Juan Ramón Jiménez’s Reading of Edgar Allan Poe as a Source for a Cosmopolitan Modernismo

Abstract

The article explores Juan Ramón Jiménez’s attempt to be a member of the international Modernist generation. For such purpose he rearranges his poetry and the influences that were fundamental throughout his career. By claiming himself a member of the Modernist group, he has to redefine Spanish and Spanish American modernism as a movement that has international roots, Poe being one of them. The article analyzes Jiménez’s critical essays Alerta and El Modernism: Apuntes de un curso in which he explores the connections of the Spanish modernism to Modernism, creating a “modernismo” that is Jiménez’s own blend of the two.