José Emilio Pacheco and the Poets of the Shadows

Book excerpt: "Jose Emilio Pacheco (1939- ) is Mexico's foremost living poet, and a major figure in contemporary Latin American poetry. Jose Emilio Pacheco and the Poets of the Shadows examines the dynamic of literary influence and the question of literary origins in Pacheco's first six books of poetry (1960s to mid-1980s). Ronald J. Friis appropriates Bloom's theory of poetic influence to investigate how Pacheco deploys literary allusions and intertextual references as a means of decentering the traditional centrality of the figure of the author. The poets of the shadows to which the title refers include Pacheco's precursors from prior generations of Mexican and Latin American literature, particularly Jorge Luis Borges, Alfonso Reyes, and Octavio Paz."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved