Paz, Octavio 1914–1998
Paz, Octavio 1914–1998
PERSONAL: Born March 31, 1914, in Mexico City, Mexico; died of cancer, April 19, 1998, in Mexico City, Mexico; son of Octavio Paz (a lawyer) and Josephina Lozano; married Elena Garro (a writer), mid-1930s (marriage ended, mid-1950s); married Marie José Tramini, 1964; children: one daughter. Education: Attended National Autonomous University of Mexico, 1932–37. Politics: "Disillusioned leftist." Religion: Atheist.
CAREER: Writer. Government of Mexico, Mexican Foreign Service, posted to San Francisco, CA, and New York, NY, secretary at Mexican Embassy in Paris, beginning 1945, charge d'affaires at Mexican Embassy in Japan, beginning 1951, posted to Mexican Secretariat for External Affairs, 1953–58, extraordinary and plenipotentiary minister to Mexican Embassy, 1959–62, ambassador to India, 1962–68. Visiting professor of Spanish-American literature, University of Texas—Austin and University of Pittsburgh, 1968–70; Simon Bolivar Professor of Latin American Studies, 1970, and fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, 1970–71; Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, Harvard University, 1971–72; professor of comparative literature, Harvard University, 1973–80. Regent's fellow at University of California—San Diego.
MEMBER: American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (honorary).
AWARDS, HONORS: Guggenheim fellowship, 1944; Grand Prix International de Poesie (Belgium), 1963; Jerusalem Prize, Critics Prize (Spain), and National Prize for Letters (Mexico), all 1977; Grand Aigle d'Or (Nice, France), 1979; Premio Ollin Yoliztli (Mexico), 1980; Miguel de Cervantes Prize (Spain), 1982; Neustadt International Prize for Literature, 1982; Wilhelm Heinse Medal (West Germany), 1984; German Book Trade Peace prize, 1984; T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing, Ingersoll Foundation, 1987; Tocqueville Prize, 1989; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1990.
WRITINGS:
POETRY
Luna silvestre (title means "Sylvan Moon"), Fabula (Mexico City, Mexico), 1933.
No pasaran!, Simbad (Mexico City, Mexico), 1936.
Raíz del hombre (title means "Root of Man"; also see below), Simbad (Mexico City, Mexico), 1937.
Bajo tu clara sombra y otros poemas sobre España (title means "Under Your Clear Shadow and Other Poems about Spain"; also see below), Españolas (Valencia, Spain), 1937, revised edition, Tierra Nueva (Valencia, Spain), 1941.
Entre la piedra y la flor (title means "Between the Stone and the Flower"), Nueva Voz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1938, 2nd edition, Asociacion Civica Yucatan (Mexico City, Mexico), 1956.
A la orilla del mundo y Primer dia; Bajo tu clara sombra; Raíz del hombre; Noche de resurrecciones, Ars (Mexico City, Mexico), 1942.
Libertad bajo palabra (title means "Freedom on Parole"), Tezontle (Mexico City, Mexico), 1949.
Aguila o sol? (prose poems), Tezontle (Mexico City, Mexico), 1951, 2nd edition, 1973, translation by Eliot Weinberger published as Aguila o sol?/Eagle or Sun? (bilingual edition), October House, 1970, revised translation by Eliot Weinberger published under same title, New Directions (New York, NY), 1976.
Semillas para un himno, Tezontle (Mexico City, Mexico), 1954.
Piedra de sol, Tezontle (Mexico City, Mexico), 1957, translation by Muriel Rukeyser published as Sun Stone/Piedra de sol (bilingual edition; also see below), New Directions, 1963, translation by Peter Miller published as Sun-Stone, Contact (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1963, translation by Donald Gardner published as Sun Stone, Cosmos (New York, NY), 1969, translation by Eliot Weinberger published as Sunstone—Piedra de sol, New Directions (New York, NY), 1991.
La estación violenta, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1958, reprinted, 1978.
Agua y viento, Ediciones Mito (Bogota, Colombia), 1959.
Libertad bajo palabra: Obra poetica, 1935–1958, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1960, revised edition, 1968.
Salamandra (1958–1961) (also see below), J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1962, 3rd edition, 1975.
Selected Poems of Octavio Paz (bilingual edition), translation by Muriel Rukeyser, Indiana University Press, 1963.
Viento entero, Caxton (Delhi, India), 1965.
Blanco (also see below), J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1967, 2nd edition, 1972, translation by Eliot Weinberger published under same title, The Press (New York, NY), 1974.
Disco visuales (four spatial poems), Era (Mexico City, Mexico), 1968.
Ladera este (1962–1968) (title means "Eastern Slope [1962–1968])"; also see below), J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1969, 3rd edition, 1975.
La centena (Poemas: 1935–1968), Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1969, 2nd edition, 1972.
Topoemas (six spatial poems), Era (Mexico City, Mexico), 1971.
Vuelta (long poem), El Mendrugo (Mexico City, Mexico), 1971.
Configurations (contains Piedra de sol/Sun Stone, Blanco, and selections from Salamandra and Ladera este), translations by G. Aroul and others, New Directions (New York, NY), 1971.
(With Jacques Roubaud, Edoardo Sanguinetti, and Charles Tomlinson; also author of prologue) Renga (collective poem written in French, Italian, English, and Spanish), J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1972, translation by Charles Tomlinson published as Renga: A Chain of Poems, Braziller, 1972.
Early Poems: 1935–1955, translations by Muriel Rukeyser and others, New Directions (New York, NY), 1973.
3 Notations/3 Rotations (contains fragments of poems by Paz), Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1974.
Pasado en claro (long poem), Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1975, revised edition, 1978, translation included in A Draft of Shadows and Other Poems (also see below), New Directions (New York, NY), 1979.
Vuelta, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1976.
(With Charles Tomlinson) Air Born/Hijos del aire (sonnets written in Spanish and English), Pescador (Mexico City, Mexico), 1979.
Poemas (1935–1975), Seix Barral (Mexico City, Mexico), 1979.
A Draft of Shadows and Other Poems, edited and translated by Eliot Weinberger, with additional translations by Elizabeth Bishop and Mark Strand, New Directions, 1979.
Selected Poems (bilingual edition), translations by Charles Tomlinson and others, Penguin (New York, NY), 1979.
Octavio Paz: Poemas recientes, Institucion Cultural de Cantabria de la Diputacion Provincial de Santander, 1981.
Selected Poems, edited by Eliot Weinberger, translations by G. Aroul and others, New Directions (New York, NY), 1984.
Cuatro chopos/The Four Poplars (bilingual edition), translation by Eliot Weinberger, Center for Edition Works (New York, NY), 1985.
The Collected Poems, 1957–1987: Bilingual Edition, New Editions, 1987.
One Word to the Other, Latitudes Press, 1991.
La Casa de la Presencia: Poesía e Historia, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1994.
A Tale of Two Gardens: Poems from India, 1952–1995, edited and translated by Eliot Weinberger, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1997.
Delta de cinco brazos, Galaxia Gutenberg (Barcelona, Spain), 1998.
PROSE
El laberinto de la soledad (also see below), Cuadernos Americanos, 1950, revised edition, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1959, reprinted, 1980, translation by Lysander Kemp published as The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico, Grove (New York, NY), 1961.
El arco y la lira: El poema; La revelacion poetica; Poesía e historia, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1956, 2nd edition includes text of Los signos en rotación (also see below), 1967, 3rd edition, 1972, translation by Ruth L.C. Simms published as The Bow and the Lyre: The Poem, the Poetic Revelation, Poetry and History, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1973, 2nd edition, McGraw-Hill, 1975.
Las peras del olmo, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1957, revised edition, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1971, 3rd edition, 1978.
Tamayo en la pintura mexicana, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1959.
Cuadrivio: Darío, López Velarde, Pessoa, Cernuda, J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1965.
Los signos en rotación, Sur (Buenos Aires, Argentina), 1965, expanded as Los signos en rotación y otros ensayos, edited and with a prologue by Carlos Fuentes, Alianza (Madrid, Spain), 1971.
