William Carnero

Guillermo Carnero Arbat (Valencia, May 7, 1947) is a Spanish poet who belongs to the "novísimos" current, one of the most recognized and relevant in contemporary Spanish poetry. He is also a professor and historian of eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century literature (with particular emphasis on Romanticism), and has also researched avant-garde art and literature.

Biography

Guillermo Carnero Arbat was born in Valencia on May 7, 1947. He began his studies at the French Lyceum in Valencia. In September 1964 he moved to Barcelona where he studied Economic Sciences and Philosophy and Letters. He has recounted the consolidation of his poetic vocation in Barcelona at the colloquium, organized on November 8, 2016 by the José Manuel Lara Foundation at the Royal Academy of Good Letters of Seville, in which he participated together with Pablo García Baena and Jacobo Cortines.

In 1970 the famous anthology Nine newest Spanish poets appeared, by José María Castellet, in which Guillermo Carnero was included. Shortly after, in 1975, he presented his degree report in Spanish Philology at the University of Barcelona, directed by José Manuel Blecua, and which was published in 1976 under the title The Cántico de Córdoba group: a key episode of the history of postwar Spanish poetry. In that book, which had a new, revised and expanded edition in 2009, Carnero acknowledges the teaching of the Cántico de Córdoba group, and especially Pablo García Baena, in the formation of the "newest" aesthetic. The influence of the Cántico group on the novísimos is also documented in the novel El joven sin alma (2017) by Vicente Molina Foix, another of those included by José María Castellet in Nueve novísimos.

The first book of poems by Guillermo Carnero, Dibujo de la muerte was published in Málaga by the Librería El Guadalhorce, in February 1967, when the poet was still 19 years old, not 20 as it's been said. But before the appearance of that first book, Guillermo Carnero participated in Barcelona in the university resistance against the dictatorship, in confinement in the Capuchin convent of Sarriá known as "la Caputxinada". The meeting ended with the raid of the convent by the Public Order forces on March 11, 1966, and those who were there were the subject of a police file. For this reason and for the participation in subsequent university incidents, Carnero was initiated an academic file, the news of which appeared repeatedly in the Madrid press.

After completing his two degrees, Carnero obtained a temporary teaching position at the University of Valencia in 1976, where he received his doctorate with a thesis on The origins of Spanish reactionary Romanticism: the Böhl de Faber marriage, published in 1978 and deserving of the Extraordinary Doctorate Award. From then until his early retirement in 2012, he spent his career as a university professor and researcher, standing out as a specialist in the 18th century, a time to which he has dedicated a large part of his publications. His research has also covered nineteenth-century Romanticism, the history and poetics of the avant-garde at the beginning of the XX century, the contemporary and medieval literature. He has coordinated volumes 6, 7 and 8 (1700-1868, published between 1995 and 1997) of the History of Spanish Literature founded by Ramón Menéndez Pidal.

He has published recovery editions of numerous works by eighteenth-century authors, among them, the 4 vols. of Obras raras y desconocidas by Ignacio de Luzán (1990-2010), a contribution of copious erudition on the most important theoretician of Spanish Neoclassicism. He has also prepared editions by Azorín, Juan Gil-Albert and Luis Rosales. In 2005 he published Cienfuegos - Original investigation of the opposition to the chair of Spanish Language and Literature, and other unpublished 1925-1939, by Jorge Guillén, a volume that adds 200 pages to Guillén's prose work, and documents the persecution he was subjected to by the authorities of the 1936 military uprising from the beginning of the civil war until his exile in the United States in mid-1938.

Carnero has also been a poet of notable theoretical awareness: his collection of Poetics and interviews dates from 2007. Invited in 2011 by the University of Venice and the Commonwealth of Venetian Museums, within the framework of the “Incroci di Civiltà” program, published in 2014 the volume A Venetian Mask. In it, he justifies the description of “Venetian poet” that critics have applied to him, and traces and details the inspiration that Venetian art has been for him, throughout the years and books.

