«El viatger no sap» i «no li demanis al camí quina ruta». La poètica de l'errar en la poesia d'Antoni Clapés i Víctor Sunyol

Abstract

Within the framework of the crisis and critique of the language of contemporary thought and poetry, this article proposes a metaliterary reflection on the figure of the poet as an exile from the word. Assisted by thinkers and literary critics like Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Lévinas and Jean-Luc Nancy, we will analyse in what sense exile is a defining component of the contemporary poet and how it should be understood. As we will see, the exile of the contemporary poet cannot be understood either in the Greek way—the figure of Odysseus—or in the Judeo-Christian way—the figure of Moses—because they are both figures that symbolise a temporary exile, a path of return or future in which negativity only serves to deny itself and operate again. On the contrary, the figure of the itinerant poet-monk, personified in Matsuo Bashō, will serve to illustrate the characteristic exile of the contemporary poet, a path in which the negativity is absolute insofar as it proposes wandering with no origin or destination. Finally, the voices of two current Catalan poets, Antoni Clapés and Víctor Sunyol, will provide the necessary concreteness and complement the argument.