Puertas al campo (also see below), Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico), 1966.
Claude Lévi-Strauss; o, El nuevo festín de Esopo, J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1967, translation by J.S. Bernstein and Maxine Bernstein published as Claude Levi-Strauss: An Introduction, Cornell University Press, 1970, published as On Levi-Strauss, J. Cape (London, England), 1970.
Corriente alterna, Siglo Veintiuno Editores (Mexico City, Mexico), 1967, translation by Helen R. Lane published as Alternating Current, Viking (New York, NY), 1973.
Marcel Duchamp; o, El castillo de la pureza, Era (Mexico City, Mexico), 1968, translation by Donald Gardner published as Marcel Duchamp; or, The Castle of Purity, Grossman, 1970.
Conjunciones y disyunciones, J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1969, 2nd edition, 1978, translation by Helen R. Lane published as Conjunctions and Disjunctions, Viking (New York, NY), 1974.
México: Laúltima década, Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1969.
Posdata (also see below), Siglo Veintiuno, 1970, translation by Lysander Kemp published as The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid, Grove (New York, NY), 1972.
(With Juan Marichal) Las cosas en su sitio: Sobre la literatura española del siglo XX, Finisterre (Mexico City, Mexico), 1971.
Traducción: Literatura y literalidad, Tusquets (Barcelona, Spain), 1971.
Aparencia desnuda: La obra de Marcel Duchamp, Era (Mexico City, Mexico), 1973, enlarged edition, 1979, translation by Rachel Phillips and Donald Gardner published as Marcel Duchamp: Appearance Stripped Bare, Viking (New York, NY), 1978.
El signo y el garabato (contains Puertas al campo), J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1973.
(With Julian Rios) Solo a dos voces, Lumen (Barcelona, Spain), 1973.
Teatro de signos/Transparencias, selection and montage by Julian Rios, Fundamentos (Madrid, Spain), 1974.
La busqueda del comienzo: Escritos sobre el surrealismo, Fundamentos (Madrid, Spain), 1974, 2nd edition, 1980.
El mono gramático, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1974, translation published as Le singe grammarien, Skira (Geneva, Switzerland), 1972, translation by Helen R. Lane published as The Monkey Grammarian, Seaver, 1981.
Los hijos del limo: Del romanticismo a la vanguardia, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1974, translation by Rachel Phillips published as Children of the Mire: Modern Poetry from Romanticism to the AvantGarde, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1974.
The Siren and the Seashell, and Other Essays on Poets and Poetry, translations by Lysander Kemp and Margaret Sayers Peden, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1976.
Villaurrutia en persona y en obra, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1978.
El ogro filantrópico: Historia y política, 1971–1978 (also see below), J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1979.
In/mediaciones, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1979.
Mexico en la obra de Octavio Paz, edited by Luis Mario Schneider, Promexa (Mexico City, Mexico), 1979.
El laberinto de la soledad; Posdata; Vuelta a el laberinto de la soledad, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1981.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; o, Las trampas de la fe, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1982, reprinted, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1994, translation by Margaret Sayers Peden published as Sor Juana; or, The Traps of Faith, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988.
(With Jacques Lassaigne) Rufino Tamayo, Ediciones Poligrafia (Barcelona, Spain), 1982, translation by Kenneth Lyons published under same title, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1982, published as Rufino Tamayo: Tres Ensayos, Colegio Nacional (México), 1999.
(With John Golding) Günther Gerzo (Spanish, English and French texts), Editions du Griffon (Switzerland), 1983.
Sombras de obras: arte y literatura, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1983.
Hombres en su siglo y otros ensayos, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1984, translation by Michael Schmidt published as On Poets and Others, Seaver Books, 1987.
Tiempo nublado, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1984, translation by Helen R. Lane with three additional essays published as On Earth, Four or Five Worlds: Reflections on Contemporary History, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1985.
The Labyrinth of Solitude, The Other Mexico, Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude, Mexico and the United States, [and] The Philanthropic Ogre, translated by Lysander Kemp, Yara Milos, and Rachel Phillips Belash, Grove (New York, NY), 1985.
Arbol adentro, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1987, translation published as A Tree Within, New Directions (New York, NY), 1988.
Convergences: Essays on Art and Literature, translation by Helen R. Lane, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1987.
The Other Voice: Essays on Modern Poetry, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1991.
Essays on Mexican Art, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1994.
My Life with the Wave, Lothrop (New York, NY), 1994.
Fundación y Disidencia: Dominio Hispánico, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1994.
Generaciones y Semblanzas: Dominio Mexicano, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1994.
Los Privilegios de la Vista, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1994.
Obras Completas, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1994.
An Erotic Beyond: Sade, Harcourt Brace (New York, NY), 1998.
Itinerary: An Intellectual Journey, translated by Jason Wilson, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1999.
EDITOR
Voces de España, Letras de Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico), 1938.
(With others) Laurel: Antología de la poesía moderna en lengua española, Seneca, 1941.
Antologie de la poesie mexicaine, Nagel, 1952, translation by Samuel Beckett published as Anthology of Mexican Poetry, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 1958.
Antología poética, Revista Panoramas (Mexico City, Mexico), 1956.
(And translator, with Eikichi Hayashiya) Matsuo Basho, Sendas de Oku, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico), 1957, 2nd edition, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1970.
Tamayo en la pintura mexicana, Imprenta Universitaria (Mexico City, Mexico), 1958.
Magia de la risa, Universidad Veracruzana, 1962.
Fernando Pessoa, Antología, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico), 1962.
(With Pedro Zekeli) Cuatro poetas contemporaneos de Suecia: Martinson, Lundkvist, Ekeloef, y Lindegren, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico), 1963.
(With others and author of prologue) Poesía en movimiento: Mexico, 1915–1966, Siglo Veintiuno, 1966, translation edited by Mark Strand and published as New Poetry of Mexico, Dutton (New York, NY), 1970.
(With Roger Caillois) Remedios Varo, Era (Mexico City, Mexico), 1966.
(And author of prologue) Xavier Villaurrutia, Antología, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1980.
Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990, translated as Mexico: Esplendores de treinta siglos, Friends of the Arts of Mexico, 1991.
TRANSLATOR
(And author of introduction) William Carlos Williams, Veinte Poemas, Era (Mexico City, Mexico), 1973.
Versiones y diversiones (translations of poems from English, French, Portuguese, Swedish, Chinese, and Japanese), J. Mortiz (Mexico City, Mexico), 1974, reprinted, Galaxia Gutenberg (Barcelona, Spain), 2000.
Apollinaire, 15 Poemas, Latitudes (Mexico City, Mexico), 1979.
OTHER
La hija de Rappaccini (one-act play; based on a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first produced in Mexico, 1956), translation by Harry Haskell published as Rappaccini's Daughter in Octavio Paz: Homage to the Poet, Kosmos (San Francisco, CA), 1980.
(Author of introduction) Carlos Fuentes, Cuerpos y of-rendas, Alianza (Madrid, Spain), 1972.
(Author of introduction) Antonio Peláez: Pintor, Secretaria de Educacion Publica (Mexico), 1975.
(Author of foreword) A Sor Juana Anthology, translation by Alan S. Trueblood, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988.
(Author of introduction) James Laughlin, Random Stories, Moyer Bell, 1990.
(Author of introduction) Elena Poniatowska, Massacre in Mexico, translation by Helen R. Lane, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 1991.
In Search of the Present, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1991.
Al pasò, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1992.
La llama doble: amor y erotisma, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1993, translation by Helen R. Lane published as The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1995.
(Author of essay) Nostalgia for Death / Hieroglyphs of Desire: A Critical Study of Villaurrutia, edited by Eliot Weinberger, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 1993.
Excursiones/Incursiones: Dominio extranjero, Fondo de Cultura Economica (Mexico City, Mexico), 1994.
Vislumbres de la India, Seix Barral (Barcelona, Spain), 1995, translated by Eliot Weinberger as In Light of India, Harcourt Brace (New York, NY), 1997.
Eyes for Consuela, Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 1999.
(With others) Ritual Arts of the New World: Pre-Columbian America, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 2000.
