo besaban:

en lcs dioses que fueron tan bellos,

en lo vivo que ahora es estatua,

(Poesias II, p. 158)

Although mythological allusions are minor in quantity com-
pared to other types of imagery and symbolic material such
as bird, flower and color imagery or literary allusion,
references are frequent enough to create for themselves a
certain importance. Use of myth is particularly consistent

with the literary theory which laid a heavy emphasis on the

208
magical quality of art. In fact, with a magical view of art
it is sustainable that myth does not end with a mention of
ancient gods but that many more references are intended to
serve the same function as theological references. Homer
himself as a symbol of a certain type of truth acquiring
magical characteristics through art, is as integral to
Gutierrez Nejera's view of myth as the gods he portrays.
Among the stories, mythology figures prominently in several
titles: ”La odisea de Madame Theo”, ”Madame Venus” and
”Balzac y el dios Protsc”. Among the poems, excepting the
Odes, there are two instances of reference by title to pagan
mythology: “Princesita de cuentos de hadas” and "El hada,
verde”. A particular section of the poetic work, the Odes,
has such a quantity of material taken from myth that mythol-
cgy in these fifteen poems is a foremost characteristic of
their texture.

In the stories there are scattered examples of myth-
ological reference besides the ones mentioned above by title.
In "Historia de una corista“ the chorus girl protagonist
addresses the reader to ask for his attention and at the
same time metaphorically corresponds modern Paris to the
world of ancient myth: “Si tiene Ud. e1 hilo de Ariadna,
sigame como pueda en el gran laberinto parisiense” (Cuentos,
p. 58). Paris, in other words, is not just a modern, noisy,
urban center but something whose nature is as remote as the
mythological consciousness of mankind. A few lines further,

in a moment of self deprecation, the corista describes her

209
own entrance into the music hall world in terms of Mohamme-
dan as well as Greek mythology:

Los que nada conocen ni saben de los bastidores,
se figuran que la puerta de ese jardin de las
Hespérides esté muy bien guardada por dragones y
endriagos fabulosos. En ese paraiso...de Mahoma, por
supuesto, al revés de todo otro paraiso, es libre la
entrada para los pecadores.

(Cuentos, p. 59)
Similar to the first statement on Paris, the young lady sees
herself in a world far different from one where her entrance
in and out of the theatre is only measurable by dates. A
correspondence between her life and the mythological past,
however, is very real. Her final worldly disillusionment
calls forth another mythological prop: ”Me esperaba ver
correr arenas de oro por las calles, como corrian entre las
ondas del Pactolo' (Cuentos, p. 60). Her disillusion is
obviously that of Gutierrez Najera.

Mythology provides a significant background for
another story entitled ”El bafio de Julia“. Briefly, the
story treats of a haughty young lady who disdains men but
nevertheless falls in love. written in a light, humorous
vein, it ends on a rather erotic note when in a last moon-
light scene Julia, outwitted, finds herself nude and bathing
in a pond with a similarly undressed young man. Unwilling
to leave the water in the moonlight and be seen, she has to
listen to the young man's conversation which slowly seduces
her. The story ends as she falls into his arms.

The setting of the story as it is corresponded to
legendary places and things gives the action an additional

210

meaning of something which does not happen in a chronological
time vacuum but is part of an eternal recurrence. The set-
ting is on a country estate of Julia's aunt. In a curious
paragraph, Gutiérrez Najera uses the better part of a page
explaining how the physical aspect of the estate has nothing
to do with the ancient world. A selection from the para-
graph is ample illustration:

No te dire yo que aquella quinta sea una especie

de palacio de Armida, ni que sus jardines puedan

compararse con los de las Hespérides, ni con los de

Alcinofis en la famosa isla de Corcyra, ni con los

jardines colgantes, que segfin cuentan, existian en

Babilonia, ni aun siquiera con los de Academus y

Epicuro en Atenas, 0 los de Laia, la encantadora

Lats, en Corinto.

(Cuentos, p. 71)

If the estate is not all of these things, why the lengthy
negation? The answer is suggested on the next two pages.
The narrator begins: 'Pero en cambio tienes alli una verda-
dera posesién de la edad media, una especie de ruina legen-
daria” (Cuentos, pp. 71-2). The estate still exists in a
magical, idealistic time continuum, since it resembles
medieval legend rather than ancient. The mode in which the
estate is medieval however, is further qualified as being
medieval in the nineteenth century Romantic conception which
signifies an interpretation of the Middle Ages which does
not necessarily correspond to a strictly historical reality.
Since the estate is a Romantic-medieval conception,
Gutierrez Najera is free to add classical decoration, which

he does:

. . .al recorrer a solas los intricandos laberintos

211
del parque, he sentido algo como un estremecimiento
de inexplicable miedo; he imaginado que aquellas
pianas, aquellos Amores, aquellos Hercules de piedra,
iban de subito a arranoarse de sus pedestales, a
correr por los senderos escondidos,. . .
(Cuentos, pp. 72-3)
If the ancient world is denied it is only partially denied
to give a more expanded time spectrum from ancient to medie-
val to nineteenth century. The fact of Julia's love fulfill-
ing a recurrent time pattern is subtly predicted in the
passage which states that gardens still harbored the excit-
ing odor of the love fulfillments from other ages: ”. . .
guards todavia el excitante olor de los amores de otro
tiempo” (Cuentos, p. 73). Additional weight is given to the
idea in the last line of the story when the nude Julia has
fallen into Octavio's arms and one of the statues laughs:
”i! la luna se puso detras de aquellos arboles, y el amor de
marmol solt6 una estrepitosa carcajada!" (Cuentos, p. 80).
The stories which contain mythological allusion in
the title show the same tendency to give something contem-
porary an eternal significance. "La odisea de Madame Theo”
represents something of a myth-making attempt in itself and,
in the process, Gutierrez Najera is careful to suppress
chronological time as much as possible. Limbo, the first
abode of Madame Théo, is described as a perfectly idealistic
paradise far removed from the earth and one of the major
attributes of this paradise is an absence of clocks: ”A nin-

gfin transefinte le roban el reloj, porque no hay relojes. Los

nifios habitantes de ese cielo sin Dios cuentan los segundos

212

por los besos que dan a sus novias las rosas" (Cuentos, p.
179). From Limbo, Madame Theo is transferred to Venus where
time seems to be equally immeasurable: ”zCuéntos dias,
cuantos meses, cuantos afios paso Théo en aquel planeta? El
duende que me ha referido todos estos pormenores y detalles,
no me supo decir la cifra exacts" (Cuentos, pp. lBu-S).
These two quotes, tied as they are to the mythological pro-
perties of Madame Théo, make her, among other possible mean-
ings, another of the author's symbols of timelessnese.

"Madame Venus” is another story whose title impli-
cates myth with a meaning relevant to time. The story
essentially is a plotless account by the narrator of a cer-
tain type of woman. The author is uncertain whether she is
from Mount Olympus or Hades. On the one hand, she is the
epitome of beauty ('divinamente hermosa” Quentos, p. 203),
and on the other she is a thief who takes advantage of all
her lovers without pity. The narrator summarizes his esti-
mation of her in the sentence "es una forma bella de la
muerte” (Cuentos, p. 203). He is much more certain however,
of her divine nature: "Ella es la diosa, e1 sacerdote y el
creyente” (Cuentos, p. 20“). There are two isolated indica-
tions that the people around Madame Venus have to worry
about chronological time. Her poor admirers and the honest
wives of her victims are left waiting and at the end of the
piece the narrator feels the rush of time from which the
memory of Madame Venus had lifted him: "Pero aguarda...Tengo

que dejarte. Han dado ya las seis en el reloj de la sala de

213
mi novia" (Cuentos, p. 206). Madame Venus is beyond finite
space and above time however. With relation to space, she
is of an indefinite origin: ”No se sabe a punto fijo en qué
parte naci6. Es una mujer internacional” (Cuentos, p. 203).
As for time, she is of a timelessness whose origin the
author feels is impossible to determine:
Mas La qué remontarse a los comienzos de su vida?
Las fuentes del Nilo son ignotas. . .Hay mujeres que
nacen de treinta afios.
aLos ha cumplido Madame Venus? La edad de las
estatuas no puede determinarse a primers vista con
absoluta precision. Y Madame Venus es una escultura
de carne.
(2222192.. p. 204)
The short piece ”Balzac y el dios Proteo” does not
make the point of truth as an eternal time which is related
to myth in a direct statement as have previous examples.
However, enough examples of mythological figures represent-
ing eternal truths have been given that it can be easily
postulated that the final paragraph of the story is intend-
ed, among other things, as a statement on eternal time.
Briefly, the god Prometheus has expounded all he knows about
women to the novelist Balzac who is about to walk away with
a mental plan for several hundred novels inspired by the
interview. As he leaves Prometheus admonishes him:
Ten por sabido que las novelas son quiméricas, . . .
y que los hombres negaran la existencia de tus
heroinas, como han negado la verdad de Zeus tempes-
tuoso, y de Hera, 1a venerable que camina calzada con
sandalias de oro puro:

(Queues. p. 1:46)
Without direct statement, the idea is still embedded that

214
Balzac's novelistic descriptions of contemporary life have
archetypal roots as deep as Greek myth and are, in a way, a
continuation of myth.

Myth is not however, an invariable prop for discuss-
ing time. Occasionally personages in the stories may sym-
bolize some aspect of time without a specific historical
counterpart. Without reference to the past through mytho-
logical or literary figure, two characters are juxtaposed in
"Una vengenza' to emphasize that reality is repetitive tem-
poral extension. The story concerns a beautiful lady,
Alicia, whom the narrator had frequently admired as she sat
in her theatre. Like Madame Venus, she is of an indetermi-
nable age because her beauty somehow lifts her above a
chronological count: ”aCuantos afios tiene? Ha cumplido vein-
ticinco; no sé cuantas semanas, meses or afios hace”(Cuentos,
p. 137). Alicia's beauty drew many admirers which eventualLy
led to her seduction by a lover and murder at the hands of
her husband. In the last sentences, after the narrator has
finished his reminiscence to a companion during a theatre
intermission, he turns in his seat to be startled by the
appearance of a woman who resembles Alicia but ”No, no es
Alicia la que miro en aquel palco. Alicia duerme ya en el
camposanto. Es una mujer que se le parece mucho y morira
tan desastrosamente como ella” (Cuentos, p. 1&0).

The most conspicuous employment of mythological
references among the poems are found in the odes which

emphasize not only the ancient pagan gods but the ancient

215
world generally. The first ode, "A Hidalgo" is perhaps the
best for illustrating an attempt by Gutierrez Najera to con-
nect himself to the past. Although written in honor of
Mexico's independence hero, the principal import of the
poem's statement is that the author desires to write a poem
which will equal Hidalgo's greatness and feels unqualified
for the task:
Yo sé bien que la excelsa poesia,

del encumbrado Olimpo guardadora,

no ha prorrumpido en cantos seculares

dignos de resonar en tus altares:

dulces panales de estival colmena

son nuestros cantos, halitos de flores;

y nuestra inspiracion, vana o beoda,

sujeta siempre a femenil tarea,

no sube a los espacios de la idea

en las alas frementes de la Oda.

(Poesias II, p. 268)
These lines synthesize the philosophical dilemma

which colors most of Gutierrez Najera's writing. He recog-
nizes a Romantic absolute in "los espacios de la idea", "las
alas frementes de la Oda", and the person of Father Hidalgo,
each of which constitutes an absolute value for which the
poet strives. At the same time, he acknowledges that the
poetry of his generation has been unable to equal the inspi-
ration offered by Hidalgo. In the above quote it appears
that Gutierrez Najera is merely being modest about the
quality of contemporary verse with words like "vana", ”beoda'
and “femenil”. Other lines, however, suggest that the prob-
lem is more fundamental. ”Pequefios somos para empresa tantd‘

(Poesias II, p. 269), he continues a few lines further and

then gives an additional appraisal of contemporary poetry:

216

Nuestra Musa, pueril, y desmedrada

la débil Musa del placer y el llanto,

blandir no puede la terrible espada,

(nggigg II, p. 269)

The two words "placer” and '11anto" characterize late nine-
teenth century decadent-~or, in this case, Modernist-~poets
who, under the influence of the positivists felt themselves
metaphysically isolated in the realm of personal experience.
”Llanto” expresses sorrow because of this predicament, and
”placer” expresses a desire to fill a limited existence with
as much feeling and life as possible. It is his desire to
reach into eternal time that makes Gutierrez Najera so
obsessed with the fact that his poetry cannot rise to a
level worthy of Hidalgo. The fact of the poet's wanting to
establish a linkage to Hidalgo is expressed in the first
lines: “Mil veces, Padre, . . ./ . . .tu alma/ hab16 calla-
damente con la mia” (Poesias II, p. 267). Not only does the
poet feel a communion with Father Hidalgo but the patriot,
through his greatness, has a spiritual ancestry which des-
cends from Greek mythology:

como la sombra de Elfenor el griego
to he visto descender del horizonte.

(Eggfliéfi II: P0 267)
Only a poet like Homer or Tyrtaeus, he concludes, could com-
pose an ode worthy of Hidalgo or, if not these two, the
mythological poet, Orpheus. Gutierrez Najera, in addition
to relating himself to Hidalgo and then Hidalgo to the an-
cient Greek world with its gods, ends by claiming to be a

Greek himself who worships Hidalgo as one of the young

 

 

"""""

217
ephebi:
Nosotros, los efebos sonrientes,
llevaremos cantando a tus altares
los jonios mirtos y las rosas sueltas,
como iban las canéforas esbeltas
a los templos olimpicos de Ares.
(Poesias II, p. 270)
Gutierrez Najera, the poet of love and death, or in his own
modest wording “llanto” and "placer”, has attempted in "A
Hidalgo” to transcend himself temporally by aligning himself
not only with Hidalgo but also with the remote poets and
myths which he felt Hidalgo's greatness resembled.

The use of myth in "A Hidalgo“ as a symbol of infin-
ite duration and greatness is the pattern for the other odes.
In "A un amigo” mythological reference is employed by the
post to state his preference of love and beauty to commerce:

. . .En vano quieres

que del templo de Venus me desvie

y que a Hermes fecundo me consagre:

(Poesias II, p. 271)

In ”EaA quién 1a palma de hermosura...?3' the beautiful
voice of a young lady has its equal among certain goddesses:
“a1 canto de las Piérides iguala' (Poesias II, p. 273).
Essentially, the same idea is expressed in ”A Kamer'. The
beautiful woman, to whom the poem is addressed, has a beauty
which only the ancient Greek language can capture. The
Greek language in its own turn is compared to a goddess:

. . .la griega lengua

sobria y hermosa, y juvenal y fuerte,

como la Diana Oazadora, . . .

(Poesias II, p. 277)

218
The poem "EJamas 1a forma que el poeta admiran” illustrates
the very subjective manner in which Gutierrez Najera con-
nects himself and his contemporary environment to the an-
cient world with its myths. With an explanation of Venus'
beauty he states:
Sed insaciable de hermosura lleva

mi voluntad a ti: tu forma veo,

y con espasmos de placer se abreva

en tu morbido encanto mi deseo.

(Poesias II, p. 279)

Four of the odes, "A una timida”, 'EParad e1 vuelo, tacitur-
nas horasJ", “Ultima necat” and ”A un triste“ emphasize the
fact of time's fleeting presence (”zhuyen los afios como
raudas navesil arapidos huyen2. . .” Poesias II, p. 287) and
in each poem the contrast is made between disappearing time
and the calm eternality of the gods. In their eternalness
the gods become a consolation:

Deja, por fin, 1a solitaria playa,

y coronado de fragantes flores

descanse en la barquilla de las diosas:

(Poesias II, p. 290)

Love and sensual feeling, which Gutierrez Najera used to
fill life with as much sensory experience as possible to
ward off death, are prominent in two of the odes--”;Bacante!'
and “A Dyonisos'. Greek myth is used throughout both poems
to convey an atmosphere of eroticism and, as in other exam-
ples, the author emphasizes that ancient Greece, spiritually,
is a direct temporal extension to his own finite personal
existence: ”Es patria nuestra. . .ella/ intacta y pura en

nuestras almas vive" (Poesias II, pp. 297-8). Among the

219
female references are Venus, Erigone, nymphs of sea and
forests, and Aphrodite. The slender and playful nymphs
dance; Erigone, who was known for her virtues, gives love to
Dionysius: and Venus

vencida a1 fin en amorosa lucha
las cintas de su tunica desata.

(Poesias II, p. 295)
Wine is served by Zeus' personal cupbearer, Ganymedes, while
in the last verse the poet invokes other poets to sing tri-
bute to Zeus and the god and goddess of love, Poseidon and
Aphrodite. Above all, he appeals to the Greek poet of fes-
tive drinking songs, Anacreon: ”30h, padre Anakreon, canta a
Dyonisos!” (Poesias II, p. 296).

”iBacantez', addressed to a priestess of Bacchus,
absolves her from fault in leading man away from traditional
concepts of virtue because she serves as an instrument of
Venus to spread love:

. . .AQuién, 50h diosa!

no olvida a1 hijo y a la amante esposa

en tus brazos nerviosos de bacante?

Culpa tuya no es: {Venus lo quiso:

Cumple, pues, los mandatos inmortales,

y sin temer las sombras de la Estigia

pasa por la existencia, blanca Higia,

escanciando el amor a los mortales.

(Poesias II, p. 299)

As a result of serving Venus, the priestess of Bacchus
becomes Hygeia the goddess of health, who need not fear the
gloomy waters of the river Styx which was the chief tribu-

tary of the netherworld. Numerous other attributes are con-

ceded to the bacchante throughout the poem. As a symbol of

220
love and hence idealism, the priestess is contrasted to the
materialistic hordes from the north who subjugate the world
through their indomitable will. Her spirit is that of an-
cient Greece which contrasts with the materialistic ”turba
plebeya" (Poesias II, p. 298) of contemporary life. Her
destiny is holy and at the same time she gives man the one
thing Gutierrez Najera is seeking to uphold--life:

lLa sacra voluntad cumple sumisa
y el igneo foco del vivir mantiene:

(Poesias II, p. 298)

The other aspect of Gutierrez Najera's interpreta-
tion of time, the personal and psychological, results from
the practical effect of going inside the author's mind as a
medium of narration. Time is seen as mental flux and dura-
tion in the Bergsonian sense or emotional, interior dis-
tance, to use the words of a contemporary critic. Hans
Meyerhoff, who has written a general study on time in liter-
ature, concluded that ”literary treatment of time has always
been 'Bergsonian' in the sense of analyzing time as an imme-
diate datum of consciousness and as it enters into human
lives and actions rather than 'into mechanics and physics'."1
This is especially true in the case of Gutierrez Najera who,
by declaring man to be spiritual and insisting that he

inhabit a spiritual world, automatically invokes ”conscious-

ness". Mariano Azuela, in an interesting evaluation,

 

l. Hans Meyerhoff, Time in Literature (Berkele
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960),
p. 10.

221
recognized in Gutierrez Najera a psychological use of time
which closely approximated that of the twentieth century
writer Proust:
Su cuento Ri ~Ri , . . .tiene el tema eterno del
tiempo reencontrado que Marcelo Proust desarrollé en
quince portentosos volfimenes y nuestro Duque Job en
tree or cuatro paginas.

In ”Rip-Rip” Gutierrez Najera shows how measured
chronological time interacts with idealistic or conscious
time to oppress man. As a symbolic representation of time-
less idealism, Rip-Rip is above time, not only in the eter-
nal significance of Madame Venus but on a practical day to
day level. According to the storyteller, he is like the
German monk Alfeo who ”peso cien afios, sin sentirlos, oyendo
el canto de un pajaro“ (Cuentos, p. 225). The absence of
mechanical time from Rip-Rip's life first separates him from
his surroundings and then, in a re-encounter with his family
and friends from whom he has been separated by an uncertain
amount of clock time, he suffers a deep hurt from the effect
of chronological time on his past relationships. The sep-
aration of Rip-Rip from physical time comes about through
his sleep of indeterminate length:

Pero no durmio tanto como el Rip-Rip de la
leyenda. Oreo que durmio diez afios...tal vez cinco...
acaso uno... en fin, su suefio fue bastante corto:
durm16 mal. Pero el caso es que envejecié dormido,
porque eso pasa a los que suenan mucho. Y como Rip-

Rip no tenia reloj, y como aunque lo hubiese tenido
no le habria dado cuerda cada veinticuatro horas: como

 

1. Mariano Azuela, ”Manuel Gutierrez Najera" in
Obras completas, III (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica,
1930), p. 725.

222
no se habian inventado aun los calendarios, y como en
los bosques no hay espejos, Rip-Rip no pudo darse
cuenta de las horas, los dies o 108 meses que habian
pasado mientras e1 dormia, ni enterarse de que ya era
anciano.
(W: P- 226)
After the separation is effected, Rip-Rip awakens
and returns to his village for an encounter with the priest,
his wife, his best friend and his daughter, all of whom are
outside of Rip's timeless character and still influenced by
mechanical time. In Gutierrez Najera's interpretation me-
chanical time is equivalent to forgetfulness and the time
factor which was insignificant to Rip-Rip was sufficient for
his personal image to fade from the memory of those whose
criterion of time was the clock:
aCuanto tiempo durmio? aCuanto tiempo se necesita
para que los seres que amamos y que nos aman nos olvi-
den? aOlvidar es delito? aLos que olvidan son malos?
(W. p. 229)
The priest, who had been a close friend, failed to recognize
Rip-Rip: "Ve a otra parte, porque aqui sobran limosneros”
(Cuentos, p. 227). His best friend and wife had betrayed
him: "Juan--e1 del molino--la besaba en los labios”(Cuentos,
p. 227). The words of his daughter revealed a complete lack

of recognition: '-iQué feo, mama! 3Qué miedo! aEs como el

coco!” (Cuentos, p. 228). In the last lines of the story,

 

Gutierrez Najera mitigates his criticism of Rip-Rip's family
and friends by implying that they were merely victims of
time since they forgot. Rip-Rip however, whose spiritual

character is given repeated emphasis, acquires in death an

223
ethereal eternality. After his disillusionment, he flees
the village and finally stops to look at his image reflected
in a stream. His image represents death, but a special kind
of death which becomes eternity. The textual description of
the transformation is as follows:
Acercose a1 arroyo, y alli, a la superficie, sali6 la
muerte a recibirlo. :si; porque era la muerte, en
figure de hombre, la imagen de aquel decrépito ue se
asomaba en el cristal de la onda! Sin duda, van a por
el ese livido espectro. No era de carne y hueso,
ciertamente: no era un hombre, porque se mov1a a la vez
que Rip, y esos movimientos no agitaban el agua. No
era un cadaver, porque sus manos y sus brazos se tor-
cian y retorcian. 3Y.no era Rip, no era 61! Era como
uno de sus abuelos, que se le aparecia para llevarlo
con el padre muerto. "Pero Ly mi sombra?" pensaba Rip.
'aPor que no se retrata mi cuerpo en ese espejo? aPor
que veo y grito, y el eco de esa montafia no repite mi
voz, sino otra voz desconocida?”
if ella fue Rip a buscarse en el seno de las ondas!
SY e1 viejo, seguramente, se lo llev6 con el padre
muerto, porque Rip no he vuelto!
(9.222%. P0 229)
Rip, through the process described above, sees him-
self transformed in the water from a living creature who
looks at his reflection to the personification of death and
finally he becomes one and the same as his ancestors. In
this way an ancestry of infinite origin is established.
Perhaps Mariano Azuela's comparison to Proust is hyperbolic
but the basic idea is correct that Gutierrez Najera has said
much on time in a very short space.
In Rip-Rip the temporal projection backward has two
aspects, an encounter with his ancestors which ultimately
concerns eternity and a confrontation with his past life

which reveals a contrast to define Rip as a person. The

224
most important of the two, within this particular story, is
the definition of Rip as a person. Several other stories
show varying aspects of the same backward projection into
the author's life, or that of a character's for the purpose
of keeping a fragile present existence alive by filling it
with memories of the past. If reality is mental, then exis-
tence is consciousness and the only means of survival is
memory of one's own life and that of others. Rip's family
and friends, by forgetting him, in effect condemned Rip to
death: therefore, their lack of memory was a ”delito' and
they were "malos' (Cuentos, p. 229). Gutierrez Najera was
willing to forgive them as victims of time but their fault
was nevertheless real. As a consequence, searching the past
for its meaningful moments acquires a prominent goal in many
of Gutierrez Najera's stories.

Another example of backward projection into life in
order to give substance to the present moment which swiftly
flies by is contained in "La carta que no se dio”. The en-
tire piece consists of mental ruminations on a lady pro-
voked by an unmailed letter which the narrator discovers
among the long forgotten contents of a desk drawer. In this
instance the narrator is guilty himself of forgetting: ”el
tiempo corre y el soplo del olvido desvanece en el aire
aquellasleves columnitas de humo" (Cuentos, p. 328). The
fact that the storyteller has forgotten raises serious ques-
tions about the identity of the girl whose name and address

were not on the envelope. The loss from memory of all facts

225
concerning the addressee signifies a possible hurt inflicted
on the young lady when the letter was written and equally
the possibility that the narrator overlooked and lost a fund
of happiness for himself.

The opposite of forgetfulness and death is presented
in "La que nunca volvera“ in an instance where the narrator
and a select character preserve a crystal memory of the past
and thus are able to sustain a semblance of life, although
the persons they remember are dead. The narrator sits alone
at night somberly recalling two friends who have died--"a
mis amigos silenciosos de la 'Undiscovered country' como
dice Shakespeare” (Cuentos, p. 353)--silently planning to
carry wreaths to their graves the following Holy Friday.

The presence of death and memory's partial capacity to thwart
extinction are in the first lines of the story. Memory in
this particular piece has two dimensions. First the narra-
tor thinks back to the friends who were engaged to marry.
His memory is aided by the possession of the male friend's
diary. The second level of memory derives from a quote
within the diary in which the friend recalls his sweetheart
who preceded him in death. In the first lines of the quote
the lover tries to recover the memory of his dead fiancee
through revisiting the scene of their idyl:

Todavia me parece estarla viendo. . .

IPobrecilla! Yo he vuelto a visitar esos lugares
que fueron mudos confidentes de mi amor. Las cosas
permanecen impasibles y no se curan del dolor humano.

Somos como errabundos comediantes que pernoctan en este
0 ese pueblo, y al dia siguiente continfian la marcha

226

sin que sus voces dejen eco alguno en las polvosas
bambalinas del teatro.

(Cuentos, p. 353)
Slowly the quote continues descriptively to pass over every-
thing which could help recall the missing person-~halls,
servants, tennis court, books, chess table, piano. The nar-
rator breaks off the quote and in a final statement, reaf-
firms his dead friend's observation on the efficacy of ob-
jects in recalling missing persons to a second life of
sorts:
tAh! creemos haber olvidado: pasan muchos afios, y al
ver una flor seca, un jardin desierto, un pequefio
tablero de ajedrez, la herida se abre, el pensamiento
retrocede, y la novia que nunca volvera. . .se acerca
a nosotros y nos dice. . .‘aNo te asustes, soy yo:'
(Cuentos, p. 355)
In summary, Gutierrez Najera himself synthesized in
a few words what has been said on his use of space and time
in the previous pages, when he wrote:
Si entre esos maravillosos aparatos que suprimen la
distancia, el tiempo y el espacio, hubiera descubierto
Edison alguno que acercara a nuestra vista las cosas

lejanas, yo estarfa de enhorabuena.

(Cuentos, p. 295)

CHAPTER IV

IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE

In order to examine symbolic embodiment, the two
previous chapters have detailed the more abstract parts of
Gutierrez Najera's world view. Part of his symbolic mater-
ial is employed to reveal the idealistic, spiritual side of
man which finds its highest manifestation in aesthetic en-
deavor and struggles against a surrender to finite material-
ism. Another major category of symbols derives from a prac-
tical application of these theories. Since man is a spiri-
tual being who craves eternality and seeks to transcend his
immediate physical surroundings, a considerable amount of
material is concerned with symbols of time and universality.
A final category which remains involves the author's imme-
diate physical surroundings and the ”signs” he chooses to
designate symbolically the way in which he sees himself in
relation to his immediate environment.

The question of the depiction of the external sur-
rounding world is the most controversial feature of
Gutierrez Najera's writing as well as of Modernism in gen-
eral. Detractors of Modernism traditionally have considered
the movement insensitive to the real external world and
labeled the members "escapists". Juan Marinello, the most
recent major critic to make the charge, wrote:

227

228

. . .el Modernismo fue, en su fundamental significa-

ci6n, un movimiento alejado de toda preocupacién ética,

de toda intencion politica y esencialmente absentista..

. . .Julian del Casal delira con japqnerias

pasadas por Paris y por Paris mismo: Gutierrez Najera,

en sus versos como en sus aitfculos, vive prendado y

prendido del bulevar: . . .
.A more generous critic, Mauricio Magdaleno, shares the same
Inisgivings as Marinello, but concedes that Gutierrez Na-
jera's writings were "profundamente revolucionarias en el

2
orden de su imperio sentimental”, as if to excuse his con-
viction that the Modernist docilely served as an ”hijo mag-
nifico"3 to the Diaz dictatorship. In essence, Gutierrez
Najera is relegated to the position of a stylist: "su subvmw
sion, sin embargo afectaba planos muchisimo mas fundamen-
a
tales: los del lenguaje". With all respect to Mauricio
Magdaleno, whose article is an adequate summation of the
author's ”revolutionary” style, the reality is more compli-
cated.
Although Gutierrez Najera refrained from taking an

active role in political activity, he did passively occupy

a seat in the national legislature, watching the proceedings

with interest and in his cronicas expressed his feelings.

 

1. Juan Marinello, José Marti, escritor
americano: Marti y_gl modernismo (Mexico: Editorial
Grijalbo, 1953). p. 26.

2. Mauricio Magdaleno, ”Gutierrez Najera en el
alma de su prosa”, Cuadernos americanos, CVII (noviem-
bre-diciembre, 19595. 179.

3. Ibid.

“0 Ibid.

229
His support of Porfirio Dias' presidency tells very little
of his social views since the dictator entered office cham-
pioned by the liberals and allowed a wide range of view-
points within his government, at least until Gutierrez
Najera's death in 1895. The years preceding the dictator-
ship had been characterized by considerable anarchy, rebel-
lion, and widespread banditry and when a strong military
figure took power in 1876 through a 9232 and established
order, his popularity was genuine. According to one histo-
rian it was only after 1900 that the dictatorship ossified
into a tyranny beyond salvation.l Gutierrez Najera, like
many others (and some of quite radical views), supported
Diaz. When, in 1879, there were several rebellions he wrote
the following lines acclaiming the peaceful epoch promised
by General Diaz:
No basta conquistar independencia

a pueblos que persiguen ideales:

ellos buscan en cien evoluciones

libertar del error su inteligencia,

libertar su pais de rebeliones.

(Poesias I, p. 209)

Notwithstanding this support, when Diaz ordered the execu-
tion of rebels in Veracruz without a trial, the young poet
reacted vehemently:

tCain...Cain...! la chispa prometea

diéle vigor a1 marmol esquiliano:
he ahi tu rota estatua, que gotea

 

l. Wilfrid Hardy Callcott, Liberalism in Mexico
1852-1929 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press:
London: Oxford University Press, 1931), pp. 153-4.

230
la sangre, afin caliente de tu hermano:

. . .: no importa

que la verdad con el error combata;

si un brazo se levanta... se le corta:

si un cerebro piensa... sse 1e mata!

(Poesias I, p. 217)

Within the columns of his articles Gutierrez Najera gave
more specific indications of his interest in contemporary
social conditions. Contrary to the usual idea that he was
an escapist, what appears is an attitude somewhat more
direct and outspoken than traditionally presented.

To some degree a position on social questions is
implied through his associations. Justo Sierra, a friend
whose closeness to Gutierrez Najera is well established,
contended in the 1870's that chronic rural poverty should
be remedied by a better distribution of land and, if neces-
sary, expropriation of land without immediate indemnizations’
Although Justo Sierra supported Diaz' prolonged re-electioma
his recognition of the mistake in a speech after Gutierrez
Najera's death was a major turning point against the dicta-
tor. There is little reason to believe that Gutierrez Na-
jera would not have followed the same path.

Perhaps more revealing of Gutierrez Najera's atti-

tudes concerning social organization are some observations

he wrote about the legislator Juan A. Mateos in December of

 

l. Moises Gonzalez Navarro, El Porfiriato: Lg
vida social, Vol. IV of H’storia moderna leMex1co, ed.
by Daniel Cosio Villegas :5 vols.: Mexico: Editorial
Hermes, 1957), p. 277.

231
1892. During the course of that year Mateos offered in the
legislature a specific plan for the redistribution through-

1 Gutierrez Najera's

out the country of land and livestock.
article concentrates on the locution of Mateo's speech and,
as such, constitutes an excellent example of what he con-
sidered good prose. However, in the course of praising and
explaining Mateo's prowess with language, the critic became
an apologist for his ideas. Occasional mistakes of histor-
ical fact did not diminish an ability to 'dar la vuelta al
mundo en ochenta frases' (Critica, p. #75) or ”en su defensa
o descargo puede bien decir que los hechos 1e conceden a
menudo la razon' (Critica, p. #75).

Several of Gutierrez Najera's own articles show the
same attitude of Sierra and Mateos to social problems, that
the poor needed land and money rather than piecemeal charity.
It is at this juncture that Gutierrez Najera clashes with
some aspects of positivist social theory just as he had
disagreed with positivists' claims on literature. He dis-
approved of scientific intrusions into art because it
leveled man to a spiritless physical entity. The practical
application of positivist theory in Mexico had something of
the same effect for him. During the Diaz period an attempt
was made by positivist theorists, called cientificos, to
eXplain away poverty by defining the poor as hopelessly

downtrodden because they were products of their unfortunate

 

l. Moises Gonzalez Navarro, g; Porfiriato,
pp. 277-8.

232
environment and ancestry. Among this group Telesforo
Garcia, following a social Darwinist interpretation,
justified night work in cotton mills on the ground
that such work kept the laborers out of the ul uerias,
and then went on to prove, to his own satisfaction,
that at the prevailing wage any worthwhile millworker
could save enough in ten years to retire. He then con-

cluded that if the workers were chronically out of
money it was their own fault.

Among the collection of Hojas sueltas2

published posthumous-
ly there are two articles which unequivocally attack this
position.

The first article, “Deber y haber" written under the
pseudonym Junius, was an answer to a polemic provoked by a
previous article in which Gutierrez Najera had complained
that ”e1 progreso nos ha traido los ferrocarriles y nos ha
elevado e1 alquiler de las casas” (Ho’as, p. 111). The un-
named adversary who had defended the difficulties of capi-
talist entrepreneurs offered Gutierrez Najera consolation:
”aTranquilizaos socialistas! tel porvenir es de los pobres!”
to which Junius countered:

Yo no soy socialists, pero aunque lo fuera, no me
tranquilizaria. Ese mismo porvenir nos estén prome-

tiendo dgsde los siglos mas remotas. Es el ”vuelva
usted manana”, de deudor insolvente.

(Hojas, p. 112)

 

1. Charles Curtis Cumberland, Mexico: The
Struggle for Modernit (New York: Oxford University
Press, 19 , p. 193-

2. Manuel Gutierrez Najera, Hojas sueltas

”Prologo” by Carlos Diaz Duf6o (Mexico: Antigua Imprenta
de la Murguia, 1912). Future references will be written
in the text as Hojas.

233
Gutierrez Najera's final summation was that his adversary
”querra afiliarse en la escuela economico humoristica de que
es jefe y maestro el sefior Bulnes” (Ho'as, p. 116). The
first article, “Deber y haber", by its pointedly satirical
tone firmly places Gutierrez Najera opposite cientifico sup-
porters of Diaz. The second piece written under the pseudo-
nym Perico el de los Palotes, is a more direct refutation of
social myths cultivated by the cientificos. The rich, to
Gutierrez Najera, were privileged not through constituting a
superior class which had evolved along Darwinian lines, but
because they had money to begin with or lacked scruples:
Conque ya lo veis: los ricos son todo y todo lo pueden.
Por eso muchos, para llegar 5 serlo, no omiten medio ni
artificio alguno, cualquiera que sea su naturaleza.
zHay que ir en busca de las concesiones, los empleos,
los buenos negocios y de todo lo que produzca dinero?

pues bien, se ira, y no hay que pensar en la licitud
de los medics adecuados para conseguirlo.

(figjgg, pp. 159-60)
Similarly, the poor were not impoverished because of lazi-
ness, villainy, or bad environment, but for the more funda-
mental reason stated in the title to the essay: ”Cosas que
hacen falta: e1 dinero” (Ho'as, p. 156). Before giving his
own characterization of the poor the author first claims an
affinity: ”a éstos los trato intimamente, los tengo cerca
de mi, estoy identificado con ellos” (nggg, p. 160). Then
follows an ironic disclaimer to proposing a solution to
poverty, the plight of Indians, or positivistic theories:
No hablaré, sin embargo, de los cinco millones de
indigenas que viven sumergidos en la miseria mas lasti-

mosa: ni es mi animo abordar los dificiles problemas
del pauperismo y del salario: dejo lo primero en manos

23a
del ilustrado autor de los Ensayos sobre estudios
sociales, y cedo la palabra para lo segundo a los que
cultivan con provecho la ciencia economico-politica.
(Ho'as, pp. 160-1)
The poor man to Gutierrez Najera is a veritable dynamo:

Es vivaz, inquieto y nervioso: revels en su as-
pecto una febril actividad: brilla en sus ojos el
entusiasmo juvenil, llevado hasta el atrevimiento y.
la audacia. Para él las dificultades no existen: solo
una cosa 1e exaspera: el imposible.

(Ho'as, p. 161)
The only thing the poor need is money. Among the examples
of poor whose ambitions are truncated for lack of money is
a spectrum of manual laborers and intellectuals. A striking
quality of this critique is its bitter tone, whether por-
traying the moneyed or the moneyless. Judging from the
pseudonym, Perico el de los Palotes, a satire or something
mildly humorous was intended: the result however is a humor-
less statement. The article's final sentences amount to a
recognition by the writer that he feels too seriously about
the subject for levity:

Pero... squé torpe soy! 5He scabado por dar

colorido de tragedia a lo que no debi6 ser sino
sainete:

Pido perd6n y prometo la enmienda.
PERICO EL DE LOS PALOTES.
(Ho'as, p. 165)
A further examination of precisely what damage
Gutierrez Najera feels is brought to man by poverty gives

the key to how poverty functions symbolically as a partial

235
representation of the human condition. Consistent with his
literary theory, and the spiritual, idealistic, psychological
definition of man, it is here where poverty most impinges
and curtails human ability. Physical misery is not ignored
but spiritual and psychological emphasis is predominant.
The following passages are a fair sampling of the impair-
ments of poverty on mankind:
Siente que hay algo grande en su cerebro: un semillero,
un nido de gérmenes innumerables que pugnan por des-
arrollarse y tomar forma. . . .es desdichado porque es
pobre.
(Ho'as, p. 161)
Obligado a vivir pobremente de su trabajo perso-
nal, es una mariposa atada, una luciérnaga aprisionada

en el tocado de una dama: brilla, pero siente morirse
lentamente.

