SENSE OF BEAUTY, SENSE OF EXPRESSION. CHILEAN LITERATURE OF THE 1950S FROM "DIARIO ÍNTIMO" BY LUIS OYARZÚN

Abstract

Diario íntimo by Luis Oyarzún (1920-1972), published posthumously in 1995, collects the author's permanent reflection and writing between 1949 and 1972, being this the laboratory and quarry of his books and articles, as well as the confidential space of observation of himself and his contemporaneity. Poet, narrator, essayist, professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy, Oyarzún was a key intellectual for at least two generations, that of 38 and 50. Despite being an influential character and connected with the artists and humanists of his time, his thought maintained a critical distance, refractory to fashions (aesthetic and political), and committed to the poetic search for a spiritually richer world (Millas 2015, Morales 2014). In this essay I propose to make a temporal cut of his diary in the 1950s and to highlight his main ideas regarding literature, particularly the Chilean literature produced in this decade. With this prism we can approach his literary and human appreciation of figures such as Pablo Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Benjamín Subercaseaux and Nicanor Parra; the reception of key texts such as Hijo de ladrón by Manuel Rojas and the appearance of new authors, such as Enrique Lafourcade. The intimacy of the diary will account, sometimes in a stark way, for the living thought of Oyarzún and, by extension, for the main cultural and critical conflicts that come into play in the twentieth century.