Sinergias: Poesía, física y pintura en la España del siglo XX by Candelas Gala (review) Sinergias: Poesía, física y pintura en la España del siglo XX by Candelas Gala (review) Maria C. Fellie Hispania, Volume 101, Number 1, March 2018, pp. 148-149 (Review) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: For additional information about this article [ Access provided at 6 Apr 2021 02:45 GMT from Carnegie Mellon University ] https://doi.org/10.1353/hpn.2018.0094 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/691855 https://doi.org/10.1353/hpn.2018.0094 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/691855 148 Hispania 101 March 2018 las portadas y el contenido de El Malcriado, el diario vocero del movimiento. Este libro puede ser de valiosa utilidad para cualquier investigador o lector interesado en ampliar sus conocimientos sobre la biografía de César Chávez y su lucha para darles voz a los campesinos agrícolas. Martin Camps University of the Pacific Gala, Candelas. Sinergias: Poesía, física y pintura en la España del siglo XX. Trans. Isabel Palomo. Barcelona: Anthropos, 2016. Pp. 301. ISBN 978-8-41642-117-6. Candelas Gala’s Sinergias: poesía, física y pintura en la España del siglo XX is a deeply researched and well organized series of studies regarding how the rapidly developing field of physics influ- enced poetic and artistic thought and works in early twentieth-century Spain. The “synergies” among science, literature, and art during those decades produced effects which Gala analyzes in the works of several Generación del 27 poets. In the introduction, Gala presents a detailed background of discoveries and events relevant to physics and Spain in the first three decades of the twentieth century, principally the 1920s. The author emphasizes that the poets and art- ists of thas time learned about scientific developments through popular sources (newspapers, magazines) and social events (presentations, tertulias). The atmosphere of Spanish cities in the 1920s is recreated through information gathered from these sources, detailing the sociocultural context, the public reception of new theories (relativity, fourth dimension, energy), and impor- tant figures in science (especially Einstein), education, art, and literature. In chapter 1, the author bases her analyses on the theory of relativity in relation to Pedro Salinas’s first three books of poetry. Within Presagios, Gala explores the idea of reality—the shifts, shadows, and variables constantly affecting an individual’s perception of time and space (relativity)—parallel to the poetic protagonist. Reflected in the title Seguro azar, “la contradicción, la amigüedad y la imprecisión” (55) form the foundation of Gala’s analysis, in which she refutes readings by Stixrude and Mayhew, proposing that this book is really about reality, perception, and poetry, while explaining el azar as a proven concept in quantum mechanics. Salinas’s Fábula y signo reveals “maneras de creación inesperadas” in relation, or response to, “las dimensiones de lo imponderable” (72). Gala focuses on Jorge Guillén’s Cántico in the second chapter, highlighting the poet’s per- sonal belief that the arts and sciences “se nutren de la misma energía creativa” (77). According to the author, this book revolutionized “poetic sensibility” in that it focused on material objects and physical reality—here it is examined in relation to physicist Ernst Mach’s theories on “las sensaciones y la ciencia visual” (78). Details from the five sections of Cántico are analyzed regarding objects, sensations, and light. Gala concludes that Guillén’s book represents “el poder de las percepciones sensoriales para crear la realidad” (108). Chapter 3 presents evidence of Juan Larrea’s interest in the sciences, particularly atomic theory, and subsequently examines his Versión celeste through an analogy to the structure of the atom, with its positive and negative charges. According to Gala, he saw the “desintegración” of the atom (and some other scientific advances) as parallel to his own search for personal and artistic identity (111). In this study, Gala studies several poems in relation to the concepts of the fourth dimension, the principle of complementarity, and electromagnetism. The author concludes that, like atoms, Larrea’s words and thoughts collide, “se contradicen y se fusionan para alcanzar nuevas configuraciones” (141). In chapter 4, Gala explores Gerardo Diego’s poesía de creación, which embodies the early twentieth-century interest in how art, reality, and other dimensions are linked (143). The author considers the aesthetics of Manual de espumas with regard to cubism and cosmic energy, paral- leling the creation of the “más allá” in art with that of the cosmos (147). In the following section, Fábula de X y Z is examined as an analogy of poetry and physics based on classical allusion as well as conceptions of light, energy, and cosmology (155). 