Spanish Poet Delivers Initial Norton Lecture

Jorge Guillen, Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, discussed the unity of sound and meaning as seen in three Spanish poems, at the first of the Norton lectures last night in Longfellow Hall.

Guillen chose as examples three love poems by the 16th century Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross. These poems show that the union of the soul and the body must be approached by love and faith, not by reason, the Wellesley professor said.

This poetry has three concepts which interlock but never dominate each other, Guillen pointed out, mystical, allegorical, and religious.

Guillen noted that however mystical St. John of the Cross may have been, the three poems considered only as poetry are not mystical, for "his terms of reference are unceasingly human."

St. John's poetry, which was banned by the Catholic church because it was too independent of the church in its thought, was a point of departure for later 16th century poets, according to Guillen. Three hundred years later, the French poet Charles Baudelaire considered St. John of the Cross "the perfect poet."