Reading Anew

José Lezama Lima's Rhetorical Investigations

Juan Pablo Lupi.

The work of the Cuban poet, novelist and thinker José Lezama Lima (Havana, 1910-1976) constitutes one of the most fascinating intellectual projects ever made in Latin America. He is the author of some of the most difficult poems in the Spanish language and of an ambitious theory of poetics, culture and history. Through an analysis of Lezama´s strange use of language and the cultural archive, Reading Anew shows how the singular verbal experience in Lezama´s work constitutes a theoretical reflection about how rhetoric and the imagination shape our conceptions of the world. The book also explores the philosophical, aesthetic and political connotations of this experience, as it traces Lezama´s intellectual career and examines the profound connections between his preoccupation with Cuba´s history and identity and the more abstract and universalist dimension of his thought.

Juan Pablo Lupi is Assistant Professor at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Comparative Literature Program, University of California Santa Barbara. His research focuses on contemporary Caribbean literature, theories of poetics, literature and philosophy, and literature and science.