(Hojas, p. 162)

. . .viven entregados a penosos trabajos, y se revela
en su semblante la tristeza que llevan en su alma.

(Ho'as, p. 163)
Podria creérsele un misantropo, y sin embargo, sufre
por las desgracias ajenas, como las proprias.
Su vida ha sido una cadena de sufrimientos fisicos

y morales. Vive pensando y sintiendo: ni su cerebro ni
su corazon descansan jamés.

(Hojas, p. 163)

Su salud se va minando lentamente: su cerebro esta
fatigado, aniquilado casi, y su coraz6n adolorido y
sangrado.

(Ho'as, p. 164)
The first example constitutes pure mental suffering: the
second is presumably an idealistic impairment since winged
and light images are commonly used by Najera to symbolize

idealism: the third, fourth and fifth are instances of poor

236
physical conditions affecting the human spirit adversely.
This position is easily misunderstood, as evidenced
in a highly ambiguous passage by Carlos Diaz Dufoo who
edited and wrote the preface to the volume containing all of
the above quotes:
aHuir! :Evadirse! aQué obstinadamente le atena-
ceaba esta obsesién! 5C6mo habia echado en él raices el
anhelo de redimirse de aquella brega de forzado, reman-
do, remando siempre, en la triunfal galera coronada de
flores! Ganar la hospitalaria orilla, internarse
tierra adentro, por entre senderos zigzagueantes, al
abrigo de viejas frondas: ir libremente, e1 alma francs
a todos los suefios, el coraz6n vibrante a todos los
ritmos, ser eteramente de uno mismo, intimamente de uno
mismo, hacer la plena conquista de su personalidad, y
ostentarla, imponerla, por derecholde supremacia men-
tal, por superioridad de espiritu.
If Gutierrez Najera is motivated to redeem himself as a
person (scomo habia echado en 61 raices e1 anhelo de redimir-
se de forzado. . .), how can his efforts be equated to es-
capism (aHuir: aEvadirsez)? 'Huir” and “ganar”, ”Evadirse"
and “triunfal galera” are words with mutually exclusive
meanings. Probably the paragraph's first two words were not
intended to convey a pejorative impression but unfortunately
it is the negative characterization--undeniable in the case
of Juan Marinello-—which has been used against the Modern-
ists and, in the case of Gutierrez Najera, has had the
effect of misrepresenting the nature of his work.

The fact is that if Gutierrez Najera was led to

theoretically redefine the relationship of utile to dulce,

 

1. Carlos Diaz Dufoo, ”Prologo” to Hojas sueltas,
p. ix.

237
his literature as well as that of other Modernists retained
a strong moralistic view without a blind spot for injustice
or physical deprivation. Art by itself had a moral value
("lejos de ser futil y vana ha hecho muchos y elevados bene-
ficios a‘la humanidad" Criticas, p. 51), consequently any-
thing which prevented man from enjoying spiritual attain-
ments such as art was open to censure. Poverty, thus inter-
preted, is in the background in many stories and in some
instances of predominant importance.

The story "En secreto“ is an example of how closely
Gutierrez Najera could interweave spiritual conflict with an
idea of social justice. The dominant thematic concern of
the sketch is love. The story, in the form of a letter, is
the retelling by an elderly gentleman of how his daughter's
affection has been taken from him by her young lover. The
father discusses his love in a lengthy introductory passage
which is Gutierrez Najera's way of emphasizing a theme as
dear to him as art. The author's ability to empathize with
the father however, is curtailed by the father's attitude
and the additional circumstance that the feelings of the
daughter and her lover are involved. The father, in a very
emphatic way, hoards the affection of his daughter as if it
were property. Gutierrez Najera's manner in which he allows
the father to state his case brings the question of social-
ism and the right to possession of property into the narra-
tion as an ancillary to the topic of love:

Yo soy un hombre montado a la antigua, como hoy
se dice. Tengo en olor de herejia a los socialistas,

238

y mis nervios se crispan cuando pienso en las doctrinas
anarquicas de la Comuna. Sera por mis cortos alcances,
culpese en buena hora el raquitismo de mi inteligencia,
pero ello es que entre e1 sectario de un sistema social
que aspira a arrebatarme mis haciendas, y el bandido
que exponiendo su existencia acecha en la encrucijada
de un camino, solo encuentro la grave diferencia de que
el primero es un ladr6n cobarde, mientras que el otro
es un ladr6n bizarro. Dados estos datos, Ud. no
extrafia que crea tener una propiedad innegable en mi
hija. Parece, sin embargo, que la mayor parte de los
amantes profesan el principio de Proudhon: la propiedad
es el robo. ‘

(21m. pp.289-90)
Soon the question of government authority enters the dis-
cussion:
LPor que la venia del gobernador viene a hacer inutil
mi consentimiento? Dado que mi oposicion pecara de
tenaz e impertinente, ano tengo yo el derecho de mandan
como sefior finico en mi hija, hasta que la edad de eman-
cipacidn forzosa llegue para ella? El estado debe
lavarse las manos en casos como éste.
(911m. po 291)
The story's final paragraph attempts an answer:
Hasta aqui la carta. Diez dias hace que la tengo en
el cajon de mi bufete, sin poder acertar a contestarla.
Por ue, en efecto, cuando los lazos del amor se rompen,
Lque otros sujetaran en el hogar a la hija que quiere
abandonarlo?
(Exam. p. 292)
This conclusion is far from categorically saying the father
is wrong, probably because his fervence obscured the ques-
tion. The list of grievances against the pretender was
serious but at the same time the older man's emotional in-
volvement cast a shadow over the accusations. Notwithstand-
ing doubts and hesitation by the author, however, the final

judgment leans toward the daughter and, by inference,

socialism.

239

Care should be taken not to overinterpret an infer-
ential approval of socialism, especially since this one
example is unique to the stories and poetry. Similarly, in
his other writings, there is little more than a willingness
to sympathize with socialism as in the above quote from a
cronies: ”Yo no soy socialists, pero aunque lo fuera no me
tranquilizaria”. The interest which does generate from
these isolated comments is the force they give in support
of the physically deprived.

Among numerous stories which show a marked sensiti-
vity for poverty, 'Las botitas de Afio Nuevo" is typical.
Written as a sequence of reflections stimulated by the
thought of children's shoes, which by custom are placed by
the door on New Year's Eve to receive gifts, Gutierrez Na-
jera discusses the shoes in two groups, those of the child-
ren whose parents are comfortably stationed in life and
those of the poor: "Unos son felices: huelen a taloncitos
color de rosa, a medias de seda. Otros han sufrido mucho"
(Cuentos, p. 366). The shoes of the well-to-do children are
presented with images of material value used, as in count-
less other instances, as symbols of spiritualism or beauty.
The author's concern for these is their beauty and the near-
ness of death, which has claimed the owner of one pair.

The discussion of poor children's shoes occupies
approximately half of the piece. The first pair belongs to
a young beggar whose father was rich but whose mother was

poor, implying birth out of wedlock. On the coldest New

240
Year's Eve of the child's life he received his first New
Year's gift: death. A rapid description of other shoes
follows in which the narrator attempts to balance the sad-
ness of the previous example with humor: ”El de mis alli--
iglotonisimo!--se ha comido los tacones" (Cuentos, p. 367).
These are the shoes of which the author says, '. . .miro con
carifio" (Cuentos, p. 367).

Similarly, ”En la calle“ portrays the marked differ-
ences between poverty and wealth, emphasizing the effect of
poverty on the soul. The story is essentially a description
of two sisters, one poor and tubercular in a wheel chair in
her sparsely furnished house, the other wealthy and comfor-
table as she passes by her sister's window in an elegant
coach. Both women in varying degrees represent a form of
beauty. The tubercular sister is: '. . .casi una nifia,
flaca, palida, de cutis trasparente como las hojas delgados
de la porcelana china" (Cuentos, p. 132), and Cecilia in her
coach is described in a multiplicity of color hues as a
woman whose champagne glass is an ”énfora”, her coach a
”gondola”, the horse's mane "bronce florentino” (Cuentos,
pp. 133-h). Obviously Gutierrez Najera approves of the
beauty and comfort that surround Cecilia but her character
itself is put into some question. Cecilia's face is ”pica-
resca” (Cuentos, p. 134) and a pedestrian makes a wry com-
ment concerning her appearance in the grandiose coach:”--Una
duquesa o una prostituta” (Cuentos, p. 13h). A paragraph

which followed this pronouncement in an earlier newspaper

241
edition and which was deleted in the Cuentos fragiles (1883)
collection elaborated on the ”Una duquesa o una prostituta:
”no es ni lo uno ni lo otro: es la mujer de un comerciante
deshonrado que se ha enriquecido a fuerza de hacer ban-
carrota" (Cuentos, p. 131).

Without entering into a heavy handed didactic pat-
tern the author allows Cecilia to unconcernedly ride past
the home of her dying sister, gingerly shading the sun from
her eyes. Indirectly she is condemned for her unconcern.
The moribund sister, by contrast, was distinguished for her
good taste and cleanliness: ”Todo aquello respiraba pobreza,
pero pobreza limpia: todo parecia arreglado primorosamente
por manos sin guante, pero lavadas con jab6n de almendra'
(Cuentos, p. 132). As a result of poverty her soul is: "e1
alma que penase en los calados de una cerradura“ (Cuentos,
p. 133). Poverty has separated her from beauty (aesthetic
objects) and love: "LQué sabes de las fiestas en que choca
e1 cristal de las delgadas copas y se murmuran las palabras
amorosas? Tu has vivido sola y pobre, . . ." (Cuentos, p.
133). As is frequently the case with Gutiérrez Najera's
poor, her only consolation is death.

The same idea of juxtaposing wealth and privation to
reveal the effect on the latter is carried out in ”Berta y
Manon”. Like "En la calls" the instrument of presentation
is two women. Berta, with her wealth, is beauty personi-
fied: ”porcelana quebradiza" (Cuentos, p. 167). Criticism

of her character, however, is almost nonexistent. In

242
contrast to Cecilia, who ignored her sister, Berta and her
family accepted into their home an orphaned seamstress whose
parents had been rich. This seeming kindness nevertheless
has an effect of cruelty on the seamstress. The most re-
vealing paragraph is the description of a family outing to
the horse races:

Aquella tsrde, Manon habia asistido a las
carreras. La dejaron adentro del carruaje, porque no
sienta bien a una familia aristocratica andarse de
paseo con las criadas: . . .Mandn, pegada a los cris-
tales del carruaje, espiaba por alli 1a pista y las
tribunas, tal como ve una pobrecita enferma, a través
de los’vidrios del balc6n, la vida y movimiento de los
transeuntes.

(Cuentos, p. 168)
Poverty in this story, as in others, results in a kind of
imprisonment, except with Manon the feeling of imprisonment
is exacerbated by her nearness to physical comfort and spir-
itual satisfactions as well as awareness of her former
social position.

”Berta y Manon", "En la calle” and the other stories
used here to show Gutierrez Najera's attitude to poverty are
unusual in that the problem of penury is more or less a
central topic of each story. The more common treatment is
to bring poverty into the action as incidental to other con-
cerns. The following paragraph inserted into the narration

of ”La novels de tranvia" to describe a not so elegant

suburb of Mexico City is illustrative:

Mas alli de la peluqueria de Micolo, hay un pueblo
que habits barrios extravagantes, cuyos nombres son
esencialmente antiaperitivos. Hay hombres mu honrados
que viven en la plazuela del teguesquite y senoras de'
invencible virtud cuya casa est situada en el callejon

243
de Salsipuedes. No es verdad que los indios bérbaros
estén acampados en esas calles exoticas, ni es tampoco
cierto que los pieles rojas hagan frecuentes excursi-
ones a la plazuela de Regina. La mano providente de
la policia ha colocado un gendarme en cada esquina.
Las cases de esos barrios no estan hechas de lodo ni
tapizadas por dentro de pieles sin curtir. En ellas
viven muy discretos caballeros y sefioras muy respe-
tables y sefioritas muy lindas. Estas sefioritas suelen
tener novios, como las que tienen balcon y cars a la
calle, en el centro de la ciudad.
(muses. p. 155)
Other than being one of the narrator's random thought pro-
cesses as he passes through the city on a tram, this para-
graph has little relevance to the other parts of the story.
On the surface this passage seems to harbor little that
could have social or political implication. As in other
places though, this is simply because the author wants to
let a totality of experience, a reflection of the artist's
total mental thought processes, flow onto the page without
Specifically or intentionally sermonizing. In this case,
what Gutierrez Najera has putinto essay is crucial to under-
standing his artistic form. Using "Deber and haber” and
“Cosas que hacen falta: e1 dinero” for comparison, the para-
graph recorded above gains considerably in meaning. The
middle class rationale for a privileged social position
without didactic elaboration is refuted. The poor here are
poor for the reason they were poor in the essay, a lack of
opportunity. They are not victims of social determinism nor
miscarried products of the Darwinian evolutionary chain.

Further discussion of Gutierrez Najera's views on

class structure in the context of the present study would be

244
unjustified since, in fact, they are part of a larger scheme
of ideas. If his designation as an "escapist” has been
diminished an essential block to understanding part of his
work is overcome. Since poverty, to recapitulate briefly,
was an impediment to human fulfillment of a spiritual capa-
city, the remaining aspects of how Gutierrez Najera saw
himself in relation to society and his immediate surroun-
dings illustrates how the author tried to live up to his own
spiritual nature. Besides examples of impoverishment,
Gutierrez Najera worked into his writing other aspects of
Mexico and its capital city which symbolically represent an
assessment of the human condition or an effort to come to
terms with the condition.

Something of a key to how Gutierrez Najera chooses
symbolic material of a national origin is given in an obser-
vation one of his narrators makes in the introduction to
"Cuento triste”. After the narrator has pondered his compo-
sition problems for several paragraphs he concludes:
”Hablemos ambos de las cosas frivolas, esto es, de las cosas
serias" (Cuentos, p. 152). It is not the blatantly impor-
tant things which are the most telling symbols of human
existence but the subtly insignificant. As such, women,
children, and social events occupy a prominent position
among "signs" the author has chosen from his environment and
endowed with symbolic meaning. Partly this is an extension
of Platonic theories reviewed in past chapters where objects

like wings, gold and ladies' stockings have meaning

245
extending beyond their immediate nature. In some measure
frivolous or insignificant material is used because it more
easily corresponds to the author's very finite position in
the universe of which he was acutely aware. In short, the
interpretation Gutierrez Najera gave to his observable imme-
diate environment has a consistent relation to his more
abstract ideas on beauty and time.

An attraction to the social life of the capital
resulted in the inclusion of a type of material-~horse
races, theatre scenes, ballrooms, the circus--which, taken
at face value, would belie the interest in the downtrodden
explained above. The inconsistency is only apparent, how-
ever. Gutiérrez Najera placed a symbolic spiritual value on
what he saw and was not in the least deceived by the impli-
cations of Mexico City's affluence. His observations on the
horse races in ”Berta y Manon” show the relation between sym-
bol and empiric sign. As the orphaned Manén watches the
ceremonies from a carriage, the narrator gives the race a
spiritual assignation:

. . .ese placer, mitad espiritual y mitad f1sico, que
se experiments a1 atravesar a galope una avenida
enarenada. Ls sangre corre mas aprisa y el aire azota
como si estuviera enojado. El cuerpo siente la juven-
tud y el alma cree que ha recobrado sus alas.
(Cuentos, p. 169)
Then after a paragraph of glowing description as the above,
the race's purely symbolic importance is further advanced

by a negative observation on the materiality of the occa-

sion: "La seda se desgarra, e1 terciopelo se chafa, 1a

24o
epidermis se arruga con los afios. Bajo la azul superficie
de ese lago hay mucho lodo" (Cuentos, p. 169).

This search for the uplifting with an accompanying
awareness of futility is behind most of Gutierrez Najera's
writing on his contemporary society. ”El desertor del
cementerio” presents such a case with a fictionalized des-
cription of the capital's most beautiful ladies. The piece
begins with a paragraph on the sadness of October and the
autumn season. Within a frame of related ideas, autumn
leaves fall, souls depart, and in the theatres Qgg,gg§g,
Tenorio is being represented with its funeral scenes. Octo-
ber "es la época en que todo resucita, menos los corazones
que se han muerto y las bellezas que han pasado” (Cuentos,
p. 45). With this beginning note of hopelessness a Don
Juan type of character--Duke of Parisis, borrowed from
Arsene Houssaye--arrives from the grave and asks the narra-
tor for an introduction to the most beautiful women of the
city. The narrator, lifted from his state of melancholy by
such an exotic apparition, is delighted to invite the Duke
of Parisis to a ball in Chapultepec Palace.

Although the fictional character of the writing is
obvious from the above description, the names Gutierrez
Najera chooses to describe for the Duke of Parisis reads
like a social register of the epoch. Among the married
ladies are Jayas de Guzman, Quintana de Goribar, Idaroff de
Iturbe, Espinosa de Castafieda y Najera, Rivas de Adalid, de

Camarena, de Mariscal, Lebrijs de Hammeken, de Bourgeaud,

247

and among the unmarried were Paz Garcia Tervel, Memé Garcia
Tervel, Elena Fuentes, Ester Guzman, las Sritas. Sevilla,
las Sritas. Cervantes, las Sritas. Trinidad Osio and Maria
Luisa Daclos, Julia Kern, Srits. Cortina, Lupe Rondero and
Romero Rubio who was later to become the wife of the presi-
dent, Porfirio Diaz. Some of the names are merely listed
in a series: other names receive several sentences of
praise. It may be said, however, that all function as aes-
thetic symbols:

. . .La Sra. Zayas de Guzman. Las lineas de su

figura, blancas y armoniosas, cantan como una melodia

de Gounod. Es la hermosura en toda su fuerza y en

todo su eSplendor. Una Cibeles, prodiga de vida,

menos robusta que si hubiera salido de las manos de

F1d1as: pero mas divina, precisamente por ser mas

humans.

(Cuentos, p. 48)

Almost the entire body of Gutierrez Najera's critical theory
can be found in this short quote. Beauty in its relation to
magic, time and mythology, sound and color are present. It
is plainly on an abstract and aesthetic level of meaning
that Sra. de Guzman is utilized by Gutierrez Najera to find
a transcendental bulwark against materialism.

In other instances where some aspect of the capi-
tal's social life is involved the relation between the beau-
tiful and the degrading is written into the same symbol.

