Poema del Héroe
Paris, Printed by José Solsona [for the Author], 1935.
Octavo, 8 pages (printed on Arches laid paper) plus a loosely-inserted hand-coloured plate.
Saddle-sewn wrappers with flaps, with expert conservation to the spine, and the thread renewed; some light uneven tanning; lengthy inscription on the front cover (but see below); a very good copy.
A presentation copy, and one of only 100 examples of this extremely rare privately-printed work, inscribed and initialled by the author 'For W.R. Crocker | this emblematic poem about a hero who died speechless | and without a name. | EM | 21.8.36'. Munguía was a peripheral but influential member of the Mexican literary avant-garde and an early translator of T.S. Eliot. The poem is a modernist evocation of the horrors of war, focusing on the anonymity of the soldier, as signalled in the presentation inscription, which reflects the lines 'Emblemas, símbolos, medallas, | Aritmética difícil de la gloria y de la guerra. | Una Croix de Guerre igual a una pierna menos, | y todas las medallas póstumas para un hombre | despedazado hasta perder el nombre.' The loosely-inserted illustration is a hand-coloured relief print captioned 'Acuarela fuera de texto del « Poema del Héroe » | La dibujó Francisco Castillo Nájera D.' Castillo was colleague of Munguía's in the Mexican diplomatic service, and was the president of the Assembly of the League of Nations when he contributed this design, which features the crucified Christ behind a skeleton looking over the shoulder of a uniformed figure in a gas mask. The recipient was Australian diplomat Sir Walter Crocker (1902-2002). A lengthy inscription in his hand on the front wrapper supplies some detail of Munguía's biography. 'Enrique Munguía was an I.L.O. [International Labour Organization] colleague & friend at Geneva from 1934, including after his transfer to the Legal Section of the League of Nations in 1936. From 1936 to his death in 1940 we had adjoining appartments [sic]. A member of the Mexican Diplomatic Service, & married to a French Canadian, he was a good diplomat & a good lawyer; but his main interest was literature. Friendly with T.S. Eliot. | The coming of World War II unhinged him and he committed suicide early in 1940, my contrary efforts having failed. | It was then that Winant [John Gilbert Winant, American politician and diplomat] remarked to me that one rarely knows why a person commits suicide. He himself committed suicide six years later'. While Munguía's works were little known in his lifetime, he was at the forefront of Mexican modernism and his influence has been acknowledged by later generations of Mexican poets. Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz published a tribute entitled 'Rescate de Enrique Munguía' (in 'Vuelta', Number 142, September 1988), in which he recounts his first encounters with Munguía's prose translation of 'The Waste Land' ('El Páramo', published in the modernist journal 'Contemporáneos'), and the 'Poema del Héroe'.
Item #146691
Price (AUD):
$1,000.00