6 - Antonio Gamoneda's Libro de los venenos: The Limits of Genre

Summary

Poetry is not so much a genre of “literature” as it is a mode of signification. Such, at least, is the view of many contemporary poets in Spain. This proposition can be justified on historical grounds, since poetry predates the modern concept of “literature” by thousands of years. It is also clear that poetry cannot be confined to a single genre: although the word is often used as short-hand for lyric poetry, contemporary poets also work in longer, more ambitious forms of more nebulous generic identity. The opposition between poetry and literature can also lead to a more constrained view of poetry, conceived of as a purer art form devoid of merely literary excrescences. At times, in fact, the more expansive definition is combined in an odd way with this purist view. If poetry is no longer contained within the genre of the (lyric) poem, then it can be found anywhere, even in ostensibly non-poetic (non-literary) texts. Yet, by the same token, this sort of poetry might be the missing element in many run-of-the-mill novels and plays, literary but essentially non-poetic texts.

Antonio Gamoneda is one of the names most likely to be cited by contemporary Spanish poets holding the views outlined above.