After his time as interim professor at the University of Valencia, he won a position as an adjunct professor by competitive examination, and later as a professor, at the University of Alicante (1979 and 1986), where he has served from 1980 to 2012. He has been a professor in prominent foreign universities, such as the Italian Macerata (course 1987-1988), and the American Berkeley (1986-1987), Virginia (1989-1990) and Harvard (1994-1995), and member of the Advisory Council of the Foundation Juan March and the State Society for Cultural Commemorations. He has directed numerous courses at the Menéndez Pelayo University, and has given lectures at the main Spanish, European and American Universities. He has practiced literary criticism in Ínsula , El Mundo , Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Revista de Libros and other newspapers and magazines. He has published eleven books of poetry and five plaquettes since 1967, and compilations of his poetry in 1979, 1983, 1998, 2010, and 2020.

Since 2011, he has been a member of the Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies of the University of Salamanca and of the Bodoni Project, which integrates the University of Salamanca, the National Heritage and the Palatina Library of Parma; since 2014 he has been an honorary professor at the University of Valencia, and since 2020 a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Friends of the San Pío V Museum of Fine Arts in Valencia.

Awards

• 1979, Special Doctorate Award.
• 2000, National Critics Award [♪].
• 2000, National Literature Prize - Poetry [♪].
• 2000, Prize of the Valencian Critics [*].
• 2002, Fastenrath Award of the Royal Spanish Academy [♪].
• 2003, Prize for the Valencian Critics Big fog mirror.
• 2005, Loewe International Poetry Award for Source of Medici.
• 2006, Prize of the Valencian Letters [**].
• 2013, Luis Guarner Foundation Philological Research Award [**].

[*] Awarded for the work English Summer. [ ** ] Awarded for the set of his work.

Poetics

Carnero has stated that the break with social realism and neo-romanticism meant for him, in the mid-1960s XX, the negation of poetry-message, that which produces predictable and insignificant reading texts due to its low deviation from the standard language and its everyday and contemporary references.

His alternative was to use indirect procedures of expression of the lyrical self, considering the History of Culture a symbolizing field by analogy in vital and emotional terms, which allows to account for daily experience through culture; an overcoming of the lexicalized language of neo-romanticism, by transposing the discourse of the self to that of a "he" or an "it" with which he identifies. This is stated in his article, entitled “Life or culture”, published in the year 2000 in the cultural supplement of the newspaper El Mundo, and it is explained by numerous texts included in Poetics and interviews (2007).

The poetics of Guillermo Carnero has been defined by two basic concepts: culturalism and metapoetry. Culturalism consists in the fact that the poet designates a historical, literary or represented character in a work of art, when he means that he is in an existential situation similar to his own; or else an artistic or literary work when that work, as he understands it, means what he wants to mean about himself. The advantage of this substitution is that the novelty and surprise provided by a poem based on the analogy between real life and the cultural imaginary are potentially infinite, as much as the latter.

Metapoetry is that poetry that has itself as its object, wondering to what extent we can account for ourselves when writing, and to what extent language can reflect and transmit emotional thought; In other words, what is the relationship between the language of the poem, the reality from which it comes, and the reader who receives it. For Carnero, metapoetry is a basic existential question, in those who do not have thought dissociated from emotions.

The passage of more than fifty years has revealed the coherence of his career, in which there are two periods: the first (until 1975) and the second (from 1999 to 2009). Among them, a book of transition (Indefinite Divisibility, 1990). After the second, two books, Devastated Regions (2017) and Florentine Letter (2018). The substantial difference between the two periods is that in the second, culturalism and metapoetry coexist with a passionate intimacy in which love and sex emerge without a mask. At the same time, the disappointment that appears in the second is deeper and more absolute, and the evocation of the alternative reality, longed for and dreamed of, has a consolatory power in the first period that is lacking later.

Work

Poetry. Books

• Drawing of deathMalaga, El Guadalhorce; 1967; 2nd ed., Barcelona, Ocnos, 1971.
• The Dream of Escipion, Madrid, Visor, 1971.
• Variations and figures on a theme by La Bruyère, Madrid, Visor, 1974.
• Target random, Madrid, Mauricio D’Ors – Thirteenth of Snow, 1975.
• Undefined predictability, Seville, Renaissance, 1990
• Summer English, Barcelona, Tusquets, 1999, 2nd ed. 2000.
• Large fog mirror, Barcelona, Tusquets, 2002.
• Source of Medici, Madrid, Visor, 2006; Full Italian translation by Pietro Taravacci: “Fontana de’ Medici, magazine Ticontre. n.o 6 (2016), 205-236.
• Four Roman nights, Barcelona, Tusquets, 2009.
• Devastated regions, Seville, José Manuel Lara Foundation, 2017.
• Florentine Charter, Seville, José Manuel Lara Foundation, 2018.

