Octavio Paz

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Related to Octavio Paz: Carlos Fuentes

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).

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

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References in periodicals archive ?

En otras palabras, este autoengano y autoconstruccion se realizan tanto al nivel individual como nacional y colectivo, y Octavio Paz construiria su nocion de las "mascaras mexicanas" sobre esta formulacion de Ramos unos anos despues (El laberinto 32-50, 172-73).

Habia ... ?una vez?: los cuentos de hadas y la construccion del mito de la historia mexicana en Los recuerdos del porvenir

Upon its release in 1965, the book enjoyed an immediate and enthusiastic critical response, one that has endured, as the likes of Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Severo Sarduy, and Julio Cortazar have written in admiration of this unusual work.

In the moment of the word: the late Mexican author Salvador Elizondo pursued spontaneity in the act of writing daring, unorthodox works

Her husband agrees: "For two years I served as managing editor of Vuelta, retarded by Octavio Paz, and it was part of the continual war between groups in Mexico's intellectual world.

Bound by art and life: sharing a vision, a dedicated couple revived a respected Mexican cultural magazine through stunning design and wide-ranging content

Sebeok, Russell Weigley, and Eugene Wigner; translations of the works of Beckett, Brecht, Heidegger, Husserl, Kant, Kierkegaard, Octavio Paz, Pushkin, and Voltaire; reprints of Conrad Aiken, John Dewey, Henry James, D.

ebrary Inks Deals With Three Major University Presses; Harvard University Press, Cornell University Press, and Indiana University Press to Distribute Titles to New Online Markets Through ebrary

He decided to write an open letter to the government in protest, signed by 100 of Mexico's leading intellectuals, including poet Octavio Paz and painter Rufino Tamayo.

POETRY IN MOTION

It comes from an Octavio Paz poem that I admire a lot - Piedra del sol.

Closely watched train

Perhaps the highest-profile dissenter among Mexican intellectuals is Octavio Paz, the 1990 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Revolutionary appeals: Chiapas tells the old story of peasant Indians used by urban intellectuals

Though Spanglish is scorned by protectors of the purity of the Spanish language (the Mexican writer Octavio Paz described it as "abominable"), Diaz's characters remind us that, for many people, the very notion of an origin is becoming problematic.

Junot Diaz. This Is How You Lose Her

En este, que nace como parte de un proyecto anterior iniciado por El perfil del hombre y la cultura en Mexico (1934) de Samuel Ramos, Octavio Paz se erige como voz aglutinante con el poder para autentificar enunciados definitorios y capaz de ofrecer soluciones a las encrucijadas identitarias y al conflicto entre modernidad y modernizacion e historia y carga mitica.

Enunciacion de estereotipos de la Mexicanidad en El Laberinto de la Soledad y su relectura en la obra de Carmen Boullosa

A treinta anos de Plural (1971-1976), revista fundada y dirigida por Octavio Paz (Plural [1971-1976]: Thirty Years Later: A Magazine Founded and Edited by Octavio Paz).

A treinta anos de Plural (1971-1976), revista fundada y dirigida por Octavio Paz. (Books: mishaps, myths, and antimodernism)

Krauze founded Letras Libres as a successor to Vuelta, the journal that closed shop after the death last year of its director, the poet and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz.

SMALL INTELLECTUALS

This election represents a new era in the history of Mexico - maybe,'' Octavio Paz, the Nobel Laureate and writer, wrote in a worried essay published Monday.