A POETICS OF THE VISIONARY ABSURD: JUAN EMAR

Abstract

Juan Emar’s visionary writing speaks of irrationality and prodigy, which are the basis of his poetics of the absurd. His protagonists are neurotic and grotesque characters who parody mechanization in ordinary urban life, with unreal atmospheres, and a powerful presence of cruelty, onirism and fantasy, and also a visionary and delirious sense of humour, which attempts to exorcise the tragic condition menacing human beings. Emar’s writing is a model of Hispanic-American modernist prose, and it foretells the poetics trends of its century.