Poetry. Platelets

• Book of hours. Málaga, Librería Anticuaria El Guadalhorce, 1967.
• Mode and songs of fictitious loveMalaga, El Guadalhorce Antique bookstore, 1969.
• Barcelona, mon amour, Málaga, Librería Anticuaria El Guadalhorce, 1970.
• Archaeological PoemsLion, Northwest Notebooks, 2003.
• Pensil of noble maidens, Málaga, Centro Cultural Generación del 27, 2005.

Poetry. Compilations and Complete Works

• Essay of a theory of vision. (Poetry 1966-1977)), preliminary study by Carlos Bousoño, Madrid, Hyperion, 1979; 2nd ed., ibid. id., 1983.
• Drawing of death. (Poetic work 1966-1990)ed. Ignacio Javier López, Madrid, Chair, 1998; 2nd revised, 2010.
• Conclusive garden (Poetic work 1999-2009), ed. Elide Pittarello, Madrid, Chair, 2020.

Poetics

• Poetics and interviews, Málaga, Centro Cultural Generación del 27, 2007.
• The underground poet, or my three cryptoman Manifestos, Salamanca, SEMYR, 2010.
• “A cold poem: Piero della Francesca”, Insula 774 (June 2011), 43-44.
• “For signs of lyrics: Cultural imagination and self-annotation”, in Bénedicte Vauthier & Jimena Gamba Corradine (eds.), Genetic criticism and editing of contemporary Hispanic manuscripts. Contributions to a "state transition poetics", Salamanca, University, 2012, 23-31.
• A Venetian mask, Valencia, Institución Alfonso el Magnánimo, 2014.
• “Nature and landscape in my poetic work (1967-2009)”, in Germà Colón Domènech " Rosa Agost Canòs " Santiago Fortuño Llorens (eds.), Current position: Vivències i art, Castellón de la Plana, Jaume I University, 2017, 91-105.
• Response to Angela Moro, “The Role of Anthologies to Debate”, Insula 863 (November 2018), 36.
• “La France et sa culture dans mon œuvre poétique”, en Guillermo Carnero et la France, un dialogue des cultures. Anthologie bilingue présentée par Guillermo Carnero et Catherine Guillaume. Traductions de l’espagnol par Catherine Guillaume, postface by Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Orléans, Paradigme, 2020, 21-32.

Studies and Essays

• The “Cántico” group in Córdoba. A key episode in the history of Spanish post-war poetry, Madrid, Editora Nacional, 1976; 2nd ed. expanded and updated, Madrid, Visor, 2009.
• The origins of Spanish reactionary Romanticism. The Böhl marriage of FaberValencia, University of Valencia, 1978.
• The Dark Face of the Century of Lights, Madrid, Chair & Juan March Foundation, 1983.
• The abyssinian weapons. Tests on literature and art of the 20th century, Barcelona, Anthropos, 1989.
• Studies on Spanish Theatre of the Century XVIII, Zaragoza, University, 1997.
• The cold passion of Luis Rosales, Madrid, City Hall, 2005.
• Salvador Dalí and other art and art studies avant-garde, Valencia, Institución Alfonso el Magnánimo, 2007.
• Studies on narrative and other eighteenth themes, Salamanca, Universidad & Zaragoza, Universidad, 2009.
• As in itself at last (on Jaime Gil de Biedma), [Burgos], Instituto Castellano and Leonés de la Lengua, 2008.
• The hunt for love or love without hunting, in the orchard or the orchard of Melibea, Salamanca, SEMYR, 2017.
• Words on your flight (From Jorge Guillén to Pablo García Baena), edition of Juan José Lanz, Valladolid, University, 2020.

