Poetry and war: Action and melancholy in Vallejo and Drummond

Abstract

The relationship between poetry and war is a long-standing one and betokens the arcana of the genre, from the classical poetic diction to the hero’s failure in modernity. By contrasting Carlos Drummond de Andrade’s A Rosa do Povo to César Vallejo’s España, aparta de mí este cáliz, my aim is to understand how, as intellectuals, poets position themselves between melancholy and a virile voice, between the being’s waning from horror and impotence, and the ecstasy that presides over action. With the Second World War and the Spanish Civil War as backgrounds, the two poetics may reveal diverse forms of attention to the historical moment, and different forms of loyalty to its victims.