Poetry and Loss

In a study which covers the entirety of Montejo's career as poet and essayist, this book examines how the work of this seminal Venezuelan writer explores and deals with the experiences of loss in the twentieth century. Focusing on the broad areas of temporal and spatial loss, the analysis underlines the different levels on which such experiences are located in Montejo's writing, from the personal to the national, from the continental to the wider ontological, all filtered through the poet's own lived experience of growing up and writing in Venezuela. It explores how the poetic act emerges throughout as the potential means by which such experiences can be expressed and through which such loss can be reversed and, henceforth, avoided.
This represents the first book-length study in English of Montejo's work and the first monograph in any language to offer a sustained thematic analysis of his entire output. In the process, it serves to bring out from the academic shadows one of the most important and commanding poetic voices to appear in Latin America in the last fifty years.

NICHOLAS ROBERTS lectures in Hispanic Studies at the University of Durham.

Reviews

Indispensable. REVISTA DE ESTUDIOS HISPÁNICOS

Poetry and Loss: The Work of Eugenio Montejo is an excellent work of literary research and offers an accessible introduction to the world of a Latin American poet whose importance is increasingly being acknowledged. LATIN AMERICAN REVIEW OF BOOKS

El hecho de que la obra de Eugenio Montejo, uno de los mayores poetas de lengua española de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, no contase hasta ahora con un estudio extenso en inglés bastaría para caracterizar como insustituible el volumen que Nicholas Roberts . . . acaba de dedicarle. Pero que a eso se agreguen riqueza y versatilidad teóricas, así como innegable rigor en el análisis de poesía en tiempos gremialmente poco favorables a tal empresa, es un factor que destaca aún más su contribución. EL NACIONAL

Details

First Published: 19 Nov 2009
13 Digit ISBN: 9781855661936
Pages: 244
Size: 23.4 x 15.6
Binding: Hardback
Imprint: Tamesis Books
Series: Monografías A
Subject: Hispanic Studies
BIC Class: GTB

Details updated on 20 Jun 2013