When the sixteen-year-old Octavio Paz (1914-1998) discovered "The Waste Land" in Spanish translation, it 'opened the doors of modern poetry'. The influence of T S Eliot would accompany Paz throughout his career, defining many of his key poems and pronouncements. Yet Paz's attitude towards his precursor was ambivalent. Boll's study is the first to trace the history of Paz's engagement with Eliot in Latin American and Spanish periodicals of the 1930s and 40s. It reveals the fault lines that run through the work of the dominant figure in recent Mexican letters. By positioning Eliot in a Latin...
When the sixteen-year-old Octavio Paz (1914-1998) discovered "The Waste Land" in Spanish translation, it 'opened the doors of modern poetry'. The infl...