Editing of texts, with preliminary study and notes

• Spronceda, José de. Poetry and prose. Literary and political prose, lyric poetry; The student of Salamanca, The Devil World, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1999 – didactic appendix by Ángel Luis Prieto de Paula.
• Garcia Baena, Pablo. A ship loaded with pigeons and spices (anthology), Seville, Andalusian Agency of Cultural Institutions " Department of Culture " Centro Andaluz de las Letras, 2018.
• Garcia Malo, Ignacio, Voice of nature, London, Thames, / Fundación Juan March, 1995. - Doña María Pacheco, wife of Padilla. Tragedia, Madrid, Chair, 1996
• Gil-Albert, Juan, Poetry anthologyValencia, Valencia Council of Culture, 1993. - The illusions, with the poems of The Convalescent, Barcelona, Grijalbo-Mondadori, 1998
• Guillén, Jorge, Cienfuegos. Original investigation of opposition to Spanish Language and Literature Chair (1925) and other unpublished (1925-1939), Valladolid, Fundación Jorge Guillén / Universidad de Valladolid / 2005.
• Jovellanos, Gaspar Melchor de, Memory on shows. Agrarian Law Report, Madrid, Chair, 1997.
• Luzán, Ignacio de, Rare and unknown works, vol. I. Translation of the Latin epigrams of Christoph Weigel. Latin letter from Ignacio Philalethes. Plan of an Academy of Sciences and Arts. Report on Coin Houses. Report on Van Hoey's letters, Zaragoza, Institution Fernando el Católico, 1990. - Rare and unknown works, vol. II. Apologetic Speech of Lanuza's Iñigo, Zaragoza, Institution Fernando el Católico, 2003. - Rare and unknown works, vol. III. Luzan and the academies. Historiographic, linguistic and varied work, Zaragoza, University, 2007. - Rare and unknown works, vol. IV. Literary memories of Paris. Dedicatory Epistle The Reason Against Fashion, Zaragoza, University, 2010
• Martínez Colomer, Vicente, The Valdemaro (1792), Alicante, Instituto Juan Gil-Albert, 1985.
• Montengón, Pedro, The Rodrigo, Eudoxia, daughter of Belisario, Odas Selection, Alicante, Instituto Juan Gil-Albert, 1990, 2 vols. - The Rodrigo, Madrid, Chair, 2002.
• Rosales, Luis, April; Second April, Madrid, Madrid City Council, 2005.
• Zavala and Zamora, Gaspar, Narrative works: The Eumenia. Oderay Barcelona, Sirmio / University of Alicante, 1992.
• Romanticism and Nationalism in Spain: The Initial Debate (1805-1820). Antonio Alcalá Galiano – Juan Nicolás Böhl de Faber – Juan Bautista Cavaleri Pazos – José Joaquín de Mora – Francisca Ruiz de Larrea – José Vargas Ponce – Cristóbal Zulueta. Editing, preliminary study and notes by Guillermo Carnero. Madrid, Sociedad de Estudios del Siglo XVIII, 2022, 614 pages.

Translations with preliminary study

• William Beckford, Vathek (1786), Barcelona, Seix-Barral, 1969. 2a ed., prologue Jorge Luis Borges, Madrid, Siruela, 1984.
• Vladimir Hin, One night with Hamlet and other poems, in collaboration with Josef Forbelsky, Barcelona, Seix-Barral, 1970.
• Théophile Gautier, Spiritist, Barcelona, EDHASA, 1971.
• Valery Larbaud. Five poems”, Thirteenth of Snow1st time, No. 3 (spring 1972), 12-18.