The child performer in ”La hija del aire", for example, is
both an ethereal spiritual symbol and one of material degra-

dation. Her frail, nimble body is variously compared to s

lirio, Ofelia and luciérnags (Cuentos, p. 120). Her ability

248

to perform gives her a magical extramundane origin (”. . .
viniste a la tierra en un palido rayo de la luna” Cuentos,
p. 121), but unfortunately, she is human which means that an
absolute norm of goodness is as removed from her as the
author: "Te llaman hija del aire, 31 lo fueras, tendrias
alas: y si tuvieras alas, volverias a1 cielo” (Cuentos,
p. 121). Also, like many other characters which symbolize
the human condition, she is orphaned. At the same time the
young performer is a victim of material exploitation. In
fact, as a vehicle of meaning this seems to be the primary
focus of the story. The story begins with a blunt admonish-
ment: "Todo espectaculo en que miro la abyeccién humans, ya
sea moral o fisica, me repugna grandemente" (Cuentos, p.
119). The shamelessness of circus entrepreneurs, the physi-
cal harm done to the child's body, the memory of a child
performer who had fallen, the villainy of a crowd hoping for
an accident, and finally the hypocrisy of a society which
organizes an animal protection association but ignores human
misery are emphasized. The last words of the story enumer-
ate the ills from which Gutiérrez Najera says man needs lib-
eration--”. . .los tres grandes infiernos de la vida--la
Enfermedad y el Hambre y el Vicio” (Cuentos, p. 122). With
these social views very much in the foreground, the young
lady fully unifies a symbolism of elevated spirituality and
degrading materialism.

A point which should be underscored about "La hija

del sire" is that the symbolic unification of spirituality

249
and social criticism remains true to Gutierrez Najera's
idealistic perspective. The inclusion of social criticism
into his writing does not detract from the basic conviction
that the world is what a particular individual's mind ob-
serves. The inclusion of material which superficially would
please an advocate of scientific determinism does not indi-
cate that Gutierrez Najera is a Modernist or idealist in
one story and an objectivist in another. In “La hija del
aire" a personal viewpoint is firmly upheld through the
narration which records the author's experiences in a way
that removes any possibility of the interpersonal objecti-
vity desired by Naturalists.

“E1 mfisico de la murga“ is another story whose back-
ground in a barroom invited comparison with Naturalism. The
musician is impoverished, the female singer is sexually pro-
vocative and the spectators are bourgeois revelers. The
accumulation of detail which resembles a Naturalistic work,
it turns out, is intentional since the narrator states that
the story's inSpiration derived from a story by Mexico's
foremost Naturalist, Federico Gamboa (Cuentos, p. 255). As
for social criticism, it appears that Gutierrez Najera was
willing to go much further than Gamboa.1 Several sentences
placed by the author into the musician's mouth are an unmis-

takable attack on an unfair economic social pattern:

 

l. Federico Gamboa does not state the problem of
social inequalities so bluntly in the chapter on Pomar
entitled “Ignorado” from Im resiones )y_recuerdos
(Mexico: E. Gomez de la Puen e, ), pp. MS.

250

Vosotros no sabéis lo que se sufre tocando con hambre

y sed ante los que comen y beben. . .Me ensefian...

casi me obligan a embriagarme...y a desear, iah, si!

3a desear mucho! Vivo mirando muy de cerca el esplendor

de la opulencia y oyendo las promesas y las mentiras de

los suefios...Pobre musica mis, . . .aCortesana de

bajezas! aNo saliste de mi alma para eso!

(Cuentos, p. 259)

The brief foray into social criticism through the musician's
conversation does not belie an idealistic premise in "El
musica” any more than with ”La hija del aire". The story's
central figure is an artist whose symbolic representation
of idealism needs little elaboration. The form of the
story, written in a patchwork of reflections by the narrator
and the musician, create a reflection of mental perception
altogether different from what a realist would attempt.
And, lastly, the suffering caused by material deprivation is
spiritual, not physical. As the narrator states in the
story's last sentence: ”Ahors que lo recuerdo, siento pens,
como si hubiera msltratado a un nifio sin darme cuenta de lo
que hacia... :como si hubiera hollado frescos pétalos de
alma!“ (Cuentos, p. 260).

Religious ceremonies are another social event which
Gutiérrez Najera uses as an instrument to explore certain
notions. Four stories, ”El vestido blanco", ”La primers
comunion', fAbuelita ya no hay corpus”, and "La fiesta de la
virgen”, each examine some trait of the metaphysical crisis
which absorbed the author after his youthful loss of faith.

Each nevertheless differs somewhat in emphasis. The first,

”Ls primers comunion", is obviously a fictionalized account

251
of the author's early memories of the church and especially
his first communion. Written in 1882 at a time when
Gutierrez Najera had lost faith in traditional Christian
doctrine, his attitude to the church is generous and void
of rancor. This early age was ”. . .1a vida paradisiaca de
la infancia" (Cuentos, p. 114). By evoking from his memory
the happy innocence of his former faith, Gutierrez Najera
could recapture from the church a certain tranquility. This
charitable picture of the church remained with the author
until his death. His loss of faith cannot be equated to
anticlericalism, at least in his creative writing. In his
literary criticism there are some bitter words for priests,
such as his resentment at clerical domination of the Mexican
Academy of the Language. The stories however, present the
church as something aesthetic and spiritual, whose reassur-
ing claim of an afterlife can be amusing. The most exten-
sive example of Gutierrez Najera's bemusement with the
church is not in the stories but in a series of mock sermons
he published under the title of ”Cuaresmas del Duque Job”.
The fifteen pieces, written in imitation of pulpit rhetoric,
present the entire range of Gutierrez Najera's thought in a
generally spoofing tone. Some of this comes forth in the
stories, as in the above story where the faithful are de-
picted: "La multitud se refugia en los templos, como una
parvada de polluelos bajo e1 ala de la madre" (Cuentos, p.
113).

"La fiesta de la virgen“ (1881), written during the

252
same period as "La primers comunion" (1883), shows an amuse-
ment with the legal implications of laws restricting
religious processions. The locus of the story is a village
whose Christian convictions are of a caliber which, accord-
ing to the narrator, antedate Luther. The Mexican lgygqug
Reforms, very much a nineteenth century product, attempted
to limit excessive public influence on the part of the
church which would include such events as the religious pro-
cession described in the story. The central incident of the
piece comes as the narrator meets the village mayor hastily
proceeding in an opposite direction from the procession with
the following excuse: "Voy por aqui. Yo no quiero saber que
hay procesiones. No puedo permitir esta infraccién escan-
dalosa de las leyes" (Cuentos, p. 299). Gutierrez Najera
accepts that the villager's faith will disappear (”. . .los
cirios. . .que simbolizan 1a fe, estaban casi todos apaga-
dos. . .“ Cuentos, p. 299) but cannot bring himself to con-
demn outright that which was represented by the procession.
For this reason, the parade is described with profuse detail
and the mayor is depicted as somewhat farcical.

Yet another story written in the same period,
"(Abuelits ya no hay corpus!” (1882), punctuates the fact
that in spite of Gutierrez Najera's sympathy and cherished
memories, his faith is gone. Somber, but still with a touch
of humor, he recalls his childhood experience of seeing how
doves were used during a service:

En ese instante muchos pajaros cantaron. Por aquel
entonces, creia yo que era este un hosanna de las aves

253
al Creador. Mas tarde supe que los sacristanes tenian
las jaulas ya dispuestas, y a la‘hora precisa las
sacaban por las ventanas de la cupula.
(Cuentos, p. 306)

"El vestido blanco" written two years before the
author's death, reflects the same attitudes of the early
stories. The subject of the story is the first communion of
a friend's daughter. The friend, who was "un mistico: pero
no es en rigor un creyente” (Cuentos, p. 243), synthesized
the author's own attitude to the church. He admires "la
pompa del culto cat6lica en los grandes dias de la Iglesia:
tierna vivida, pura, esta angelica procesion de almas intac-
tas que lleva flores a la Virgen" (Cuentos, p. 244): but by
the writing of this story in 1893 Gutierrez Najera was
clearly somewhat embittered by the falsity of eternal life
and humor is entirely lacking: '. . .ls luz de los cirios
inflama los ojos, se nos saltan algunss lagrimas. . ."
(Cuentos, p. 245).

After examining the treatment of social events in
several stories, it becomes clear that Gutierrez Najera's
choice of social functions is made to facilitate the working
out of personal conflicts, viewpoints and ideals. Horse
races, balls, circuses, brothels and religious services lend
themselves as tools to express ideas on spiritualization,
beauty and the opposing force of materialism. Such also, is
the case with other items of Gutierrez Najera's immediate
surroundings which he uses symbolically. Women, children,

and the author's personal friends are each used with

254
sufficient frequency and variety to justify special atten-
tion.

The recurrent inclusion of children allows the au-
thor to make a nearly complete statement on his view of the
human predicament. In a sense, mankind was considered a
sort of orphaned, childlike mass in its innocence, vulnera-
bility, and abandoned state. In "Carts de un suicida” the
pronouncement of Jean-Paul Richter-~“Hijos de siglo, todos
somos huérfanos" (Cuentos, p. 44)--is invoked, specifically
tying narrator, adult, suicide victim and reader to chil-
dren. The story's last scene describes a graveyard full of
children:

Despertaron los nifios, y alzando sus manecitas

exclamaron: '

--Jesus, Jesus, aya no tenemos padre?

Y Cristo, cerrando sus exangfies brazos, exclamé severo:

--Hijos del siglo: vosotros y yo todos somos huérfanos!

. . .y la terrible noche tendi6 su ala de cuervo sobre

el mundo.

--3Hijos del siglo, todos somos huérfanos!

(Cuentos, p. 44)

Consistently following this gloomy appraisal, children in
Gutierrez Najera's stories are orphaned. The circus per-
former in ”La hija del aire” has no knowledge of her
parents. Margarita in "La familia Estrada” has parents who
have spiritually abandoned her. The father of Pasionaria of
"La pasi6n de Pasionaria” transfers his love to her step-
mother, leaving her in total neglect. The young newspaper

vendor in "Historia de un peso falso" has no father and sup-

ports his mother and sister. The daughter Rosita of "Juan

e1 organista” loses her father in the last scene. Typical

 

 

 

255
adult characters also were orphaned in childhood. Such was
commonly the background of the artists described in a pre-
vious chapter.

As if to intensify the precariousness of existence,
childrens' death is frequently described in lengthy passages
the somber tone of which show a marked absence of the grace-
ful mock humor for which the author is famous. ”La balada
del afio nuevo" and "La mafiana de San Juan” both give an
extended representation of the death scene, the latter by
drowning and the former by some mysterious disease. The
protraction of death's arrival in these stories shows how
strongly the idea held that death was the unseen assailant
of man. The narrator could do nothing more for the children
than coldly observe the dying process. Helplessness and
dismay are sufficiently powerful in fact, to become a kind
of guilt feeling. The two, despair and guilt, are perfectly
united by a mother's exclamation on her child's suffering:
”(Lo escucho y no puedo defenderlo: veo que lo estan matando
y lo consiento!” (Cuentos, p. 109). Although the dominant
concern of the stories is death's finality, Gutierrez
Najera's distrust of the self's power was associated with a
broader skepticism in the final paragraphs of each story.

In ”La balada": ”. . .ruegan a Dios, suplican. . .iTodo en
vano!“ (Cuentos, p. 111). In ”La mafiana de San Juan", the
religious feast day: ';Oh mafianita de San Juan! zTu blanco
traje de novia tiene tambien manchas de sangre!” (Cuentos,

p. 145).

256

The fragility of children was also a useful tool to
expound on ideal day to day manners of living which would
buttress the human spirit and mitigate the effect of death
and cosmic isolation. In "La familia Estrada” the death of
two children is examined to show what was lacking in their
lives and, conversely, what should have been present. In
pursuing this point the narrator goes to some length to
establish that childhood is not the ideal age dreamed of by
adults:

La infancia, cuya felicidad envidiamos, es con
harta frecuencia en extremo desgraciada. El nifio
siente la perdida de un juguete, con la misma deses-
peracién que un hombre la de su fortuna.

(Cuentos, p. 65)
After a several paragraph elaboration of this idea,
Gutierrez Najera summarizes that children symbolize mankind
generally: ”En su corazon llevan e1 germen de todas las
pasiones, y el germen tambien de todas las virtudes“ (ngge
19g, p. 66).

From this extended generalization, the narrator
keeps attention on four children and their parents for the
remainder of the piece and particularizes the evil which
befell the children. The burden of guilt fell on the par-
ents who, innocently perhaps, were an embodiment of materi-
alism. Both were factory workers with a simple, material-
istic outlook on life. In their innocent narrowness the
father and mother set into process a series of psychological
conflicts among their four children which caused the death

of two and broke the spirit of the survivors. The father

257
with his love of hard work and honor applied undue harshness
to make the children measure to his ideals, while the mother
reacted to her husband's ill temper and economic difficul-
ties by becoming irascible and hard. The mother's ignorance
of the ideals of motherhood, with her husband's inability
to externalize feelings of warmth inherent in all, himself
included, inevitably caused a lessening of affectionate
attention for the children, especially the second and third
child whose anguish was reflected in their gradually failing
health and death. The absence of intangible qualities such
as sympathy and affection were directly responsible. In
this way the physical possibilities for human comfort are
concretely tied to man's spiritual capacity.

Essentially, the Estrada children symbolize a strug-
gle for love. To varying degrees this meaning is found in
Gutierrez Najera's other children: however, his most poign-
ant vehicle for discussing love is not children but women.
With women, logically enough, there exists ample material to
pursue the topic in all its nuances. The correlation of
women and love, contrary to what might be supposed, has ram-
ifications and implications which go far beyond whatever
common meaning the word "love“ possesses. Love, to
Gutierrez Néjera, is like the word ”beauty”, supercharged
with meaning and potentiality. Early in his career, with
”El arte y el materialismo”, he established that for him
beauty and love were coordinates, if not the same quality.

Beauty in its elaborateness is a deity capable of redeeming

258
man, while love was the ultimate manifestation of art.
There is no reason to feel, therefore, that in designating
women as symbols of love an unreasonably narrow category is
created. It would also be appropriate to speak of women as
aesthetic correspondences, as is notably the case in most
instances, but by bringing in the word ”love", the same
ground is covered with a term which, by its application and
inclusiveness, seems more accurate.

The issue of how broad a meaning woman can acquire
in Gutierrez Najera's writing is evidenced by the number of
times in this study women have already been taken into ac-
count. In the presentation of his literary theory, the in-
tegral part of woman, love and art was central, his repre-
sentation of value through aestheticism and idealism fre-
quently found its symbolic form in the person of women ar-
tists ("Historia de una corista", ”Elisa 1a écuyére"), and
attitudes toward space and time were given literary form
through different women (“Madame Venus” as universality, or
”La odisea de Madame Theo“ as either timelessness or univer-
sality). It is doubtful that a single facet of Gutierrez
Najera's thinking can be examined without seeing a connec-
tion with a symbolic use of women. The presentation of
women from the author's immediate experience in their con-
tinual relation to love and art are, it follows, never very
distant from his innermost feelings.

Two particularly good examples of women who were

near the author and serve symbolically as manifestations of

259
spirituality through love are seen in the youthful poems ad-
dressed to Lola and the somewhat later poems addressed to
Cecilia. Lola, as described by Margarita Gutierrez Najera,
was a first cousin with whom the poet fell in love in his
1
teens. Four poems, "Serenata" (1875), "ENifia de ardientes
ojosJ” (1876), ”Mi casa blanca" (1877), and "Del libro de
Lola” (1877) are either addressed to Lola or speak of her.
In the first two poems (1876 and 1877) the poet is very much
in love and his tone implies a corresponding affection from
Lola. The last two poems record the poet's nostalgia after
the idyl has ended. The nostalgic “Del libro de Lola” cate-
gorized his love for Lola as ”castos amores” and ”eres
cadencia y poesia" (Poesias I, p. 146) which, in a way, sums
up his predominantly spiritual feelings for Lola. A typical
strophe from “Del libro de Lola” illustrates the imagery
which is used to uphold the spirituality of his feelings
throughout the four poems:
Eco dulce y armonioso
de musica que se aleja:
rayo de luz que refleja
el océano proceloso:
ritmo suave y melodioso
de tortola enamorada:
blanca brisa perfumada,
de fuente languido arrullo:
eres ola, eres murmullo,
estrella, flor y alborada.
(M I: P0 145)

The images of ethereality are pervasive in the intangible

qualities of sound, light, breeze, color and odor, while

 

1. Margarita Gutierrez Najera, Refle'o, pp. 27-8.

260
the tangibles still tend to be inaccessible, movable or mys-
terious-~star, ocean, wave, bird, flower--in an attempt to
represent spirituality.

The same pattern emerges where Gutierrez Najera sees
infinitely more in a particular woman than a sweetheart or
fiancee, as shown among the poems dedicated to Cecilia, his
wife, dating from the period of their courtship (1886-88).l
Here, as in the poems to Lola, the struggle continues to
fuse value into human existence through spiritualism, ideal-
ization and art, all of which find their ultimate manifesta-
tion through love. The illustration of this point from
texts would amount to a repetition of the previous paragraph,
if not the entire chapter on value. A reading of these
poems illustrates how deeply the desire ran in Gutierrez
Najera's consciousness to relate externally. When portray-
ing social problems, the author seemed more capable of sur-
rendering to pessimism and satire, but since the question of
love was the most basic denominator for human survival, its
attainment is more crucial. The crucial urge is exacerbated
by a conviction of the ultimate unattainability of love.
Love was not a given starting point but an end, the goal of
a journey from.non-being and darkness to being and light.2

As Cecilia stands before the poet, what is deeply

 

1. Margarita Gutierrez Najera, Reflejo,
PP. 63-1000

2. Joseph Chiari, Symbolism from Poe 3g,Mallarmé,
selections in Literary Modern1sm, ed. by Irving Howe
(Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1967), p. 191.

261
embedded within his emotions is projected onto her being as
something worthy of reaching. Thus, worthiness and the
striving to reach it take on several characteristics. One
of the most fundamental is articulation and aesthetic ful-
fillment:
Busco en mi alma lo mas obscuro,

lo mas secreto que exista en mi,

la estrofa virgen, el verso pure...

3y nada encuentro digno de ti:

(Poesias II, p. 7?)

The poet's trying to claim his sweetheart's attention takes

on a Fhustian desire to fathom the unknowable:

Quiero entrar... y deténgome callado
cual Fausto en el jardin de Margarita.

(Poesias II, p. 27)
In spite of Gutierrez Najera's continual preoccupation with
life, living and eternality, he cannot suppress a curiosity
about, if not a desire for, death when he compares love to
death:

su negro seno la mar entreabre,
ipero mas negros tus ojos son!

(Poesias I, p. 289)

Flowers are employed in another passage to show an ambiguous
life-death urge:

Si me muero, dormir quiero

bajo flores compasivas...

:Si me muero, si me muero,

dadme muchas siemprevivas!

(Poesias II, p. 125)

Or, in other lines, the weight of interest is on eternality:

Puede romperse nuestra fragil vida,
pero tu nombre pasara a los siglos:

262
is quien ama el poeta nadie olvida!
(Poesias II, p. 50)
Although the poet avoids posturing in a heroic tone, a firm
and intense determination to gain love persists. Love, in
the final count, is more than a correlative to art or a
triumph over death--it is a day to day struggle to break
away from routine physical existence in which the poet as an
individual is imprisoned in the body. The urge to escape
the merely protoplasmic at times borders on the desperate.
In “Resucitaran” he speaks of the difficulty that kisses,
i.e., love, have in transcending the body in order to reach
his sweetheart:
aQué labios tan carceleros!
Con cadenas y cerrojos
los aprisionan severos
y apenas los prisioneros
se me asoman a los ojos!
(Poesias II, p. 82)
The varying aspects of the poems dedicated to Ce-
cilia remain tactfully on a spiritual plane. Other poems of
love not addressed to Cecilia take on more erotic overtones
illustrating how a solution to physical imprisonment was
sought through utilization of the body's physical properties
to achieve an extreme height of sensual feeling. In ”Con
Julieta“ he praises "6. . .los que cantan himnos de terneza/
oprimiéndose pecho contra pecho!” (Poesias II, p. 84), and
Julieta's sensual love as ”imposible amor de que se muere“

(Poesias II, p. 83). Sensual feeling, since it is mental in

nature, can easily coalesce with spiritual considerations as

263
with "Muss Blanca”: "Sobre sus blancos senos, erguidos y
redondos,/ 3. . .vestida de si misma, mi espiritu la ve!"
(Poesias II, p. 61).

