...
Show More
The search for the present is very short/interdisciplinary and explores the word ‘the present’ in the types of modernity that exist in cultures and in the layers of languages throughout history. Paz defends Mexican modernity and argues that Latin American modernity has a very different purpose from its Anglo-American counterparts (such as English in the United States and French in Canada). It is very effective in explaining ‘transplanted’ languages: how they explain the histories of both traditions and how this phenomenon changes their metahistories, or rather, deconstructs them through negation and then how it replicates. There is a critique of ‘postmodernity’ that Paz explains very quickly. I want to explore it in Paz's other works. This piece is so clever. It re-enchants the word “modernity” from its Christian origins in the same way ‘modern’ Mexican poetry re-enchants their antiquity (spiritually, since its material existence is otherwise destroyed) with the present. And to you, Octavio Paz, thank you.
