Exile and transterment in two poems by Gonzalo Rojas

Abstract

As has been the case with many intellectuals in our time, the poet Gonzalo Rojas (Lebu, 19162011) lived the almost always traumatic experience of exile, which appears in many poems of his work. To meet the objective of his article -the theme of exile in the poetics of the author-two poems have been selected in which this theme occupies center stage: "Domicilio en el Báltico", which appeared in print form for the first time in Oscuro (1977) and "Transtierro", published in the volume of the same name in 1979. The methodological approach employed is a semantic-comparative analysis of both poems assisted by extra textual information related to the author's biography and the contexts in which the poems were produced. This research shows that even though one finds common concerns in both poems -the anguish of a possible future death away from one's native land, for instance- there are evident differences. The poetic speaker's transparent reaction to a specific geographical, cultural and political setting in "Domicilio en el Báltico" contrasts with the intense metaphysical apprehensions of the speaker of "Transtierro", who contemplates the possible transformations his life in exile will undergo.