Selected bibliography about the author

• Bousoño, Carlos, “The Poetry of Guillermo Carnero”, in Guillermo Carnero, Essay of a theory of vision (Poesy 1966-1979), Madrid, Hyperion, 1979 (2nd ed. 1983), 11-68.
• Cortines, Jacobo & Carnero, Guillermo, “I meet Pablo García Baena”,Agramante field 27 (Winter-spring 2018), 4-17.
• Gallardo, Ivan, “The River of Mind” [Review of Florentine Charter], Magazine of Books203 (2019), 209-212.
• Gies, David T. (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Modern Spanish Culture, Cambridge U.P., 1999, 187-207.
• Guillaume, Catherine, Guillermo Carnero's poetry. Lectures in devenir, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2020 — — “Les géographies culturelles de Guillermo Carnero, une médiation humaniste entre le poète et son lecteur”, en Guillermo Carnero et la France, un dialogue des cultures. Anthologie bilingüe présentée par Guillermo Carnero et Catherine Guillaume. Traductions de l’espagnol par Catherine Guillaume, postface by Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Orléans, Éditions Paradigme, 2, 9-20.
• Jiménez, José Olivio, “Esthetic of luxury and death: about Drawing of Death of Guillermo Carnero”, Papers of Son Armadans 194 (V 1972), 145-157; collected in Ten Years of Spanish Poetry (1960-1970), Madrid, Ínsula, 1972, 375‐389; 2a ed. Ten years decisive in contemporary Spanish poetry, 1960-1970, Madrid, Rialp, 1998, 210-219.
• Juliá, Jordi, “The Role of Painting in the Poetry of Guillermo Carnero”, in Salvador Montesa (ed.), Poets in 2000. Modernity and transvanguardMalaga, Congress of Contemporary Spanish Literature, 2001, 293-304.
• Lanz, Juan José, The metaphysical muse. Essays on Guillermo Carnero's Poetry, Valencia, Institució Alfons el Magnànim " Diputación de Valencia, 2016.
• López, Ignacio Javier, “Culturalism and literary tradition in Guillermo Carnero”, in Juan José Lanz & Natalia Vara Ferrero (eds.), Poetry as a historical document: poetry and ideology in contemporary Spain, Seville, Renaissance, 2018, 109-132.
• Mainer, José-Carlos, “The Poet of Mutual Birds”, Poetry on the Campus 47 (2000), pags.3-8; collected You plot, books, names. To understand Spanish literature, 1944-2000, Barcelona, Anagrama, 2005, 236-244.
• Martínez, Fulgencio & Illán Vivas, Francisco Javier, “Conversation with Guillermo Carnero”, Agora. Papers of grammar art 23 (III-IV 2011), 19-39.
• Morcillo, Françoise, “Culturalism defended by Guillermo Carnero”, Contemporary Spanish poetry read as a dialogue between cultures, Palma de Mallorca, Lucerne, 2009, chap. 2.4, 58-74.
• Nicholas, Caesar, “Cathedral of Avilaa poem to speculate,” in Guillermo Carnero, Avila in my poetryAvila, Avila Fund, 2005, 31-56.
• Pageaux, Daniel-Henri. “Postface”, in Guillermo Carnero et la France, un dialogue des cultures. Anthologie bilingüe présentée par Guillermo Carnero et Catherine Guillaume. Traductions de l’espagnol par Catherine Guillaume, postface by Daniel-Henri Pageaux, Orléans, Éditions Paradigme, 2020 152-171.
• Piccone, Marjolaine, Les poètes espagnols de la génération des novísimos. Rénovation poétique et mosaïque culturelle, Paris, Champion, 2018.
• Pittarello, Elide, “Introduction”, in Conclusive garden (Poetic work 1999-2009), Madrid, Chair, 2020, 9-235.
• Ponce Cardenas, Jesus, “Ludibria mortis: finitude and oblivion Devastated regions of Guillermo Carnero”, Insula 852 (XII 2017), 26-30.
• Satorras Pons, Alicia, The skin and the stone. A poetic of uncertainty in the poetry of Guillermo Carnero, doctoral thesis, University of Barcelona, 2020 – in the press
• Zimmermann, Marie-Claire “Castilla”, in Peter Fröhlicher et alii (eds.) A hundred years of poetry. 72 Spanish poems of the twentieth century: poetic structures and critical guidelines, Bern, Berlin & Brussels, " Frankfurt/M. " New York " Oxford " Vienna, Peter Lang, 2001, 677-690. — “L’écriture poétique de Guillermo Carnero: Summer English”, in Philippe Meunier & Edgar Samper (eds.), Mélanges en hommage à Jacques SoubeyrouxParis, CELEC, 2008, 655-681.