As frequently happens, when Gutierrez Najera dwells
on the spiritual he automatically ends by considering the
finely psychological. The narrative poem "Pecar en suefios"
shows this possibility through the dialogue an unhappily
married lady has with her confessor. Her sexual frustra-
tions, which to Gutierrez Najera are stated in more elevated
words ("una sed insaciable de terneza" Poesias I, p. 247),
have made Beatriz' life a form of misery and eventually
caused her death. To her confessor she pours out the fears
brought on by the handsome man who presents himself in her
dreams. At various points in the confession she touches on
her guilt feelings, fear of sin and criminality, and physi-
cal discomfort occasioned by the "fantastico novio” who
stimulates ”:no sé qué goces ignorados" (Poesias I, p. 249).
The conclusion Gutierrez Najera draws toward the end of the
poem concerning Beatriz' removal from sexual fulfillment is
the same as if he were discussing art and ideality. Either
man must dream or he must surrender to passive formlessness
and the choice is made difficult by the certainty that the
dream cannot be fulfilled:

Si quieres ser feliz en esta tierra,
sin sofiar en la dicha que no viene,
has de ser como el agua que se aviene

al molde de la taza que la encierra:

(Poesias I, p. 252)

264

These examples of how a cycle of love is formulated using
woman as the vehicle of presentation underline the closeness
of Gutierrez Néjera's treatment of the external world with
the processes of his own mind. In particular, woman with
her various symbolic trappings motivates the author more
than anything else to desire a breaking forth from his
body's material chains as indicated by the persistence of a
struggle toward love.

A symbolic presence of the author's friends, preva-
lent in both the stories and poems, generally admits a
broader spectrum of meaning. One general significance in
the textual citing of acquaintances relates to the previous
section on space and time. There it was mentioned briefly
that Gutierrez Najera's ambition for universality was not a
reflection of Mexico but rather that he saw native country
and city as part of the universal whole, cherishing it all
the more. His words about Mexico City ("e1 delicioso cuadro
que la ciudad presents” Cuentos, p. 155) with which "La
novels de tranvia" begins, are indicative of this. What-
ever misgivings Gutiérrez Najera had about Mexico's social
structure, its value system and its future, his fondness for
the country and particularly the capital city was unceasing.
In the stories this national attachment manifests itself
most commonly in using friend's names as a kind of image or
metaphor in countless passages. The description of Mexico
City's most beautiful woman in "El desertor del cementerio”

mentioned above is a slightly exaggerated illustration of

265
the technique. According to several contemporaries of el
Duque Job, the inclusion of names in his columns created a
popular following. Jose Juan Tablada wrote, for example:
Cuando Gutierrez Najera cruzaba el boulevard con
su puro en la boca y su gardenia en el ojal, vi a
muchos acercarsele como devotos triumferarios, como
cortesanos avidos de que en obscuro nombre surgiera
sonoramente de la boca del rey. . . .Algunos agasa-
jaban al Duque para que los citara en sus cronicas:
otros pretendian que el insigne orfebre coloiara su
nombre junto a una de sus luminosas poesias.
Gutierrez Najera's fondness, however, strikes a deeper chord
than a simple expression of pleasure or possible desire for
popularity. His daughter closely approaches a meaning for
employing acquaintances' names when she observes that her
father was 'un poeta-periodista y un periodista-poeta".2
A prologue by Gonzalez Guerrero also touches on this in
saying that the stories 'mezclan concertadamente los ele-
mentos tomados a la realidad y los que brinda la imagina-
cion".3 Perhaps Goldberg is closest with "he looks... as
much inward as outward".u All of these seem to be attempts
to say that Gutierrez Najera has the perspective of an aes-
theticist and idealist. He is certain that his mind con-

sciously dominates the world it sees and that the best true

 

l. José Juan Tablada quoted from Margarita
Gutierrez Najera, Reflejo, pp. 48-9.

2. Margarita Gutierrez Najera, Refle'o, p. 42.

3. Gonzélez Guerrero, "Estudio Preliminar” in

the Cuentos, p. xxxiv.

4. Isaac Goldberg, Studies ig_s anish American
Literature (New Ybrk: Brentanos, 1920) p. E .

266

representation will be poetic in character. Thus, with the
incorporation of names, reality begins to impinge on art
just as he believes it should. To Gutierrez Najera there
was no actual dichotomy between the outer and inner world--
the outer was merely an extension of the inner. The names
of his acquaintances, if ”realistically" portrayed, were not
separate entities for rational study but part of a mental
configuration which could be invoked and mixed with or jux-
taposed to any number of topics. It follows then, that the
use of contemporaries for purposes of simile, image or meta-
phor was especially appropriate.

The following quotes illustrate typical instances of
how names were used. In describing the inhabitants of limbo,

he writes that "Van al limbo los pequefiitos que se mueren

porque sus padres no llamaron a1 Dr. Liceaga” (Cuentos, p.

179). In the same paragraph the author notes that the
entrance door to limbo is low because no one there "es de la
talla de D. Francisco deez del Palacio” (Cuentos, p. 179).
In the same story it is claimed that the inhabitants of
limbo speak Greek because ”conviene a saber que en el limbo
se habla el griego, gracias a la influencia del ilustrisimo
sefior obispo Montes de Oca' (Cuentos, p. 181). A charac-
ter's lack of memory is excused because everyone is not
blessed with ”una memoria tan gruesa, tan resistente, tan
voluminosa como las Memorias de D. Matias Romero, a quien
envio muy atentamente mis recuerdos” (Cuentos, p. 371). In

a novel fragment the procrastination of a mailman is des-

cribed: 'Sedujo e1 diablo a1 cartero, como el pintor

267
mexicano Flores sedujo a Jesucristo, en el cuadro de la
Tentacidn” (Cuentos, p. 382). In ”La primers comunion”
Gutierrez Najera suddenly recalls a quote by Manuel Carpio:
”como dice Carpio, distraemos el pensamiento con la contemp
placion de hechos pasados” (Cuentos, p. 114). Not all ref-
erences are flattering. The monetary crisis of 1882-1884
for example, provoked such a sharp observation that
Gutierrez Najera diplomatically omitted the name: "El valor
del peso es distinto del valor de Cuauhtémoc. El peso, como
algunos generales, vale mas mientras mas corre" (Cuentos,
p. 361). In an interesting passage from "El diputado‘ '
Gutierrez Najera himself appears. The piece is written in
the form of a letter from a young provincial dunce who has
been elected to the national legislature. A certain amount
of scorn is unquestionably directed at inane speeches emana-
ting from the lawmakers as evidenced in a remark preceding
the letter:
Vamos chico, tiene Ud. mis talento que D. Jaime
Balmes. El discurso de Ud. sobre la conversidn de la
deuda me ha gustado mucho. Aquel pasaje en que habla
Ud. de Moises sacando aguas de las pefias, dejo pasmada
y boquiabierta a media Cémara.
(M22: P- 3M3)
The passage in which the bumpkin speaks of Gutierrez Najera
in relation to Porfirio Diaz and other notables is less
scornful but still mildly satirical:
El lunes, fui con varios amigos a un banquete.
Alli mire de cerca a todos los prohombres de la olitica
y la prensa. Vi a1 sefior general Diaz, a D. Ramon Fer-

nandez, a Pacheco, Naranjo, Romero Rubio y Diez Gu-
tierrez. a. . .Sirvieron un carnero a la “duquesa”, del

268
que tom6 naturalmente, e1 duque Job, y muchas otras
cosas cuyos nombres ni siquiera de oidas conocia. Nos
retrataron en grupo, antes del almuerzo, y como ya era
tarde, es muy posible que esa fotografia pase a las
edades venideras con el titulo de “Nuevo cuadro del
Hambre.
(m: P- 3’46)
Besides the names of friends, place references often
intrude in the same way as names of contemporaries. For
example, the two quotes above, taken from "El diputado“, are
part of a lengthy description of Mexico City during Indepen-
dence Day celebrations of September 16th. Several streets,
parks, and buildings are mentioned including la calle Hum-
boldt, la calle del Empedradillo, la calle de la Palms, the
central plaza and Alameda park. The deputy takes a street-
car ride to see the suburbs, stays at the Hotel Iturbide,
eats at the restaurant Concordia (a favorite of Gutierrez
Najera) and sees a representation at the Hidalgo Theatre.
Although the tapographical description, like the citation of
contemporaries, derives from the desire to tie the external
world into an artistic pattern of idealization, a temporary
problem arises in claiming symbolic motivation for places
which actually existed. The inclusion of actual names is
fairly unique while the use of actual place description is
practically a staple of nineteenth century fiction, espe-
cially in Realism. Nonetheless, the employment of places
considered beside person's names gives local color the same

symbolic meaning of the names.

An additional indication of how concretely thought

out the merging of actual peOple with fiction was, is borne

269
out by a closer look at the technique. In the carefully
prepared text of E.K. Mapes' edition of the Cuentos, the
material is divided into what, in his own judgment, is the
best of four categories: ”Cuentos completas", ”Otras narra-
ciones”, ”Fragmentos de novels“ and "Adaptaciones e imita-
ciones”. The ”Fragmentos” and 'Adaptaciones e imitaciones'
are obvious distinctions but the other two, “Cuentos“ and
”Otras narraciones", according to Mapes were problematic.
The first group he felt "pertenecen a1 tipo de literatura
denominado 'cuento' en el sentido estricto de la palabra",l
but the ”Otras narraciones” were a collection in which
”falta alguna de las caracteristicas del 'cuento' propia-
mente dicho, pero que muestran sin embargo un elemento
claramente narrativo".2 In another part of the prologue
Mapes indicated the source of the problem: "publicaba un
cuento como un articulo".3 A comparison of the selections
in the two categories underlines why Mapes encountered
difficulties. While the ”Otras narraciones” tend to be
plotless, so do several of the cuentos. 'Rataplan", “E1
vestido blanco”, ”Historia de un domino”, ”En la calle”, “La
hija del aire”, ”Carts de un suicida” all have weak plots at
best. Many of the other ”Cuentos“ are deficient in a par~

ticular plot characteristic. Basic ingredients are lacking,

 

l. E.K. Mapes, "Prdlogo' to the Cuentos, p. L.
2. Ibid.

30 Ibide’ pe XIViie

270

such as a dénouement (”Después del cinco de mayo"), a pro-
gression of interrelated actions ("La odisea de Madame
Theo") or climax (”Los amores del comets”). Some stories
show curious combinations of plots within a formless narra-
tion. The famous ”La novela del tranvia” achieves this feat
through a string of open-ended ruminations, two of which
develop into miniature plots with sketchy conflicts, climax
and resolutions. In taking Gutierrez Najera's original ar-
ticles from the newspapers, Professor Mapes faced a grada-
tion of stories beginning with a few which could comfortably
fit Poe's famous ”unity of effect or impression" dictum,1 to
others which were journalistic sketches that were, as Mapes
suggests, ”claramente narrativo' but given by the author the
form of a "cuento como un articulo”. The history of each
story's publication, which Mapes inserted with a footnote at
the beginning of each selection, substantiates the difficul-
ties he wrote of in the introduction. The author himself
gave enough variation to the titles to make it plain that he
did not conceive of his work as two opposing polarities of
objective and imaginative writing. The two were quite inter-
tionally fused by Gutierrez Najera, which again removes dis-
tinctions between art, mental processes and the outer world.

Among forty-eight of the "Cuentos" which are “stories

in the strict sense” nineteen were published at different

 

1. Edgar Allan Poe, "Review of Twice Told Tales”,

in Discussions 9; the Short S or , ed. by Hollis Summers
(Boston: D.C. Heath and Co., 1933): P. 2.

271
times by the author as cr6nicas which Mapes defined in
another place as "un comentario sobre acontecimientos del
dis 0 sobre cualesquiera otras materias de interés general,
cultivado conscientemente como una forma especial de prosa
artistica".1 This apparent contradiction between what a
cr6nica is by definition and what Gutierrez Najera made it
in practice vanishes once it is realized that the author's
concept of reality entails an idealism that refuses to make
compartmentalizations between the several functions of the
mind.

The explanation of how Guti‘rrez Najera relates art,
mind and immediate surroundings in his prose is facilitated
by the relative uniqueness of using contemporaries for ima-
gistic purposes, and the obvious fusing of journalistic and
fictional technique. This carries over into his poetry in
a way which is not so obvious, if the prose is not held up
as proof of the pattern which has emerged. Several of
Gutierrez Najera's poems were written or dedicated to
friends. At least ten mention a contemporary in the title
and thirty-eight are dedicated to friends. On the surface,
the writing of poetry about friends offers little novelty in
the history of literature. Closely comparing these poems
however, it becomes apparent that a pattern exists in which
his comments about his friends are related to their use in

the stories. Without being unfaithful to how a rigorously

 

l. E.K. Mapes,_”Introduccion” to Obras ineditas:
Cronicas g3 ”Puck", p. 5.

272

objective historian would present Diaz Miron, Justo Sierra,
Riva Palacio or Ignacio Altamirano, Gutierrez Najera des-
cribes them in a manner which makes it clear to the reader
that his friends are depicted through his own ideological
(framework. In the fiction the friend was usually related to
the overall piece through a parenthetical comment while in
the poems a contemporary becomes the principal object of an
artistic statement.

Starting from this basic approach of depicting con-
temporaries with the author's own individualistic colora-
tion, a series of portraits was created which attempted to
capture the essence of each person in a manner which re-
mained true to Gutierrez Najera's broader concept of what
constituted truth. Two of the earliest examples of this
procedure are the poems ”Sobre el sepulcro de Rafael Marti-
nez de la Torre” (1877) and ”En memoria de D. Anselmo de la
Portilla' (1879). The first of these poems, written on the
death of a prominent figure in the capital's cultural life,
was about a man with whom the young poet was not too well
acquainted. The resulting sixty lines betray a lack of in-
spiration in a style which is pompous and high flown. This
does not destroy the poem's significance, however. What in-
evitably occurs in such an instance is a poem more revealing
of the author's mind than the subject. Mention of the sub-
ject's accomplishments are sparse and vague ("noble corazon”
or "herencia de virtud y beneficios" Poesias I, p. 201),

while an obsessive concentration on death (”cuanto tu muerte

273
de dolor me inspira" Poesias I, p. 202) underscores a pre-
occupation and a strong skepticism about an afterlife, which
probably explains why the religious poems he was writing at
the time also have a hollow ring.
The other poem about Anselmo de la Portilla involves
a close acquaintance and consequently provides a more appro-
priate example of how Gutierrez Najera sought to make imme-
diate experience--in this case the person of Anselmo de la
Portilla--an integral part of his life and art. In fact,
part of the poem can be interpreted as a statement on the
subject of Gutierrez Najera's feeling of a mental tie to don
Anselmo:
Tus atomos entraron a la vida
del torbellino cosmico: ls idea
que albergo tu cerebro, fructifica
en todas las conciencias: se transforms,
y si perdiste la terrena forma
la muerte tu victoria centuplica.
(Poesias I, p. 215)
As an empirical sign Gutierrez Najera has elevated Anselmo
de la Portilla into a poetic symbol of universal idealism.
Although this is a generalized statement, in another part of
the poem he personalizes the intention when he writes "yo
miré...y yo le vi. . .' and follows each first person verb
with imagery of ideality (espiritu, soplo, lira, poeta,
Poesias I, p. 213). The deliberate combination of the uni-
versal and the personal in this poem was necessitated by the
facts of the subject's life. Anselmo de la Portilla was a

Spanish journalist who immigrated to Mexico and there exer-

ted considerable energy to reconciling differences between

274
the two countries. Gutierrez Néjera's willingness to defend
Spanish literature throughout his career was very possibly
influenced by his close friendship with the Spaniard during
his formative years. In consideration of the immediate
point however, Anselmo de la Portilla was not just a part of
Gutierrez Najera's personal experience but also a represen-
tative of another country and hence a symbol of universal-
ity:

Yo no sé si esa tumba es espsfiola
o si es una tumba mexicana.

(Poesias I, p. 215)
The examples of these first two early poems begin a
pattern which continues through the remaining poems whose
titles signify a contemporary. With one exception, all are
individuals closely related to Mexican art and literature.
Although actual statement of how the person exists within
the poet's consciousness may not conspicuously exist, as
happened in the poem to Anselmo de la Portilla, in one way
or another the idea is made manifest. In “A Salvador Diaz
Mir6n“ the connection is created with a juxtaposing of the
author's own poetic theory and a perfectly objective state-
ment on the nature of the subject's poetry:
Tienes en tu laud cuerdas de oro
que el saplo del espiritu estremece,
. . .El mar es como tfi: con su rfiido
de tus estrofas la cadencia iguala.
(Poesias II, p. 89)

The first two lines are an expression of the poet's theory

of artistic inspiration, while the lines taken from the last

275
strophe are an objective statement on the vigorous style of
Diaz Miron's early verse. Without entering into lengthy
explanations, a relating of the author's own literary theory
with the poem's subject is Gutierrez Najera's most usual
method of relating contemporary artists to himself. The
subjects do not, of necessity, have to be a writer however.
In the poem ”A Virginia Reiter' for example, attributes nor-
mally given to writers are extended to an actress: '. . .tu
voz es una lira” (Poesias II, p. 215). The Aeolian lyre, it
will be remembered, was Gutierrez Najera's symbol for poetic
inspiration. In “De mago es tu pincel” the title itself
signifies that Arturo Inchaurregui's paintings possess the
same magical power of epiphany that good literature should
have according to the literary theory examined above. The
most elaborate exposition of a personal theory of art re-
lated to a contemporary is contained in ”A Justo Sierra".
Justo Sierra, who is primarily known as a positivist, later
responded to Gutierrez Najera's statement on idealism in art
theory expressing a basic agreement.

La forma de las obras realistas es la que ha
influido sobre nosotros, no la tendencia, e1 espiritu
no, . . .No hemos logrado nunca hacer poesia puramente
objetiva en cada uno de nuestros versos vaciamos todo
sentimiento, toda nuestra personalidad, no hemos hecho
mas que poesia subjetiva.1

Although some aspect of literary theory is the usual

nexus between poet and contemporary, there are noteworthy

exceptions. The poem ”A Benjamin Bolafios' was occasioned by

 

l. Justo Sierra, 'Pr6logo" to Manuel Gutierrez
Najera, Poesias com letas, I, p. 12-3.

276
the death of Bolafios' son and addresses itself to that event.
In "A Riva Palacio" as much interest is expressed in Riva
Palacio as a politician and a general as the fact that he
was a novelist.

In one notable instance--”A Altamirano'--all pre-
tense of direct poetic statement is put aside simply to re-
cord the effect Altamirano's poems and novels have produced
in the writer's mind:

Los Naranjos estan tristes,

y las Amapolas secas:
en el aire no retozan
bulliciosas las Abejas.
En el monte no hay lumbradas
de festiva Noche Buena,
y mirando a1 horizonte
pensativa esta Clemencia
LPor que todo esta tan triste?

