Perplejidades transatlánticas de “España” Soneto disperso de Rubén Darío

Abstract

Among the countless foundational enterprises attempted or completed by Rubén Darío in the vast and winding hispanic cultural territories, one of the most remarkable is a variety of Transatlantism that, like scores of his contributions, threw a long shadow, or a gleaming beam of light, over the future of Spanish letters on both shores of the ocean. This transatlantic venture has been profusely, and sometimes belligerently, examined by a significant portion of specialists. However, the sonnet “España,” perhaps because of its condition as a “dispersed poem,” or perchance because of the numerous and surprising transatlantic perplexities that arise from its lines, has been curiously neglected. And yet, this particular sonnet contains, as if it were a prodigious maritime chart, many of the aspirations, fears, dangers, paradoxes, and contradictions of Darío’s transatlantic drive, as well as those of so many others who also tried to navigate that same cultural ocean after him.