El camino de la Pasión, López Velarde, Seix Barral (Mexico), 2001.
Sueño en Libertatd: Escritos políticos, Planeta (Mexico), 2001.
Figures & Figurations, New Directions (New York, NY), 2002.
Octavio Paz: Lettres posthumes à Octavio Pax depuis quelques arcanes majeurs du Tarot, J.M. Place (Paris, France), 2002.
Contributor to In Praise of Hands: Contemporary Crafts of the World, New York Graphic Society, 1974; Avances, Fundamentos, 1978; Democracy and Dictatorship in Latin America: A Special Publication Devoted Entirely to the Voices and Opinions of Writers from Latin America, Foundation for the Independent Study of Social Ideas, 1982; Instante y revelació, Fondo Nacional para Actividades Sociales, 1982; Frustraciones de un destino: La democracia en America Latina, Libro Libre, 1985; and Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem Is Translated, edited by Eliot Weinberger, Moyer Bell, 1987. Contributor to numerous anthologies. Founder of literary review, Barandal, 1931; member of editorial board and columnist, El Popular, late 1930s; cofounder of Taller, 1938; cofounder and editor, El Hijo Prodigo, 1943–46; editor of Plural, 1971–75; founder and editor, Vuelta, 1976–98.
SIDELIGHTS: Often nominated for the Nobel Prize in his lifetime, Mexican author Octavio Paz enjoyed a worldwide reputation as a master poet and essayist. Although Mexico figures prominently in Paz's work—one of his best-known books, The Labyrinth of Solitude, for example, is a comprehensive portrait of Mexican society—Los Angeles Times contributor Jascha Kessler called Paz "truly international." World Literature Today's Manuel Duran felt that Paz's "exploration of Mexican existential values permit[ted] him to open a door to an understanding of other countries and other cultures" and thus appeal to readers of diverse backgrounds. "What began as a slow, almost microscopic examination of self and of a single cultural tradition widens unexpectedly," Duran continued, "becoming universal without sacrificing its unique characteristic." Paz won the Nobel Prize in 1990, and died eight years later at the age of 84. His passing was mourned as the end of an era for Mexico. According to his obituary in Americas, "Paz's literary career helped to define modern poetry and the Mexican personality."
Paz was born in 1914 near Mexico City, into a prominent family with ties to Mexico's political, cultural, and military elite. His father served as assistant to Emiliano Zapata, the leader of a popular revolution in 1911. Many Zapatistas were forced into exile when their leader was slain a few years later, and the Paz family relocated to Los Angeles, California, for a time. Back in Mexico City, the family's economic situation declined, but as a teen, Paz found increasing success for his poems and short stories in local publications. His first volume of poetry, Luna silvestre, appeared in 1933. While attending law school, however, Paz found himself drawn to leftist politics. When he sent some of his work to famed Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, the senior writer gave it a favorable review and encouraged Paz to attend a congress of leftist-thinking writers in Spain.
In Spain Paz was drawn into the raging Civil War and joined a brigade fighting the armies of fascist dictator Francisco Franco. He returned to Mexico with a mission to popularize the Spanish Republican cause, and spent time in both Berkeley, California, and New York City over the next few years as a graduate student, journalist, and translator. In 1946 he was offered a post as Mexico's cultural attaché to France, and served in his country's diplomatic corps for the next two decades. The work left him enough time to write prodigiously, and during the course of his career he published dozens of volumes of poetry and prose.
One of Paz's best-known works is El laberinto de la soledad, which appeared first in 1950 and in English translation as The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico eleven years later. "In it Paz argues that Mexicans see themselves as children of the conquering Spanish father who abandoned his offspring and the treacherous Indian mother who turned against her own people," explained an Americas essayist. "Because of the wounds that Mexicans suffer as a result of their dual cultural heritage, they have developed a defensive stance, hiding behind masks and taking refuge in a 'labyrinth of solitude.'" The volume became standard reading for students of Latin American history and literature.