LQuién nos deja?
Atoyac de zarcss ondas
que entre quijas serpenteas,
apor qué pasas, por qué huyes

y te quejas?

(Poesias II, p. 217)

The inclusion of titles of literary works in "A
Altamirano” is a symbolization process which has received
several explanations up to this point. Writers and their
works have been examined as symbols of value and as a means
of consciousness extension in space and time. Here an
attempt is made to absorb as much as possible of the authors
native country in the person of Altamirano for artistic pur-
poses. This by no means negates other symbolic meanings
which, in fact, are clearly present. Altamirano is no less
a symbol of idealization than Shakespeare.

Discussion of Gutierrez Najera's employment of the

277

external world in his art thus far has dealt with people
whether in the form of society, social events, women, chil-
dren, or contemporary artists. It has been noted how the
author never allowed himself to depart from an idealistic
interpretation of whatever he discussed. Any statement on
the human condition or social predicament is always integral
to a technique or actual statement which makes clear indica-
tion of the material's origin in mental refractions and
spiritual realities. This, beyond question, is the most
distinctive feature of Gutierrez Najera's use of his imme-
diate world. A dependence on the psychological process as
the only true means for perceiving the world was described
several times in his criticism and repeated statements are
made in the poems and stories to that effect. In a cronies
Gutierrez Najera invoked use of the unconscious for artistic
purposes when he wrote:

el valor positivo de ciertos fenomenos de sugestion

mental o aparente, lo que llaman los sabios 'fantasia

complementaria'. Los testigos de un hecho dado, al

referirlo, lo transfiguran involuntariamente embelle-

ciéndolo.

(Cr6nicas gg_”Puck”, p. 88)

 

In another passage he wrote that a writer should follow “e1
vuelo libre y espontsneo de su imaginacidn” (Critics, p.
112). Again, he spoke in general terms saying that beauty
itself was feeling not rationality: "lo bello no se define,
se siente" (Critica, p. 55). The effect of giving such im-
portance to sensory perception affects Gutierrez Najera's

utilization of his external surroundings significantly, the

278
most obvious being the inclusion of objects for their sug-
gestive or evocative potentiality rather than purely mimetic
functions. Underlying the inclusion of objects for evocathe
purposes there is frequently an accompanying presence of
fantasy or dream. In some instances the dream world itself
predominates and, since its use is so basic, these passages
will be examined first.

To begin with, it should be established that the
word "dream” has at least two different significances for
the author. On the one hand, a dream is an unreachable
ideal state closely identifiable with other terms like art,
love, beauty and illusion which constitute the normative
goal Gutierrez Néjera always struggled to reach. In this
significance a dream is part of a system of ethereal values
examined in a previous chapter. At the same time, dreams
are a day to day experience which are an integral part of
the author's physical body and material surroundings. With-
in an idealistic interpretation of the world the two, dream
and material world, become fused:

aSera verdad o suefio? Nada importa

Pero, arecuerdo 3610 lo que he vista,
0 recuerdo tambien lo que he sofiado?

(Poesias I, pp. 253-4)
In the story entitled “La cucarachs” dream and reality were
related in the following terms:

No as si lo que voy a referir es un hecho real, o si

e1 cafe, cuya rica esencia habia tomado, lo dibuj6 en
el cristal de mi imaginacidn. La distancia que separa
un suceso de un suefio es insignificante: la diferencia
estriba finicamente en que el suceso puede verse a todas

279

horas y el suefio se percibe nada mas en medio de las
sombras y con los ojos cerrados.

(Cuentos, p. 331)
To generalize, the second meaning of "suefio" is a thought
process equivalent to idea, vision or sensory apparatus, or
part of a statement on what reality is as opposed to what
constitutes value.

Dreams, considered in the second instance as a fact
of existence, are not necessarily pleasant: in fact, they
are a confrontation with unpleasant realities: '. . .Los
mares de la idea/ tienen tambien sus rudas tempestades"
(Poesias II, p. 143), or more specifically:

A veces e1 espiritu pasea
por limbos tan oscuros y escondidos,
que sufre, como todos los sentidos,
una total paralisis 1a idea.
aPuede e1 alma del cuerpo desprenderse?
aQue remotos paises visitamos,
sin que pueda la carne ni moverse?
aEn que pensamos cuando no pensamos?
(Poesias I, p. 255)
At least four poems (“Noche de San Silvestre", ”Jugar con
la ceniza", "Tristissima Nox', “Las almas huérfanas') stand
out as an attempt to sound out the mysterious inner world
which Torres Bodet saw in Gutierrez Najera as a “soplo cos-
mico. . .SOplO de un mundo ocultoEyJ. . .lirica de 1a
1
noche“. Chronologically, the four poems are more or less
evenly spread through his writing career. The first, pub-

lished in 1879, begins a pattern in which the poet, as he

 

1. Jaime Torres Bodet, Obras esco idas (Mexico:
Fondo de Cultura Economics, 19W , p. 756.

 

 

280
sleeps, becomes alive to another world of phantoms whose
presence may or may not be welcome: ”la fantasma del mal que
no concluye" or “el amor que viene, pasa y huye“ (Poesias I,
p. 227).

In the second poem, "Jugar con la ceniza” (1881),
dreams are specifically tied to other preoccupations such as
memory, time and the infusion of life with a vitality of
feeling:

Si selo porque pienso se que existo,
recordando demuestro lo pasado... ~
Pero, Lrecuerdo 3610 lo que he visto,
o recuerdo tambien lo que he sofiado?
(Poesias I, p. 254)
There is no intention here to deny an independent external
world: however, the mind alone has the capability of signal-
ing its presence which exists in a time continuum where the
past is part of the present and both are influenced by
dreams. If the temptation should exist to consider
Gutierrez Nejera's inward projections as a form of Freudian
unconsciousness, the above quote indicates that he was much
nearer to Bergson's flux than the psychologist's static
definition. Gutierrez Nejera's interest in dreams is a
quest for a vitalism in which the poet goes inside himself
to keep alive worthy moments of the past. Following the
above quote the poet tries to remember a past love:
Era preciso hablarla, sin embargo:
mas, entre un 0 lg guiero y un mg, uieres,
abri largo parentesis, tan largo,
que hasta pude pensar en diez mujeres.

Y mientras ella con audacia loca
hablaba sin reparo ni tropiezo,

281

yo pude nada mes abrir la boca
para trazar el arco de un bostezo.

(Poesias I, p. 255)

His inability to remember brings up the inevitable question
of death and the limits of human existence ('aSe hace en el
espiritu el vacio?” Poesias I, p. 255) and inevitably con-
cludes that death is not just a physical breakdown but an
”hermana gemela de la vida” (Poesias I, p. 258). Thus the
dream is revealed in its double nature as a source of happi-
ness and a glimpse into the harsh reality of existence.

"Tristissima Nox” (1884), the third poem chronolo-
gically, is the most protracted statement on dreams. Dream
in this poem is both life and death:

es la muerte aparente de los seres,
es la vida profunda de las cosas.

(Poesias II, p. 36)
The principal addition to this poem is the relation of
dream to a world of magic, the ”diebolica bruja, e1 egil
duende" (Poesias II, p. 36). The air is filled with ”gritos
estridentes”, 'trote de caballos invisibles“, ”plegarias,
maldiciones y sollozos”, ”e1 grito agudo/ de las aves nic-
telopes" (Poesias II, p. 36). The author's indebtedness to
the Romanticists is obvious but at the same time the myster-
ious element moves in a giant stride toward the vanguard
movements of the twentieth century. Passages like the
following, for example, are close approximations to surreal-
ism and expressionism:

trazan, a veces, los traviesos duendes
grotesca historia, lances inconexos,

282

figuras que parecen retratadas
en espejos convexos.

(Poesias II, p. 41)

The same world of magic is present in the dream at-
mosphere of "Las almas huerfanas”. As in the other poems,
Gutierrez Nejera does not use dreams as mere decoration but
as an instrument of self knowledge which finally becomes an
attempt to fathom the riddle of existence. The poet calls
the night ”la sombra infinita de mi alma” (Poesias II,

p. 153). The nocturnal world is populated with strange
faces, voices and places. Memories intrude to torment the
sleeper with thoughts of a happy and secure past. The phy-
sical comfort of childhood is associated with a simple be-
lieving faith in God which, in retrospect, seems like a
dream itself: ”Sere suefio? aFue cierto. . .” (Poesias I,

p. 154). The past is juxtaposed with the present dream in
which a horde of strange beings appear. These are the or-
phaned souls who, like the author, have lost their god. In
this way the transition is made from the personal to the
universal. Each disinherited soul is, like the author, a
”parte doliente del Todo” (Poesias II, p. 156) whom God has
abandoned.

The story entitled ”E1 suefio de Magda” resembles the
dream world of the poems and also illustrates how a dream is
not just a pleasant experience but often plunges into night-
marish spheres of uncertainty. Briefly, the piece recounts
Magda's dream of a storm which inundated the world. She

climbed away from the rising waters until safe on the

283
uppermost stone cross of a church. At this point the waters
receded and the earth far below suddenly resumed its normal
activity with people hurrying to and fro. Magda's screams
for assistance went unheard and finally she lost strength,
fell, and was impaled on a lower spire of the church. With-
out belaboring the point, the story follows the same path of
cosmic isolation and abandonment by God (alone on the cross,
impalement on a church spire) as in the poems. The dream
becomes an instant and personal apprehension of a world
which is meaningless and punitive.

In “El suefio de Magda" and the four poems, dreams,
given a general symbolic designation, stand as tools avail-
able for the author to experience universal realities. In
each case dream is specifically alluded to, which contrasts
to his overall work where dreamlike perception is Gutierrez
Nejera's common mode of perception. A tree is never just a
tree with specific measurements and colors: it also reflects
a physical environment in continual flux, such as changing
light, shading and movement. Its true reality is also de-
termined by the author's emotional frame which projects onto
the tree a suggested meaning which in the end is as_insep-
arable from the tree as the changing light reflections. The
total effect is a world which is not unlike what is seen in
dreams. One conspicuous manifestation of this mode of per-
ception is created through a specific use of the narrator.

A discussion of how this process is effected would

extend to the entire collection of poems, since their

284
predominantly lyrical orientation presupposes flights of
fantasy. Notwithstanding the subjectivity of the poems,
however, the best illustrations of how the narrator relates
the outer world to the inner are contained in various
stories which detail the mechanism of how the two fuse.

The story, written as an article ”Ls vida en
Mexico“, and given the title “La cucaracha” by E.K. Mapes in
the Cuentos is an exemplary model. In fact, the first para-
graph is an explanation of the overlapping between dreams
and actual events: ”La diferencia estriba finicamente en que
el suceso puede verse a todas horas y el suefio se percibe
nada mes en medio de las sombras y con los ojos cerrados”
(Cuentos, p. 331). Then follows a prefatory statement in
which the narrator tells the circumstances of his life as he
prepares to recount the story. In this case the narrator
walks through the city streets after everything is closed
except the billiard halls. Although mimesis dominates the
depiction with fantasy in abeyance for the moment, the indi-
vidualistic imagery keeps the street from existing as an
object apart from the author's mind. For example:

. . .cuando la luz electrics se spaga, es elEaspecto
de la calleJde un ataud negro y sin caps. . .El rumor
de los pasos crece en fuerza, como si algunos duendes
fueron remando a los transefintes, por debajo de la
acera. . .Parece que estén ciega la luz y muertos los
sonidos, o que, entretanto reinan las tinieblas, la
vida, como el sol, se ha ido a otra parte.
(Cuentos, p. 331)
After five paragraphs of description and chatty bantering

with the readers about the nature of the story, the narrator

285

begins. After the walk, he arrived home and promptly went
to bed and, upon reclining, felt the disagreeable movement
of a cockroach upon his back. He jumped from the bed, lit
a candle, and removed the insect with a walking cane. From
this point fantasy takes over as the cockroach furiously
attacks the narrator who tries to kill the intruder. The
following sentences mark the beginning of a transition from
common occurrence to supernatural as the bug shows unusual
resilience:

Habia que exterminarlo o perecer en el combate: defen-

diase con brios inusitados, girando slrededor de mi

cabeza y queriendo por fuerza entrarse adentro de mi

boca. Una vez llegue a sentir e1 aspero contacto de
sus alas en el sensible cutis de mis labios.

(Cuentos, p. 333)
Several window panes and delicate pieces of furniture were
broken before the narrator subdued the cockroach. Infuria-
ted, the narrator collected the agonizing bug between a fire
tong and held him over the burning hearth. The cockroach
only partially burns and to the narrator's astonishment, its
eyes metamorphose into a man (”un perfecto caballero, con
corbats, reloj y todo” Cuentos, p. 334) more polite than an
English diplomat.
The tone changes from nightmarish to one of levity
as the gentleman excuses himself:
-Tenga Ud. 1a bondad de no alarmarse. . . .
-Hombre, sobre todo, eso de haberse metido en mi cama..:
-Mil perdones: estaba cansadisimo.

(21165223. p. 334)

The newly formed man explains his magic process of

286
transformation from cockroach and in no time convinces the
narrator to undergo the same metamorphosis and tour the city
as a cockroach. The tour lasts two days and occupies as
much space in the story as the introduction, which gives the
metamorphosis a foremost significance in the story.

This, to Gutierrez Najera, is a "realism“ truer than
the cOpious description of a Naturalist. His first para-
graph assertion that the distance between dream and event is
insignificant effectively substantiates his intention that
the supernatural be given the category of reality. A closer
examination of different components of the story illustrates
the nearness of the story's execution to the initial idea.
The first pages intentionally contrast objective description
with the reality of fantasy. As the narrator recalls the
city at night an objective description, excepting a few
images, is employed:

Ya casi todos los cafes habian cerrado sus puertas.
Nada mes los billares permanecian iluminados, siendo
como son el filtimo refugio de trasnochados y noctem-
bulos. -En la Concordia, algunos mozos regaban y
barrian el suelo, mientras contaban otros las propinas
de la noche: arriba, en dos cerrados gabinetes,
brillaba afin. . . etc., etc., etc.
(Egggggg, p. 331)
The description continues until the narrator feels he is
boring the reader with enumeration of detail and begins to
excuse himself: ”E1 preambulo sirve finicamente para dis-
poner e1 enimo de mis lectores a la audicien de lo mara-

villoso” (Cuentos, p. 332). The excuse, in effect, unites

the objectively presented introduction to the fantasy of

287
metamorphosis which gives more weight to the first para-
graph's thesis of not completely separating dream from
common event. As if to further tie the objective introduc-
tion to fantasy he concludes the excuse with the following
admonition: "Por lo demes, quien crea en conciencia que es
infitil, puede hacer lo que yo: no volver a leerlo” (Cuentos,
p. 332).

Within the description of the metamorphosis itself
there are additional indications that a supernatural occur-
rence is not a divorce from "reality”.‘ The two, gentleman
and narrator, discuss why a cockroach presents the most
ideal animal for reincarnation. Through the gentleman's
explanation Gutierrez Nejera is able to illustrate how dream
fantasy constitutes the reality of emotive responses to what
exists externally to an individual. The gentleman's search
for the inner world of fantasy began with a common trauma of
human experience, he lost his employment: 'Estuve empleado
en varias oficinas, pero a1 caer D. Sebastien quede cesan-
te. . .” (Cuentos, p. 334). The reason he chose to be a
cockroach then, is a choice made because he felt that life
had limited him to this inferior position. The gentleman,
to himself, was a cockroach because, unemployed, he did not
possess money to become something exotic: "un mago pobre
tiene que conformarse con su suerte“ (Cuentos, pp. 334-5).
The narrator soon extends his identity as cockroach to in-
clude a whole class which lives a cockroach condition.

Referring to himself as cockroach, the verb number changes

288

to first person plural: "no nos viste Sarre, ni nos perfuma
Micole" (Cuentos, pp. 335-6). The tailor and the barber-
shop, like don Sebastian (former president of Mexico), are a
few of several actual names and places which keep the idea
current with the reader that the fantasy is an internal res-
ponse to the external world. A class of people considered
as cockroaches is described in another passage which men-
tions what must be an actual place: ”Hay cucarachas aprecia-
bilisimas como hay pensionistas del Erario, mes honradas,
inteligentes y virtuosas que las damitas de la aristocracia”
(Cuentos, p. 336).

When Duque Job undergoes the change to cockroach,
he modestly limits his self pity to keep his social identi-
ty: ”. . .tenia la conciencia de que mi yg permanecia inmu-
table y de que era siempre el Duque Job. . .“ (Cuentos, p.
337), but shows how Mexico City must appear to a cockroach
class:

. . .el cafe terrible de Baremetro, y ni sun trasfor-
mado en cucaracha se puede entrar. . .

(ggsgzgg. p. 336)

el temor, muy racional, de que acabasen con nosotros
a porraZOSe e e

(Cuentos, pp. 336-7)

Estos desconocidos animales, cuya existencia ni si-
quiera sospechabamos. . .

(Cuentos, p. 337)

{Y que penosa fue mi compuncien, cuando pasando por
encima de PalacioENacionalJ, vi centenares de bac-
terias muertas:

(Cuentos, p. 337)

289

These comments show a way of artistically portraying imme-
diate experience and also underline how far astray some
critics like Juan Marinello go in calling the Modernists
insensitive.1

The use of ”suefio“ in the first paragraph obviously
is an extension of meaning from the sleeping dream since the
narrator does not actually fall asleep. Dream is expanded
from a subliminal state to a conscious mode of perception.
Using the pattern of how this perception is effected in ”La
cucaracha“ as external evidence, several other stories stand
out as similar examples. In ”La odisea de Madame Theo”
Gutierrez Nejera claims that the French actress Louise Theo
came to Mexico via limbo, heaven and the star Venus, rather
than on a steamer and train. This piece has already been I
examined as symbolic of value through idealization and
equally serves as a symbolic manifestation of a manner of
recording reality. After hearing Madame Theo sing Gutierrez
Nejera felt it was an error of fact to say she arrived on a
boat and the story becomes the author's emotive definition
of how she arrived. The piece, by its pleasantness, is a
total contrast in tone with ”La cucaracha" but the reality

is the same. This is underlined in the last sentence when

 

l. Apparently the French decadents and Symbol-
ists have to undergo the same exoneration from time to
time as evidenced by the article of Pierre Aubery (”The
Anarchism of the Literati of the S bolist Period, "222
French Review, XLII (October, 1968 , 39-47.) which
enumerates points of contact between Symbolists and
Anarchists in matters of social protest.

290
Gutierrez Nejera states: ”Los biegrsfos diren que no es asi:
pero los biegrafos sesudos se equivocan” (Cuentos, p. 186).

Although the stories about the cockroach and Louise
Theo are excellent illustrations of the mechanism for artis-
tically employing an object of external stimuli to record an
ultimate inner reaction, the most recurrent category of
signs employed as stimuli are not animate objects but inani-
mate ones. The stories ”Los amores del comets", 'Historia
de un domine”, ”Memorias de un paraguas”, "Historia de un
peso falso", "E1 vestido blanco', ”La moneda de niquel',
'Historia de un peso bueno”, and ”Las botitas de Afio Nuevo"
each present an example of the author selecting a relatively
insignificant object at hand and allowing it through sugges-
tion to stimulate the faculties of the writer's mind until
a story is completed.

