Ideogramas y enigmas: citas, traducciones y transformaciones de la cultura china en la obra de Juan Luis Martínez

Abstract

The present essay reviews the references to Chinese culture in the work of Juan Luis Martínez and proposes a comprehensive interpretation of their function therein. It takes into account his work as a whole, engaging in a dialogue with readings that have focused on specific aspects of this problem, and considering Martínez in the context of the appropriation of Chinese writing and poetics by several writers in the 20th century. Specifically, this essay comments on the presence of a page written in Chinese and its adjacent commentaries in La nueva novela, the presence of trigrams from the I ching in Aproximación del principio de incertidumbre a un proyecto poético and El poeta anónimo, as well as the inclusion of classical Chinese poems in Spanish translation in the latter, together with a photograph of a non-identified Chinese person.