José Ortega y Gasset – Gerardo Diego. Correspondence (1921–1937). Part One

Abstract

Presentation of the first instalment of the expanded edition of the correspondence between José Ortega y Gasset and Gerardo Diego. The original edition, published in Revista de Occidente in 1996, is supplemented with new letters provided by the poet’s heir. The correspondence spans the years 1921 to 1932, from Diego’s sending of the manuscript of Imagen to the return by Ortega of an unpublished manuscript –possibly Imagen or Versos humanos. During this period, Ortega directed the Calpe publishing house, founded the Revista de Occidente, and published The Dehumanization of Art, the subject of a controversy in the new letters. For his part, Gerardo Diego consolidated his poetics –poised between tradition and the avant-garde– and his role as editor, with the journal Carmen (1927-1928) and the first edition of his anthology Poesía española (1932). The introduction focuses on the unpublished letters, among which are the proposal for collaboration with the Revista de Occidente and an exceptional exercise in Ortega’s critical reading of the poetics of Generation of ’27.