Among the stories mentioned above ”Los amores del
comets" is the most extreme in use of fantasy. An object is
chosen--here a comet--which in itself may be of slight im-
portance, but is then made to serve as a central symbol in
the author's typical metaphoric statement of what at the
moment of writing he perceives the world to be. Part of the
statement is a reiteration of matters already touched on in
previous chapters. The comet is an ethereal aesthetic as
well as spatial and temporal symbol. It is made of gold wiul
crystal points, comes from 'inmensas profundidades del espa-
cio' (Cuentos, p. 161) and, although a specific relation to

time is absent, the implication existed that the comet is

291
without temporal origin. The story is also a record of
immediate experience.) As the narrator observes the comet
and describes its assumed characteristics, he contrapuntally
talks about himself and the society around him. The first
reports of himself and his contemporaries vis-a-vis the
comet are conscious attempts to entertain: the ridiculous
figure the author cuts, waiting in robe for a comet at 4:30
a.m. (”. . .como aguarda un celoso al amante de su mujer,
para darle, a1 pasar, las buenas noches" Cuentos, p. 163):
the possibility of what would happen if the comet should
slam into the earth (”e1 tenor Prats llegaria a la luna en
cuatro minutos” Cuentos, p. 163): or if the comet's tail
should fall into the earth's atmosphere and suck out the
oxygen everyone would first experience the heavy feeling of
eating in Mexico City's Recamier restaurant, then nervous
stimulation and rapid blood circulation would cause laughter
(”. . .nos moririamos a carcajadas! Servin abrazaria a
Joaquin Moreno, y Garcia de la Cadena a1 general Arechiga”
Cuentos, p. 164).

Although the story exists without a time continuum
or series of related actions building toward a climax, there
is a progressive intensification of emotional tenseness.

The author waiting in a robe is merely humorous, as is the
mention of a local restaurant: then the entrance of partisan
strife in national events begins to give the humor a heavier
tone. Finally, humor is dropped altogether in a final

bitter statement on poverty with an ironic invitation to

292
festivity: "Cuando estes en un baile, no pienses nunca en la
diana del albs. . .La espuma brilla, y hay mucha luz en los
espejos, en los diamantes y en los ojos” (Cuentos, p. 164).
The sentences after this exhortation are too stark for
Gutierrez Nejera to intend any interpretation other than an
ironic one: 'Afuera sopla un viento frio que rasga las des-
nudas carnes de esas pobres gentes que han pasado la noche
mendigando y vuelven a sus casas sin un solo mendrugo de
pan negro” (Cuentos, p. 164). Appropriately, the narrator
changes focus to the comet in the story's last paragraph to
end in a highly poeticized description of dawn. In this way
Gutierrez Nejera has made the comet take on a multiplicity
of significances and prominent among them is a disillusioned
reflection of his own assessment of the society in which he
moved.

In ”Historia de un domine“ a domino serves to meta-
phorically describe the fall of a prostitute. This piece is
another example of the overlapping of topical interests with
the Naturalists, the difference existing largely in the
Modernists' idealistic way of viewing what happens. Neither
the prostitute nor the domino exist independently of each
other, both becoming a fused entity in the narrator's mind.
The major correlation between the two is their similar tra-
jectory from the top to the bottom of the social scale. The
domino, when new, begins its existence in the most elegant
barbershop as does the young prostitute in a fashionable

bordello. Both are soon in the hands of more common men and

293

finally end in the dirtiest taverns and cafes. The idea
that the two are inseparable is intensified by relating the
details of the domino's fall and speaking of the prostitute
only tangentially in the first and last paragraphs, both of
which begin: "iPobre mujer! Tu suerte es parecida a la de
aquellos domines. . .(Cuentos, pp. 187, 188). ”Memorias de
un paraguas” similarly involves an object which has fallen
into disuse like the domino and is used suggestively to say
something more important than what its actual inanimate
history would offer. Obviously a mouthpiece for Gutierrez
Nejera's own thoughts, the umbrella speaks of the falsity
of arbitrary class distinctions, gives a satirical lecture
on Mexican journalism, discusses the theatre and recounts
an attempt by the owner to flirt with a young lady, using
the umbrella in a rainstorm as an excuse for joining her.

Most of these stories, like "Memorias de un paragu-
as”, are combinations of light humor and bitter pessimism
over human misery and social inequities. Essentially, this
is an oscillation between the poles of spiritualism and ma-
terialism. Occasionally one concern or the other will domi-
nate in a single story. "La moneda de niquel” exemplifies
a preponderance of interest on fighting materialism. The
story's inspiration derives from a historical fact. In 1883
Porfirio Diaz' proxy government headed by Manuel Gonzelez

attempted to alleviate the national debt by issuing a nickel

 

1f"

294

coinage whose value dropped disastrously.1 Gutierrez Ne-
jera, it may be assumed, suffered some loss or at least
strongly sympathized with those who did. His history of a
nickel coin becomes a history of the event from the author's
reaction. Ironically, he says the nickel coin is decent
because it originated in the National Chamber of Deputies
where it rubbed elbows with Carbajal and Pancho Bulnes.
Francisco Bulnes in particular was the positivist economist
for whom Gutierrez Nejera held nothing but contempt. When
the coin is related to foreign entrepreneurs irony is
dropped and the sarcasm is open: ”. . .los indios y asnos
que representan e1 Banco de Londres. . ." (Cuentos, p. 323).
Blunt annoyance is not reserved just for foreigners however:
'. . .D. Pedro Romero de Terreros es voluble como la plums
en el viento. . .' (Cuentos, p. 323). Opposite the moneyed
class are those who usually are in possession of the nickel
coin, those with 'bolsillos rotos', ”camas sin colchones',
and ”todos los nombres bajos y plebeyos” (Cuentos, p. 325).
In short, the coin's history underscores how tenuous was
Gutierrez Nejera's affection for the political governance of
the period and also provides an example of his artistic
method for visualizing the epoch.

”E1 vestido blanco' shows an overwhelming interest

in the opposite direction from materialism toward

 

1. Wilfrid Hardy Callcott, Liberalism in Mexico,
p. 1130

295
spiritualism. This story introduces a new category of sign
used for idealistic perception, that of color. Use of color
has already been cited in the chapter on value where it was
pointed out that certain colors are employed with enough
consistency of meaning to warrant giving them a fixed sym-
bolic interpretation. Blue and white represented spiritual
norms and black and yellow were materialistic. It is not in
a fixed symbolic meaning that the colors are best accounted
for however, but in a mode of sensory perception which in
essence ”es la expresien de un estado de enimo, de una acti-
tud besica.'1 Even in those cases where color meaning is
without variance, e.g., blue, Gutierrez Nejera was emphatic
in asserting that the significance derived from a personal
mental association. White, whose symbolic function is com-
monly spiritual, is occasionally used to signal the presence
of death, as in ”De mis versos viejos':

Blancura sin sangre, blancura nevada,
de estatua yacente blancura callada,

(Poesias II, p. 53)
But, even in its most consistent meaning of purified ideal-
ity, Gutierrez Nejera stated within the text of a story that
suggestion provided the meaning:
LVerdad que el vestido blanco es sugestivo? Ser
novia... ser mame... pedir de veras a la Virgen...

saber lo que es la vida... sYa el traje blanco se
vistie de luto!

(Cuentos, p. 245)

 

1. Ivan A. Schulman,Genesis del modernismo
(Mexico: E1 Colegio de Mexico and Washington University
Press, 1966), p. 151.

296

Within this function color stands integrally beside the
numerous objects--coins, umbrellas, cockroach, etc.--which
suggestively mirror and reflect much broader realities. To
paraphrase Schulman, color is an "estado animico” which
becomes in the final analysis a philosophy of life.1

Critics, in attempting to explain Gutierrez Nejera's
employment of color, have traditionally presented its use as
an eclectic joining of literary influences, principally Par-
nassian and Symbolist. Without necessarily being inaccu-
rate, this explanation has led to blurry if not inaccurate
conclusions. The principal difficulty seems to lie in de-
ciding exactly what constitutes Parnassianism and Symbolism.
The manuals of literature agree that the Parnassians were
interested in plasticity and, hence, color. Gutierrez Ne-
jera himself, as noted in his theory of literature, gave
ample evidence of his appreciation of their efforts in this
respect. Two different studies have attributed Gutierrez
Nejera's color predilection to Parnassian inspiration.
Schulman, in the study quoted above, lists Gautier, Francois
Coppee, Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine as possible lines
of influence. The first two can in fact be considered Par-

nassians without stretching the point. Yet, at the same

 

 

1. Schulman, Genesis del modernismo, p. 151.
2. Schulman, Genesis del modernismo, pp. 139-52:

 

and D. M. Kress, ”The Weight— of French Parnassian
Influence in the Modernists Poetry of Manuel Gutierrez
Najera“ , Revue de Litterature Comparee, XVII (1937),

555- 71.

 

 

297
time he mentions Gautier, Schulman also acknowledges that
the Mexican is far removed from Gautier's ”impasibilidad'.l
Although Schulman does not elaborate, the same would apply
to Coppee as evidenced in a Gutierrez Nejera adaptation
from Coppee (”Versos de oro“) where strong emotional tone
and subjective imagery dominate. With Baudelaire the ques-
tion is very much open as to whether he was a Parnassian, a
Symbolist, or a one man school. Baudelaire himself claimed
to be a Romantic. At one point Schulman notes that “El afio
de 1882 es significativo en la poetics najeriana porque
marca su iniciacien definitive en la tecnica crometica par-
nasiana."2 Although the article does not document why 1882
is important, a markedly new manner of entitling articles
with color imagery begins in that year. Typical of the
articles published in 1882 are Crenicas gglgg,92,gg§a, Qgée
nig§§_gglg§,gg hump, Crenicas gglggpggiggbig, Crenicas 9212;
Q; lluvia, Crenicas 9219;,93 Roederer, Crenicas 2219; g3
EEBEL.L§.Q£2££3 Crenicas 9319; g; sangge, ”Crenics color de
Pelvora”, "Crenica color de... Que?', Crenicas gglgg_gg,g§g.
Other colors are: de Libra Esterlina, de Otofio, de Tivoli de

Asilo, de Tints, de Muertos, de Caracol, de Aguila, de
Orrin, de Venus and finally, Qrenicas color g; Theo.3 This

 

l. Schulman, Genesis del modernismo, p. 144.
2. Ibid. _
3. E. K. Mapes, ”Manuel Gutierrez Nejera:

seudenimos y bibliografia periodistica', La Revista His-
penica Moderna, XIX (enero-dic., 1953). 13547.

298
display of color synaesthesia to some critics would not con-
stitute a Parnassian character but a Symbolist fusion of
abstract and concrete qualities.

D. M. Kress, like Schulman, attributes Parnassian
traits to Gutierrez Nejera, then neutralizes the value of
his observations with qualifications: ”As we have seen, he
EGutierrez Nejeral was not ignorant of the doctrine of im-
passivity” but found "such suppression of his personal emo-
tions impossible”.2 On the other hand, he attributes char-
acteristics which are predominantly Symbolist to Parnassian
inspiration. The fusion of arts, which includes color
through painting, he found to derive from the ”Baudelairian
wing of the Parnassian movement”.3 This is accurate enough:
however, Baudelaire is not considered typically Parnassian
for developing this trait as much as Symbolist.

Everything seems to point in the direction of an
affinity to Symbolism. The use of synaesthesia resembles
the formula of Baudelaire's "Correspondences" or Rimbaud's
poem 'Vayelles”. Also Verlaine's "Art poetique” where he
writes ”Car nous voulons la nuance encore,/ Pas la Couleur,

rien que la nuance” is relevant.“ Caution should be

 

1. Anna Balakian, The Symbolist Movement (New
York: Random House, 1967), p. 104.

2. D.M. Kress, ”The Weight of French Parnassian
Influence in the Modernists Poetry of Manuel Gutierrez
Nejera', p. 558.

3. Ibid., p. 563.
4. Paul Verlaine, Oeuvres Poetiques Completes

 

(Paris: Gallimard, 1962), p. 327.

299
exercised however, since it is not certain that Gutierrez
Nejera ever knew of Rimbaud or the specific writings of
Baudelaire and Verlaine. There is also a danger in conced-
ing too much to French influence alone. Boyd Carter has
detailed several plausible sources in Mexican literature.l
Lastly, there is a possibility of explaining away the actual
nature of artistic creation with an excessive concern for
lines of influence. As shown in the first chapter Gutierrez
Nejera had well developed ideas of his own concerning what
art was and should be. Given the idealistic frame elabo-
rated in “E1 arte y el materialismo” and the impressionistic
direction it took, it would be a completely logical develop-
ment that the author should, on his own, acquire a prefer-
ence for color nuances and symbolic meaning through psycho-
logical correspondences.

What characterizes Gutierrez Nejera's employment of
color is an application of his own personally derived philo-
sOphy which, like his literary theory, generally shared cer-
tain Parnassian predilections but more resembles Symbolism
and Impressionism or, to use the correct term, pan-impres-
sionism.2 Pan-impressionism (a combination of Symbolism,

Impressionism and decadence) by its inclusiveness, avoids

 

l. Boyd G. Carter, ”Gutierrez Nejera y Marti
como Iniciadores del Modernismo”, Revista Iberoameri-
cana, XXVIII (julio-diciembre, 1962), 299, 302.

2. Wylie Sypher, Rococo 32 Cubism in_Art and
Literature, Vintage Books (New York: Random House,
1960), p. 190.

300
narrow distinctions which in the case of Gutierrez Nejera
would be inappropriate.

Questions of influence aside, much of Gutierrez
Nejera's chromatic language parallels certain effects sought
by Impressionist painters. Speaking generally of the Im-
pressionist movement, Wylie Sypher writes that it sought ”to
transvalue sensation to perception" which resulted in ”a new

1
sense of atmosphere”. This is the basic denominator of
Gutierrez Nejera's intuitive art. The Larousse Encyclopedia
Q£_Modern Art explains further that the Impressionists in a
quest for tactile values
turned to attempting the impossible--to capture that
which was fugitive, fluid, impalpable and moving. . . .
They preferred moments of transformation, vapour rising
in the warm glow of the setting sun, or the freezing of
the water in midwinter: and they always enjoyed paint-
ing mists. . . .The reality of the Impressionists was a
solutionzof liquid and of light in which everything was
plunged.
In reference to color, the above quote explains the princi-
pal manifestation of the theory. Color is affected by
light, especially the fleeting, changing light, and many ob-
jects which reflect changing light--clouds, mist, waves--are
important as reflectors of color and light. Images abound

throughout Gutierrez Nejera's writing with functions primar-

ily intended to serve this fundamental Impressionist tenet.

 

l. Wylie Sypher, Rococo 32 Cubism, p. 171.
2. Michel Florisoone, ”Impressionism and

Symbolism", in Larousse Encyclopedia 9; Modern Art, ed.
by Rene Huyghe (New York: Prometheus Press, 1965),
p. 178.

301

The following quotes are arranged chronologically to illus-

trate how evenly this specific light imagery prevailed

through the course of his writing career:

1875:

1877:

1880:

1882:

1884:

1887:

1890:

1895:

la blanca luna

riela en la onda azulada

de la laguna,

(Poesias I, p. 82)
. . .yo miraba a la esplendida luz del
medio dia....rsrisimas flores, rodeadas por
un hilo luminoso. . .

(Cuentos, pp. 12-3)
. . .mientras tibia la luz se aleja.

(Poesias I, p. 289)

. . .la franja de oro que precede el sol
aparecie en los horizontes. . .

(9222325; Po 118)
. . .la luz, entrando brusca por las puertas
emparejadas del balcen, fue a retratarla en
el espejo. . .

(QEEEEQE: Po 210)

Morir cuando la luz, triste, retira sus

afireas redes de la onda verde,

(m II. p. 188)
. . .una gran mats de cabellos rubios,
flotando en las tinieblas de la noche como
sobre las ondas de un mar negro.
(W. p- 410)
{Ola azul, de luceros salpicada!

(Poesias II, p. 259)

Closely related to a fondness for atmospheric ef-

fect, Gutierrez Nejera developed a special affinity for the

color white.

Schulman, with an exaggeration that

302

nevertheless seems true, noted that "Casi no hay estrofa en
que no se mencione e1 color blanco."l Although the desire
to create atmosphere does not fully account for the employ-
ment of white, several passages reveal its use to create an
ambiance of misty whiteness:

. . .1a blanca aurora que el horizante bafia

(Poesias I, p. 105)
aQue bells se mira mi blanca casita

a orillas de un lago de limpido azul!

Parece paloma que oculta dormita

en nido amoroso de gasas y tul.

(Poesias I, p. 138)

De blancas palomas el aire se puebla:’
con tenica blanca, tejida de niebla

(M II. p. 167)
Many other colors are used for an instantaneous arrest of
light in motion. Particularly striking are the combinations
of colors captured in a multiplicity of nuances with a com-
plex fusion:
Tifie de azul y rosa
temblando e1 alba
los vidrios de colores
de tu ventana.

(M I: P0 85)

mirando deshacerse los celajes,
caleidoscopio inmenso del espacio.

(Poesias I, p. 184)

Ora blancas cual copos de nieve,
ora negrss, azules o rojas,

 

l. Schulman, Genesis del modernismo, p. 142.

303
en miriadas esmaltan el aire.

(Poesias II, p. 135)

. . .seguia constante a las mujeres. . .Clavada la
pupils en su calzado. . .dejando una media azul por
una media gris, o una botita de cabritilla negra por
un garboso botin de piel dorada. . .ora Siguiendo a
esta u ora a aquella, tal como la abeja de flor en
flor,

(Cuentos, p. 83)
In the above quote the movement of the legs creates a
kaleidoscopic movement of colors. In other places colors,
or the suggestion of colors, are juxtaposed in such a pro-
fuse manner that almost the same end is gained:
Grandes salones, llenos de graderiss y corredores,
guardaban en vistosa muchedumbre un nemero incalcu-
lable de mercancias: tapetes de finisimo tejido,
colgados de altos barandales: hules brillantes de
distintos dubujos y colores cubriendo una gran parte
de los muros: grandes rollos de alfombras, en forma
de piremides y torres: y en vidrieras, aparadores y
anaqueles, multitud de paraguas y sombrillas, preciosas
cajas policromas, encerrando corbatas, guantes finos,
medias de seda, cintas y pafiuelos.
(Cuentos, p. 190)
Factually, the description is without movement. Movement
is nevertheless created by the method of enumeration that
gives the feeling of quickly passing the eye from object to
ObjeCte
Another correlation between Gutierrez Nejera and the
Impressionists was the choice of colors to emphasize. “They
preferred to limit their range more or less to the spectrum

colors, and chose yellow, orange, vermilion, crimson,

304

violet, blue and green."1 In the case of Gutierrez Nejera,
there is an exception to this tendency that will be examined
below: however, there is no question of a predilection for a
wide variety of hues rather than limiting himself to darker
primary colors. This is partially accomplished through the
imagistic association which accompanies the color. For
example, in "Mariposas" the primary colors blue and red are
mentioned: however, since butterflies are the objects re-
ferred to, it is more than plausible that the darker hues of
red and blue are excluded. At least one poem,”EDe mago es
tu pincel)", suggests that butterflies were important for
color shadings: "aSus matices te dan las mariposas?"
(Poesias II, p. 253). The most frequent association with
blue is sky which creates a soft illusion: ”Pocas mafianas
hay tan alegres, tan frescas, tan azules, como esta mafiana
de San Juan" (Cuentos, p. 141). The allusion to flowers
would also imply a pastel configuration (”La misa de las
flores“) since the petals are frequently secondary colors.
Although the tendency toward secondary colors
exists, there clearly are exceptions. The most singular
exception would be the heavy use of black and darkness. It
is here that the analogy with the Impressionists breaks and
another appears, that of the decadents. Gutierrez Nejera

shared with the decadents a strong sense of death which he

 

1. Michel Florisoone, ”Impressionism and Symbol-
ism”, p. 179.

305
symbolically presented through pervasive use of blackness,
shadow and darkness. As a datum of immediate experience
this is frequently a complete inner experience which often
relates to the world of dream. Such is the case in:

”Ondas muertas“: En la sombra debajo de la tierra
donde nunca llego la mirada

(Poesias II, p. 131)

"Las almas huerfanas“:
Ennegrece los sires e1 humo

que en columnas despiden las fe-

bricas.
(Poesias II, p. 153)
”Mis enlutadas": . . ., haraposas brujas

con unas negrss
mi vida escarban.

