La obediencia rebelde: Roberto Manzano, Rafael Almanza y Jesús David Curbelo, tres poetas contemporáneos ante el canon cubano

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to demonstrate the value of the poetic work of contemporary Cuban authors like Roberto Manzano Diaz (1949), Rafael Almanza Alonso (1957) and Jesus David Curbelo (1965). These three poets’ work has been poorly studied or disseminated by the professional and academic critique, both at the national and international levels. While we used poetic texts from the diverse poetry published between the nineties and the first decades of the 21st century, we focused the selection of the corpus on the poem collections Synergos (2005), by R. Manzano; HymNos (2014), by R. Almanza; and El lobo y el centauro (2001), by J. D. Curbelo. The Harold Bloom's theory of poetic influences or intra-poetic relationships was primarily used as the theoretical framework. The main concepts used were ‘anxiety of influence’, ‘poetic misreading’ or ‘creative misreading’, ‘misinterpretation’, ‘poetic misprision’, ‘defense’, ‘agon', ‘swerve’, clinamen’, ‘revisionary ratios’ and ‘revisionary comparisons’. The theory of poetic influences shows us how ‘later poets’ emulate canonical ‘precursor poets’ in order to match or exceed their aesthetic values. The possibilities to reach a place in the canon depends precisely on that emulation and not on any other factors orbiting around the poetic text.  Secondly, the Bloom’s thesis was applied to his own theory, which means performing a ‘swerve’ towards formal questions not prioritized by Bloom. We then investigated whether these poets formally revise the Hispanic verse construction. The Oldřich Bělič's theory of the “verse with variable accent” was used for this purpose. Based on a thorough comparative study on the types of versification in other twelve languages, this theory inspects the different types of versification that have framed the Hispanic verse to date and proposes the verse with variable accent as a new framing type of versification. The research was completed with three appendices. The first appendix consists of a brief biography of the three studied authors; the second appendix contains an inventory of the metrical forms used by them - the inventory is open since the works are still in progress; and the third appendix consists of an anthology of their poetic texts studied within the thesis, together with other texts representatives of these three author's poetry. From a methodological standpoint, observing the elements that indicate an intra-poetic emulation like lexical selection, analogical associations and typographic arrangement, among others, has allowed us to attempt to determine the extent to which these poets have the potential to access the canon, regardless of the circumstances around the poetic text that so far have prevented them from doing it. We are thus offering to restructure the contemporary Cuban poetic canon and, consequently, to develop an evident contra-canonical proposal. On the other hand, by analyzing the formal aspect of the verse construction in these authors, we have first been able to use Bloom's revisionist theory in the formalistic approach of literary research. Furthermore, we have been able to reconsider the extent to which the use of the theoretical bases of at least three types of versification supports the analysis of the Hispanic verse construction.  This research allowed us to prove that the poets of the corpus have clearly defined stylistic features. It was also proved that these poets have broad in-depth knowledge of various meters, stanzas and compositions with, at the same time, an “obedient” and transgressive intent in the use of these formal elements. Finally, these poets maintain a systematic dialog with the aesthetic values that have been recognized by the tradition of readers, whether informed or not. This continuous exchange aims at raising them to the level of achievement of the canonical poets.  From a formal perspective, it was also proved that the studied poetic texts are better described from the theoretical proposal of the verse with variable accent. Hence, their poetic practices revise the fashion in which the Hispanic verse is constructed and contribute to the validation of Bělič’s theory.  In conclusion, both formal and informal analysis have allowed us to ascertain the value of these authors’ poetic proposals and, therefore, the unjustifiable little or no attention given by the national and international critique. On the other hand, the study has provided the possibility to prove that these authors’ poetic works are in general finely elaborated, which supports their presence in the canon.

Keyphrases: Roberto Manzano Diaz, Rafael Almanza Alonso, Jesús David Curbelo Rodriguez, Harold Bloom, Oldřich Bělič, Poetic influences, Literary canon, Verse with variable accent, Contemporary Cuban poetry