149Reviews Gala opens chapter 5 by demonstrating how Rafael Alberti identified with Halley’s comet and valued it as a symbol. In the only chapter containing illustrations (paintings and drawings), the author analyzes connections between these images, Alberti’s poetry, and the “lazos que las unen con la ciencia de la termodinámica y el electromagnetismo” (174). Gala examines poems and illustrations from Marinero en tierra, explaining how the “dissipation” and “integration” of poetic/artistic energy is similar to principles of thermodynamics. In the following section, Sobre los ángeles is studied for its “energía errada,” so different from that of Marinero, comparing Alberti’s personal crisis to Chaos Theory. The author affirms in chapter 6 that Concha Méndez endeavored to “transmitir la vida y energía en la escritura,” and that she was an unconventional, energetic woman who considered physical and artistic activity to be inextricably linked (218). Poems principally from Inquietudes and Canciones de mar y tierra are considered here in light of Méndez’s remarkable vitality and their reflection of “thermodynamical systems” and cosmic energy (212). Gala asserts that Méndez’s poetry also portrays the realization of dreams, journeys and movement, and physical and artistic reality. As indicated in an anecdote from this chapter, Méndez was largely inspired by Lorca, the subject of the last chapter. Chapter 7 focuses on two early works of Federico García Lorca, Suites and Canciones, both composed in the 1920s when he lived in la Residencia in Madrid. Gala explores these books, which embody Lorca’s perception of visuality and the physical world of “espacio, aire, tiempo y luz,” through the concept of “el reflejo” (244). Lorca’s drawings are incorporated into the argu- ment as a “forma plástica” and accompany his texts in representing identity, doubt, and poetic innovation in a constantly changing world, showing that “la ‘evanescencia’ está en el núcleo de la realidad” (272). Isabel Palomo is the translator of this study from English into Spanish, and her translation has widened substantially its potential group of readers (it was first published in English as Poetry, Physics, and Painting in Twentieth-century Spain, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Sinergias is a valuable reference for scholars and students of all fields involved, especially for those interested in the interplay between the sciences and arts. Copious in-text references, footnotes, and an extensive bibliography support this meticulously researched and innovative study. It is likely that synergistic studies such as Gala’s will continue to become more common. Sinergias, with its clear prose, insightful analyses, abundant data, and solid basis in interdisciplinary investigation, sets an admirable example for future researchers. Maria C. Fellie The Pennsylvania State University, Berks Jaén, Isabel, and Simon, Julien J., eds. Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016. Pp. 240. ISBN 978-0-19025-657-9. Cognitive literary studies represent an interdisciplinary effort to create a conduit through which the humanities and the sciences may communicate and share ideas and methodologies with the purpose of establishing new connections and discourses between diverse disciplines. Cognitive Approaches to Early Modern Spanish Literature aims to consolidate and diversify the epistemo- logical field of cognitive literary studies. Editors Isabel Jaén and Julien J. Simon bring together an array of eleven academic studies that exemplify the multiplicity of discourses conflating in the dynamic multidisciplinary field, in which “Embodiment” and “Theory of Mind” are the two primary lines of inquiry. This monograph primarily seeks to explore the way in which a blend of cognitive theories can facilitate “our understanding of the relationship between the mind and the arts” in early modern Spain (5). Jaén and Simon divide the book into five sections, each covering a specific branch of cognitive studies. The first section offers an outline of the epistemology of cognitive approaches to early modern Spanish literature. Simon’s “Introduction” offers a theoretical framework and