(Poesias II, p. 161)
The most innovative use of color, however, is the Symbolist
technique of synaesthesia or correspondences. Baudelaire
was the principal initiator of the technique of intersensory
relationships such as expounded in his poem entitled "Cor-

respondences”, where he wrote:

Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se
repondent.

Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs
d'enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, vert comme les prairies,
-Et d'autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,
With Gutierrez Nejera colors predominate in whatever appli-
cation of synaesthetic imagery he makes. Smell and sound

are present but always in a lesser quantity. Following are

 

1. Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres Completes (Paris:
Gallimard, 1961), p. 11.

306
examples where either smell or sound coalesce with color:
"blanca brisa perfumada” (Poesias I, p. 145): ”luces, per-
fumes y sones/ van al mismo panteen' (Poesias I, p. 314):
'. . .el secreto,/ de luz, de aroma, de briza y flor”
(Poesias I, p. 285). By far the most common use of synaes-
thesia is the correlation of color and abstract concept.
Svend Johansen defined this mingling of thought and sensory
stimuli as abstract synaesthesia.l This abstract synaes-
thesia was used throughout his career:
1876: Es blanca tu conciencia y azul tu pensamiento
(Poesias I, p. 108)
1877: . . .debia iluminar con voluptuosa luz. . .
(Cuentos, p. 12)
1879: . . .estos suefios de oro eran. . .
(QBEEIEE: Po 290)
1880: . . .estas ilusiones color de rosa. . .
(Cuentos, p. 33)
1881: . . .es todo un cuento azul. . .
(Cuentos, p. 70)
1882: Yo vuelvo de todos los paises azules. . .
(Cuentos, p. 151)

1883: . . .1a Primavera es color de rosa, e1 Estio,
color de oro: el Otono, azul, y el Invierno,

 

blanco.
(Cuentos, p. 179)
l. Svend Johansen, Le symbolisme: Etude ser 1e

 

 

style des s bolistes frangais (Copenhague: E. Munhs-
gaard, 1945), p. 65.

307
1885: 1a blanca mariposa que llaman la virtud
(Poesias II, p. 58)

1887: aEn tus abismos, negros y rojos
fiebre implacable, mi alma se pierde:

(Poesias II, p. 117)
1893: Primavera azul y hermosa
(Poesias II, p. 248)

1895: Tan blanca vas por la existencia humans,
tanta virtud tu espiritu atesora.

(Poesias II, p. 259)
1895: Hay versos de oro y hay notas de plats

(Poesias II, p. 261)
In addition to the above imagery taken from texts, Gutierrez
Nejera customarily used color synaesthesia in the titles of
his crenicas. Several of the stories were originally pub-
lished as crenicas with color in the title. Typical of the
and 92 mil colores. The most unique of the titles are those
which omit the mention of a specific color to evoke it
through naming an object. ”En la calle” was published as
"Crenica color de muertos”: ”Ls novels de tranvia“ as ”Cre-
nics color de lluvia”: “En el Hipedromo“ as ”Crenica color
de Aguila': ”Historia de un domine' as ”Crenica color de
[Louisej Theo”: "Berta y Manen' as ”Crenica color de Cara-
cole”.

Gutierrez Nejera's use of synaesthesia epitomizes,

in a way, the entire scape of his view of himself in rela-

tion to his surroundings. He does not seek to escape the

308
world but probes to know its innermost nature. Whether
viewing a social event or delving into the mysteries of syn-
aesthesia, the basic idea is usually present that the world
is what the mind perceives. Also the idea is never distant
that the world's problems are essentially the same as those
of the author, a struggle against death and toward art and
spiritual values. Finding transcendental values in blue is
essentially the same activity as detailing the beauty of
Mexico City's beautiful women: or, feeling the presence of
death in black is the same as showing the limitations of
deterministic psychology. The result is a unified view of

self and society.

CONCLUSION

The previous pages show how Gutierrez Nejera used a
pattern of symbols to record artistically his personal
vision of the world. Mariano Azuela, in a short article on
Gutierrez Nejera, made several observations which briefly
summarize the technique and content of Gutierrez Nejera's
symbols. Azuela wrote in three different sentences:

Una nadalle basta para dar vida a un personaje o a un
cuadro.

Veo el proceso del verdadero novelists, el del gran
Honorato de Balzac que con una particula tomada al

azar, un rasgo, un gesto, un ademan, una prenda de

vestir, recrea un personaje, una familia, una clase
social, un pueblo, un mundo.

. . .de una naderia sabe sacar sartas de perlas,3
pendientes de brillantes, collares de corales.

Gutierrez Nejera begins, as Azuela suggests, with nothing-
ness and works toward fulfillment which consists of bringing
oneself into harmony with universal spiritual qualities
whose highest manifestation is art. The author makes compo-
nent parts of his writing, such as images and characters,

into representations which he hopes will magically capture

 

l. Mariano Azuela, "Manuel Gutierrez Najera” in
Obras completas, III (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econemiah
196059 P0 7250

2. Ibid., p. 726.
3. Ibid.

309

 

\f

310
absolutes of truth and beauty.

During the course of his career, Gutierrez Nejera
gave a comprehensive theoretical foundation to his assump-
tions on art in numerous critical writings. Positivism and
scientific determinism were very much a part of Gutierrez
Nejera's intellectual environment and their effect on him
was profound. On the one hand, he turned energetically away
from positivism, very much repelled by the idea that man was
only a material object. On the other hand, there was a
tacit acceptance of positivism since he was driven to art
by the possibility that man might be nothing more than pro-
toplasm.

This conflict was more than a distaste for positi-
vism. It was, in short, the Romantic dilemma of the nine-
teenth century and Gutierrez Nejera's position in the broad
current of Romantic thought is easily demonstrated. Within
this movement, he is distinguishable from the early Romanti-
cists by much less confidence in the individual's ability
to direct his destiny, less faith in absolute ideals, and a
stronger tie to aestheticism. Art, however, as can be seen
in his ideas on literature, is a very uncertain absolute,
more of a medium for struggle than a tangible alleviation.
This is close enough to Existentialism to warrant a dis-
claimer. An Existentialist typically would place emphasis
on struggle rather than art. Gutierrez Nejera consistently
upholds art as the final truth, however prevalent the notion

of struggle. Either man struggled toward art and idealism

311
or surrendered to materialism, which was equivalent to
death.

Gutierrez Nejera saw human life and history as a
metaphysical struggle between life (spirit) and death (ma-
terialism). Many symbols are used either to portray this
struggle or to function as a stOpgap against materialism.
The ultimate goal of these symbols is to give vital meaning
and value to the artist and his audience through art by pro-
viding representations of ideality. Since artistic expres-
sion was the highest manifestation of ideality many symbols
are taken directly from the arts. The names of writers,
painters, musicians, specific works and musical instruments
commonly recur to reinforce an aesthetic ideal. The auth-
or's frequent textual references to himself as a writer or
the use of artists as central subjects in the stories and
poems are conspicuous examples of giving art and ideality
central importance. Idealism is also invoked through an
imagery which suggests the ethereal world of pure idea:
birds, flowers, precious metals, incense, sky, sea, objets
QLQEE, fog. These items tend to have intangible, fleeting
or mysterious qualities which makes them fitting correla-
tives to spiritual realities.

He did not stop, however, by merely trying to repre-
sent value through ideality. He also tries to make himself,
through his writing, into a timeless and universal contin-
uum. Foreign names and places occur throughout Gutierrez

Nejera's writing and function as symbols of universality.

312

References to the past, from ancient literatures to the
memories of the author or his characters, are usually
attempts to invoke an archetype of spiritual perfection in
the hope that the author's work will measure up to the arche-
type and survive eternally. Mythological references are
particularly important symbols of Gutierrez Nejera's dedi-
cation to timeless archetypal norms. In myth he saw the
ultimate symbol of truth which negated materialistic chrono-
logicsl time. Myth, therefore, is commonly invoked to give
finite personal existence an infinite temporal extension.
Whether the author is directly addressing the reader from
first person narration or indirectly through the voice of a
character, myth invariably symbolizes a timeless counter-
point to material finiteness and death.

Against the background of universality there is also
a concern for national problems. Contrary to a universal
tendency in literary criticism to catalogue literary fi-
gures either as redeemers of society or as seekers after a
personalized grail, the distinction in the case of Gutierrez
Nejera is blurred. He was, to concede a limited validity
to generalizations, more interested in broader human prob-
lems than in limited social issues, but the latter neverthe-
less functioned organically as part of the former and
Gutierrez Nejera was not blind to human injustice or uncon-
cerned about Mexico's welfare. Within his own frame of
ideas, Gutierrez Nejera saw Mexico's historical dilemma as

being the same as his own, a struggle between materialism

313
and idealism. The contest between materialism and idealism
led in another direction, in addition to social preoccupa-
tions, toward a concentration on psychological processes.
The will of the individual to survive and achieve spiritual
fulfillment is repeatedly portrayed through fantasy and
dream. In Gutierrez Nejera's interpretation, dreams func-
tioned either as a revelation of the hellish world of mater-
ialism and metaphysical isolation, or of the realm of aes-
thetic idealism. The most important single contribution to
come from his use of dreams and fantasy was the use of color
synaesthesia.

Color synaesthesia epitomizes, in a way, the total-
ity of Gutierrez Nejera's achievement as an artist. More
than mere form, the use of color as a correlative to emotive
states symbolizes a response to the author's immediate en-
vironment as it filters through his mind with a particularly
fine awareness of psychological processes. Equally impor-
tant, color synaesthesia symbolizes a spiritual norm in the
service of aestheticism and as such becomes a temporal sym-
bol of infinity. Briefly stated, Gutierrez Nejera, without
necessarily having the rigorous system of a philosopher, did
have a consistent world view which he worked into artistic
form. The consistency of his views is underscored by the
evenness with which color synaesthesia was used throughout
his career. As stated in the chapter on his literary
theory, Gutierrez Nejera began his career with the publica-

tion of a literary manifesto--"El arte y el materialismo”--

314
which remained the foundation of his literary activity until
he died.

The question which naturally arises in the conclu-
sion to a study such as this is, did the author really
succeed in communicating a world view? Did he express some-
thing more substantial than subjectivism or inward escapism?
The previous pages have established with sufficient quotes
from the author that undoubtedly the expression of a world
view was intended: however, the success with which the in-
tention was executed is best attested to by others. For
this purpose, Mariano Azuela is a particularly appropriate
evaluator since his own socially oriented novels are a pole
apart from Gutierrez Nejera's poems and stories. Azuela
answers emphatically that Gutierrez Nejera did succeed. In
the novelist's article, quoted above, Azuela gave the high-
est possible affirmation when he concluded that ”. . .de
esta clase de escritor como Manuel Gutierrez Nejera es de

donde debe surgir el gran novelists mexicano."

 

l. Mariano Azuela, Obras, III, p. 729.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A) Publications of Gutierrez Nejera's Works Used in
this Study

Gutierrez Nejera, Manuel. Cuentos color Le humo. Prologue
by Francisco Monterde. Mexico: Editorial Stylo, 1942.

. Cuentos completos y otras narraciones. Edition
and Prologue by E. K. Mapes: Preliminary Study by
Francisco Gonzalez Guerrero. Mexico and Buenos Aires:
Fondo de Cultura Econemica, 1958.

 

. Cuentos fregiles. Biblioteca Honrada. Mexico:
Imprenta del Comercio de E. Dublen y Cia., 1883.

 

. Hojas sueltas. Prologue by Carlos Diaz Dufeo.
Mexico: Antigua Imprenta de Murguia, 1912.

 

. Obras: Critics literaria. Vol. I, Collected by
E. K. Mapes: Edition with notes by Ernesto Mejia
Sanchez: Introduction by Porfirio Martinez Penaloza.
Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autenoma de Mexico, 1959.

. Obras ineditas: Crenicas d3 "Puck”. Edited by
E. K. Mapes. New York: Hispanic Institute in the United
States, 1943.

 

r . Poesias. Prologue by Justo Sierra. Mexico:
Tip. de la Oficina Impresora del Timbre, 1896.

 

. Poesias completas. Vol. 1, Prologue and Edition
by Francisco Gonzalez Guerrero: reprint of the
prologue to the Poesias of 1896 by Justo Sierra: Vol.
11. Mexico: Editorial Porrua, 1953.

 

. Prosa. Vol. I, Introduction by Luis G. Urbina:
Vol. II, Prologue by Amado Nervo. Mexico: Tip. de la
Oficina Impresora del Timbre, 1898-1903.

 

Revista Azul. Mexico: Tip. de ”El Partido Liberal,” 1894-
1896. 5 vols. (Contains 69 articles and stories and 9
poems by Gutierrez Najera).

315

316

B) Studies of Gutierrez Nejera's Works

Argfiello, Santiago. Modernismo y modernistas. Guatemala:
Tipografia nacional, 1935.

Attolini, Jose. ”Gutierrez Nejera y su tristeza.“ Reper-
torio Americano, March 20, 1937, pp. 169-72.

Azuela, Msriano. Obras completas. Vol. III. Mexico: Fondo
de Cultura Econemica, 1960.

Blanco-Fombona, Rufino. "Li era spreciacien sobre Gutierrez
Nejera” in Manuel Guti rrez Nejera: §m§ me'ores
oesias. Biblioteca Andres Bello. Madrid: Soc1edad
Espanola de Libreria, n.d.

. E; modernismo y los poetas modernistas. Madrid:
Editor1al Mundo Latino, 1929.

 

Carter, Boyd G. ”Gutierrez Nejera y Marti como iniciadores
del modernismo". Revista Iberoamericana, XXVIII
(July, 1962), 295-310.

. Manuel Gutierrez Nejera. Estudio y escritos
ineditos. Mexico: Edic1ones de Andrea, 1956.

 

. ”Lg revista azul” in Las revistas literarias mg
Mexico.l:Conferencias del ciEIo que, organizado por el
Departamento de Literatura se desarrollo en el curso
del afio de 1962.3 Mexico: Instituto Nacional de
Bellas Artes, 1963.

 

. Em torno g Gutierrez Nejera. Mexico: Ediciones
Botas, 1960.

Carter, Boyd G. and Joan L. Carter. Manuel Gutierrez Nejera:
Florilegio critico-conmemorativo. Studium. Mexico:
Ediciones de Andrea, 1966.

Castagnaro, R. Anthony. 'Becquer and Gutierrez Nejera: Some
Literary Similarities.” Hispania, XXVII (May, 1944),
1 0‘3.

Chumacero, Ali. ”Las ideas literarias de Gutierrez Nejera."
Novedades, January, 1960, pp. 4-5.

Contreras Garcia, Irma. Inda aciones sobre Gutierrez Nejera.
Mexico: Metefora, 1957.

Crow, John A. "Dos grandes estilistas mexicanos."
Humanismo, XXX, No. 3 (April, 1955). 160-73.

317

Dauster, Frank. Breve historia Le 13 poesia mexicana.
Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, 1956.

Duren, Manuel. ”Gutierrez Najera y Te6filo Gautier.” Revis-
t3 Le 13 Universidad Le Mexico, March, 1954, pp. 7-8.

Englekirk, John Eugene. Edgar Allan Poe in His anic Litera-
ture. New York: Instituto de las Espanas, 1934.

G6mez Banos, Virginia. Bibliografia Le Manuel Gutierrez
Najera y cuatro cuentos ineditos. Mexico: Imprenta
Arana, 1958.

G6mez del Prado, Carlos. Manuel Gutierrez Ne'era, vida y
obra. Mexico: Ediciones de Andrea, l96&

Gonzelez, Manuel Pedro. "E1 conflicto religioso en la vida
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APPENDIX

APPENDIX

Titles of articles by Gutierrez Najera used in Chapter I:

Cuentos color de humo
"Mananas 33 aBril y mayo”, n.d.

Obras de Manuel Gutierrez Najera: Prosa, II
_'W1lliam Shakespeare", n.d.
"Otelo" , n.d.
'Otelo.-Yago.-Desdémona” , n.d.
"Hmet' ’ node
“Romeo y Julieta, n. d.
"E1 teatro espanol contemporaneo” , n.d.
'Campoamor sin corona” , n.d.

Obras: Critics literaria
”El arte y el materialismo”, August 5,8,17,26 of 1876.
”Barbs azul”, February 5, 1882.
"Carta abierta a1 senor Angel Franco” March 19, 1893.
"Paginas sueltas, de Agapito Silva", May 10, 11,12,13
l of 1375.
”Romances, de Francisco de A. Lerdo", September 19,1876.
”Un certamen literario", September 28 and October 3,5,
10 of 1876.
"Los Ensuenos, de Pedro Casters”, March 17,2? of 1877.
"Ocios poéticos, de Ipandro Acaico', October 6,1878.
'Trovasacolomsinas, de José Peon y Contreras” , June 30,
l 1.
"E1 Ateneo mexicano de 1882", June 20, 1882.
”Una edici6n mexicana de Maria”, November 23, 1882.
'Paisajes y,1e endas, de Ignacio Manuel Altamirano” ,

 

mme18, 1
“La Academia Mexicana", July 29, 1884: August 1,14,15
of 1884.
“Poesias, nueva serie, de Gustavo A. Baz" , June 19,
l 7.
”La bola, de Sancho PolotEmilio RabasaJ", July 31,
7.

”Taide, de José Merida EJosé Peon y Contreras)”,
November 20, 1887.

”Tristissima nox", April 1, 8,15 of 1888.

'Pe uehos dramas, de Jose Pe6n y Contreras", August 26,
1888

326

327

"Al autor de los 'Murmurios de la selva' , epistola de
Justo— Sierra” , September —8— 1

"Un banquets a1 maestro Altamirano" , August 13, 1889.

“Literatura epiSCOpal”, December 11, 1889.

"Del natural, de Federico Gamboa", February 2, 1890.

”Veleidosa, de Jose Peon y Contreras” , July 19, 1891.

“g; libro del amor, de Adalberto A. Esteva” , August 23,
1891.

"La oratoria de Mateos", December 11, 1892.

Obras ineditas: Cr6nicas d3 "Puck”
December 2, 1893: December 18, 1893: December 24, 1893:
February 25, 1894: March 18, 1894: April 1, 1894:
April 29, 1894: May 13, 1894: June 10, 1894: July 22,
1894: July 29, 1894: August 5, 1894: September 9, 1894:
September 16, 1894: October 7, 1894: November 4,1894:
November 18,1894: December 2, 1894.

La Revista Azul
"A1 pie de la escalera” , May 6,1894.

"Illllfllllflflfl'lfllflg