The Poem and the Insect

This book is an extension of Dr. Spooner's previous work on the interplay of insect processes and human culture as discussed in The Metaphysics of Insect Life (ISP, 1995). It continues the application of the literary, philosophical, and scientific methods employed there to the main currents in the evolution of modern Hispanic literature. On one level, it is part of the new cultural-ecological criticism. Assessing the incursion of South American rainforest ecology into the poetry of Silva, Dario and later Eguren, this study considers their impact on Rueda, Aleixandre, Jimenez, Lorca, and Valente, among others, balancing this with a recognition of Spain's indigenous post-romantic modernism. Then, while taking account of the insects in Juan Goytisolo's novels, Spooner will throw more light on the books of Marquez, Cortazar and Fuentes, where the striking of the medieval across the modern is interpreted as related to the metamorphoses of insects, and indeed the processes of literary development itself. The book concludes with a consideration of the metaphysical and scientific implications of this analysis.