Paz, Octavio

Paz, Octavio (oktä`vyō päs`), 1914–98, Mexican poet and critic. A diplomat, he lived abroad many years. Paz's books—revealing depth of insight, elegance, and erudition—place him among his generation's ablest writers. His works include the poetry collections La estación violenta (1956), Piedra de sol (1957), Alternating Current (tr. 1973), Configurations (tr. 1971), Early Poems: 1935–1955 (tr. 1974), and Collected Poems, 1957–1987 (1987); the volumes of essays The Labyrinth of Solitude (tr. 1963), The Other Mexico (tr. 1972); and El arco y la lira (1956; tr. The Bow and the Lyre, 1973); criticism; and studies of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marcel Duchamp (both, tr. 1970). In 1971–72 Paz delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard; they are collected in Children of the Mire: Modern Poetry from Romanticism to the Avant-Garde (1974). In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Bibliography

See I. Ivask, ed., The Perpetual Present (1974).

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Paz, Octavio

Octavio Paz shortly after receiving his Nobel Prize, 1990

(credit: Svenskt Pressefoto/Copyright Archive Photos)

(born March 31, 1914, Mexico City, Mex.—died April 19, 1998, Mexico City) Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat. Educated at the University of Mexico, Paz published his first book of poetry, Savage Moon, in 1933. He later founded and edited several important literary reviews. Influenced in turn by Marxism, Surrealism, existentialism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, his poetry uses rich imagery in dealing with metaphysical questions, and his most prominent theme is the human ability to overcome existential solitude through erotic love and artistic creativity. His prose works include The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950), an influential essay on Mexican history and culture. He was Mexico's ambassador to India (1962–68). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.

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Paz, Octavio 

Born Mar. 31, 1914, in Mexico City. Mexican poet.

Paz’ first book of poetry, ¡No pasarán! (They Shall Not Pass, 1937), dealt with the Spanish national revolutionary war of 1936–39. Among his later collections were Man’s Roots (1937), Beneath Your Clear Shadow (1937), On the World’s Edge (1942), Freedom Under a Word of Honor (1949), The Seeds of a Hymn (1954), Sun Stone (1957), and The Whole Wind (1966). The poems in these works reveal Paz as an intellectual poet inclined toward lofty figurative language and intense meditation. His poems are often concerned with the cultural legacy of ancient Mexico and of the peoples of Asia. Paz regards the poet’s mission in modern society to be the renewal of man’s unity with the surrounding world. In his book of essays Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) he examines the distinctive character of Mexican history and the psychology of the Mexicans. Paz also wrote the study The Bow and the Lyre (1956), which deals with the essence of poetry, and articles on Mexican culture. In 1972 he headed the journal Plural.

WORKS

Libertad bajo palabra: Obra poética (1935–1958). Mexico City, 1960.

REFERENCES

Obregón Morales, R. “Chelovek vykhodit na pervyi plan.” Inostrannaia literatura, 1970, no. 6.
Leiva, R. Imagen de la poesía mexicana contemporanea. Mexico City, 1959.

V. N. KUTEISHCHIKOVA