Page 15 - GALIET POETRY & Metaphor: Shelley IV

that Imaginary Man of Chilean poet Parra:
El hombre imaginario
vive en una mansión imaginaria rodeada de árboles imaginarios a la orilla de un río imaginario
De los muros que son imaginarios penden antiguos cuadros imaginarios irreparables grietas imaginarias
que representan hechos imaginarios ocurridos en mundos imaginarios
en lugares y tiempos imaginarios
Todas las tardes imaginarias
sube las escaleras imaginarias
y se asoma al balcón imaginario
a mirar el paisaje imaginario
que consiste en un valle imaginario circundado de cerros imaginarios
Sombras imaginarias
vienen por el camino imaginario entonando canciones imaginarias a la muerte del sol imaginario
Y en las noches de luna imaginaria sueña con la mujer imaginaria
que le brindó su amor imaginario vuelve a sentir ese mismo dolor ese mismo placer imaginario
y vuelve a palpitar
el corazón del hombre imaginario.
(Nicanor Parra)
The imaginary man
Dwells in an imaginary mansion Surrounded by imaginary trees
On the shores of an imaginary river
From the walls that are imaginary Hung old imaginary paintings Irreparable imaginary cracks
That represent imaginary facts
That took place in imaginary worlds In imaginary places and times
All imaginary afternoons
He ascends the imaginary ladder
And he leaned out of the imaginary balcony To see the imaginary landscape
That consists of an imaginary valley Surrounded by imaginary hills
Imaginary shadows
Come through the imaginary road Singing imaginary songs
To the death of the imaginary sun
And in the nights of imaginary moon gaze He dreams of an imaginary woman
That poured in him her imaginary love He turns to feel again that same pain That same imaginary pleasure
And the heart of the imaginary man Begins to palpitate once more
(Trans. by Claudia Barria Davison)
Galiet & Galiet
Far-off from Parra’s Imaginary Man, taciturn phantom chained by futility to Sisyphus boulder, Shelley’s poet releases himself from singular poetic atrophies and hurls himself towards his other self: lofty poetry and poesy. Exalting his anti-Platonic imagination, Shelley exclaims through the immortal pages of Romanticism, how lofty poetry possesses that natural, ‘inexhaustible energy,’ perhaps no less astonishing and no less grand than Dylan Thomas’ “green fuse that drives the flower.”32 “Poetry,” versifies Shelley, “administers to the effect [i.e. the propagation of good] by acting upon the cause [i.e. by molding the reader’s imagination].”33 As the energy of goodness
32 Thomas, Dylan. Qite Early One Morning. New York: New Directions Book, 1954.
33 Heath, William. Major British Poets of the Romantic Period. Shelley. A Defence of Poetry. New York: McMillan Publishing Co., 1973. 520
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