One aspect of Paz's work often mentioned by critics is his tendency to maintain elements of prose—most commonly philosophical thought—in his poetry, and poetic elements in his prose. Perhaps the best example to support this claim can be found in Paz's exploration of India, titled The Monkey Grammarian, a work which New York Times Book Review contributor Keith Botsford called "exceedingly curious" and described as "an extended meditation on the nature of language." In separate World Literature Today essays, critics Jaime Alazraki and José Miguel Oviedo discussed the difficulty they would have assigning the book to a literary genre. "It is apparent," Alazraki noted, "that The Monkey Grammarian is not an essay. It is also apparent that it is not a poem, at least not in the conventional sense. It is both an essay and a poem, or perhaps neither." Oviedo similarly stated that the book "does not belong to any specific genre—although it has a bit of all of them—because it is deliberately written at the edge of genres."
According to Oviedo, The Monkey Grammarian is the product of Paz's long-stated quest "to produce a text which would be an intersection of poetry, narrative and essay." The fusion of opposites found in this work is an important element in nearly all Paz's literary production. In many instances both the work's structure and its content represent a blending of contradictory forces: Renga, for example, is written in four languages, while Air Born/Hijos del aire, is written in two. According to World Literature Today contributor Frances Chiles, Paz strived to create in his writing "a sense of community or communion" which he found lacking in contemporary society. In his Neustadt Prize acceptance speech reprinted in World Literature Today, Paz attempted to explain his emphasis on contrasting thoughts: "Plurality is Universality, and Universality is the acknowledging of the admirable diversity of man and his works … To acknowledge the variety of visions and sensibilities is to preserve the richness of life and thus to ensure its continuity."
Through juxtaposition of contrasting thoughts or objects Paz created a more harmonious world, one based on the complementary association of opposites found in the Eastern concept of yin and yang. This aspect of his thinking revealed the influence of his six-year stay in India as Mexican ambassador to that country. Grace Schulman explained Paz's proclivity for Eastern philosophy in a Hudson Review essay: "Although he had embraced contraries from the beginning of his writing career … [Paz] found in Tantric thought and in Hindu religious life dualities that enforced his conviction that history turns on reciprocal rhythms. In Alternating Current, he writes that the Hindu gods, creators or destroyers according to their names and region, manifest contradiction. 'Duality,' he says, 'a basic feature of Tantrism, permeates all Hindu religious life: male and female, pure and impure, left and right…. In Eastern thought, these opposites can co-exist; in Western philosophy, they disappear for the worst reasons: far from being resolved into a higher synthesis, they cancel each other out.'"
Critics have pointed to several repeated contrasting images that dramatically capture the essence of Paz's work. Ronald Christ, for example, commented in his Nation review of Aguila o sol?/Eagle or Sun? (the Spanish portion of which is the equivalent of the English expression "heads or tails?"): "The dual image of the Mexican coin which gives Eagle or Sun? its title epitomizes Paz's technique and credo, for we see that there is no question of eagle or sun, rather of eagle and sun which together in their oppositeness are the same coin." Another of the poet's images which reviewers frequently have mentioned is "burnt water," an ancient Mexican concept which appears in Paz's work in both Spanish and in the Aztec original, "atl tlachinolli." Schulman maintained that "burnt water" is "the dominant image of [Paz's] poetry" and found that the image fulfills a role similar to that of the two sides of the coin in Eagle and Sun? She noted: "Paz sees the world burning, and knows with visionary clarity that opposites are resolved in a place beyond contraries, in a moment of pure vision: in that place, there are no frontiers between men and women, life and death." Chiles called the Aztec combination of fire and water "particularly apt in its multiple connotations as a symbol of the union of all warring contraries."
