The Remnants of the Poets' Brotherhood: Octavio Paz, Poetry, Theory, and the Question of Community

In this paper, I analyze Octavio Paz's theoretical and political thought vis-à-vis his view of the poet as a member of an exclusive brotherhood. By tracing the displacement of Paz's thought from philosophical discourse toward literary language and poetic expression, I establish how (in opposition to Hegel's dialectic) Paz defined poetry and the poetic experience as superior forms of knowledge that could serve as the foundation for a poets' brotherhood, as well as being the ideal cognitive instruments with which to think about the origin of community at large and to develop a subversive critique of it. I trace Paz's evolving view of the decline of both the poets' brotherhood and the subversive power of poetry during the twentieth century, as he grappled with the profound transformations in language and communications provoked by the development of technology. I examine this transition in his thinking, which occurred between the first and second editions of El arco y la lira, to discuss the trajectory that guided him to the position that he assumed as an intellectual when he finally returned to Mexico in 1971.