Carner's Poesia: Aspects of the internal history of the text

Abstract

The majority of Carner's poems which were published in Poesia, had already appeared in print as the first fruits offered to the reader. This fact allows us to establish, in a great number of poems, at least three moments in their public trajectory: the press, first book, and main book. The poem, as a dynamic product, and not as a static work completed in a first draft, was submitted to a series of revisions and re-elaborations which modified and perfected it. These moments of the text, which explain its evolution, also demonstrate the expressive progression of the poet in the mastery of his art, and show us, as if through a powerful microscope, the enormous imaginative, verbal and metrical skill of Carner. This creative skill enabled him to vary, at a very high level, the reading of the text at each new printing. Each one of these three concrete moments is the conclusion of one stage of the text and the starting point for the following one. This can be seen with any poem whatsoever: a poem was published in 1916; incorporated in a book (La inútil ofrena) in 1924, and finally included in the section OFRENA of Poesia, the volume printed in 1957.