In Sor Juana; or, The Traps of Faith, Paz examined the literary achievement of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a seventeenth-century New Spain nun and poetess who produced masterful verse from a convent in Mexico City. New York Times Book Review contributor Frederick Luciani wrote, "Her extant works … are of such abundance and variety, in such a range of styles, voices and manners, as to be simultaneously seductive and bewildering. With characteristic lucidity, Mr. Paz sorts through this textual morass and arrives at an admiring and sympathetic portrait, but an honest and demythologizing one, too." To understand his subject, Paz addressed the complex and turbulent civilization of colonial Mexico. "It is, after all," according to Jonathan Keates in the London Observer, "not only the nun's tale but that of Mexico itself, the kingdom of New Spain, its imposed framework of ideal constructs eroded by mutual resentment between governors and governed and by a chronic fear of change." According to Electa Arenal in Criticism, "Sor Juana; or, The Traps of Faith is a tour de force—biography, cultural history and ideological criticism all in one. It describes the intellectual, political and religious climate of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Mexico; comments on the poet as rebel against orthodoxy, then and now; and studies the life, times, and art of a woman with whom Paz identifies and to whom he implicitly compares himself."
With La llama doble: Amor y erotisma, translated as The Double Flame, Paz provided a social and literary history of love and eroticism, comparing modern manifestations to those of earlier ages, while noting the special relationship between eroticism and poetry. "This book is a product of immense wisdom and patient ob-servation, an approach to passion from the vantage of maturity," wrote Ilan Stavans in the Washington Post Book World. "His ultimate thesis is that our society is plagued by erotic permissiveness, placing the stability and continuity of love in jeopardy, and that the difficult encounter between two humans attracted to each other, has lost importance, a development that he believes threatens our psychological and cultural foundations." According to Paz, "Both love and eroticism—the double flame—are fed by the original fire: sexuality."
In The Other Voice: Essays on Modern Poetry, Paz offered a critique of twentieth-century poetry, including an analysis of the Romantics and Symbolists and a forceful objection to postmodernism and consumerism. Though noting Paz's conservative New Critic perspective, Raymond Leslie Williams wrote in American Book Review, "The breadth of Paz's literary repertoire in this volume, as in all his writing, is impressive. His understanding of Pound, Eliot, Apollinaire, and many other modern poets is vast." Paz emphasized the unifying power of poetry and asserted the importance of a public audience. "The volume's prevailing theme," wrote Ilan Stavans in a Nation review, is "poetry as a nonconformist, rebellious force of the modern age." Stavans observed, "Paz argues that while poets are elitists by nature, despite the tiny circulation of their craft it has a profound impact on society." For Paz, as John Butt wrote in the Times Literary Supplement, "the poem aspires to be all-encompassing, an image of what a unified theory of life might be, 'a miniature, animated cosmos' which 'unites the ten thousand things' that swirl around us."
Critics have agreed that Paz's great theme of a blended reality situated his work in the forefront of modern literature. As Christ noted: "By contraries then, by polarities and divergences converging in a rhetoric of opposites, Paz established himself as a brilliant stylist balancing the tension of East and West, art and criticism, the many and the one in the figures of his writing. Paz is thus not only a great writer: he is also an indispensable corrective to our cultural tradition and a critic in the highest sense in which he himself uses the word." Enrique Fernandez similarly saw Octavio Paz as a writer of enormous influence. "Not only has he left his mark on world poetry, with a multilingual cortege of acolytes," Fernandez wrote in a Village Voice essay, "he is a force to be reckoned with by anyone who chooses that modernist imitaio Christi, the Life of the Mind."
Paz ended his diplomatic career in protest in 1968 over Mexico's suppression of student demonstrations in his hometown. The Asian subcontinent, however, continued to hold sway over him creatively. In 1997 his collection A Tale of Two Gardens: Poems from India, 1952–1995 appeared. A review from Barbara Mujica in Americas described the poet as "obsessed with India. Although many American and European writers have been fascinated with the subcontinent, none has studied its culture with the intensity and thoroughness of Paz." Some of the poems in the collection were written in a short Sanskrit form called kayva; the form was also used for some verse that appeared in Paz's prose memoir, In Light of India, also published in 1997. As Mujica noted, "In the kavya, Paz evokes exquisite and fleeting erotic images—a young bather emerging from the river, silks slipping off bodies and fluttering in the breeze…. These verses are tiny treasures—delicate, suggestive, and profound."
Paz was an active critic of politics for nearly all of his career. Unlike some other leftist Latin-American writers—Gabriel García Marquez, for example—Paz was not a supporter of Communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro. He also criticized Nicaragua's Sandinista guerrilla movement; Mexican demonstrations of solidarity with the Sandinista movement sometimes included the burning of an effigy of Paz. Nor was he a champion of the Zapatista uprising that fomented in a mountainous Mexican state in 1994. The writer, in both his writings and public utterances, defended his views ardently. "Revolution begins as a promise," Paz wrote, according to the New Republic, "is squandered in violent agitation, and freezes into bloody dictatorships that are the negation of the fiery impulse that brought it into being. In all revolutionary movements, the sacred time of myth is transformed inexorably into the profane time of history."
Paz died in April of 1998, after suffering from cancer of the spine. His death was announced by no less than the president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo. "This is an irreplaceable loss for contemporary thought and culture—not just for Latin America but for the entire world," Notimex, the government news agency, quoted Zedillo as saying. Gabriel Zaid, who cofounded the literary journal Vuelta with Paz, recalled the writer's last public appearance, in December of 1997, in a piece for Time International. "The day was overcast and gray," Zaid wrote. "Octavio spoke of the sun, of gratitude and of grace. And the sun, as if engaged in conversation, peered down on him through the clouds."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
BOOKS
Contemporary Literature Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 3, 1975, Volume 4, 1975, Vol-ume 6, 1976, Volume 10, 1979, Volume 19, 1981, Volume 51, 1989, Volume 65, 1989.
Encyclopedia of World Biography, second edition, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.
Hispanic Literature Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1989.
Ivask, Ivar, The Perpetual Present: The Poetry and Prose of Octavio Paz, University of Oklahoma Press, 1973.
Poetry Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 1, 1989.
Roman, Joseph, Octavio Paz, Chelsea House, 1994.
Wilson, Jason, Octavio Paz, Twayne, 1986.
PERIODICALS
American Book Review, August-September, 1992, p. 3.
Americas, August, 1998, Barbara Mujica, review of "A Tale of Two Gardens," p. 60.
Booklist, November 15, 1991, p. 595.
Commonweal, January 27, 1989, p. 50.
Comparative Literature, fall, 1989, p. 397.
Criticism, Volume XXXI, number 4, p. 463.
Hudson Review, autumn, 1974.
Interview, October, 1989.
Journal of Youth Services in Libraries, summer, 1990, p. 311.
Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 1995, p. 62.
Library Journal, January, 1995, p. 79.
London Review of Books, May 18, 1989, p. 20.
Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1971.
Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 18, 1988, p. 3; April 30, 1995, p. 6.
Nation, August 2, 1975; February 17, 1992, p. 205.
New Republic, October 9, 1995, p. 40.
New Yorker, May 15, 1995, p. 93.
New York Times Book Review, December 27, 1981; December 25, 1988, p. 12; April 19, 1998, Laura Jamison, review of An Erotic Beyond; June 7, 1998, Edward Hirsch, "Octavio Paz: In Defense of Poetry."
Observer (London, England), January 15, 1989, p. 49.
Publishers Weekly, January 16, 1995, p. 444.
Small Press, winter, 1994, p. 89.
Times (London, England), June 8, 1989.
Times Literary Supplement, December 30, 1988–January 5, 1989, p. 1435; July 24, 1992, p. 6; August 2, 1996, p. 7.
Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), September 11, 1988, p. 24.
Village Voice, March 19, 1985.
Washington Post Book World, July 23, 1995, p. 11.
World Literature Today, autumn, 1982; autumn, 1994, p. 795; winter, 1995, p. 111.
OBITUARIES:
PERIODICALS
Americas, August, 1998, "Octavio Paz," p. 62.
Chicago Tribune, April 21, 1998, sec. 1, p. 1.
Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1998, p. A18; April 21, 1998, p. A1.
New Republic, May 11, 1998, "A Poet Passes," p. 10.
New York Times, April 21, 1998, p. A1.
Time, May 4, 1998, "Died. Octavio Paz," p. 27.
Time International, May 4, 1998, "Global Conversationalist Octavio Paz: 1914–1998," p. 52.
Washington Post, April 21, 1998, p. B6.