Davila Andrade’s essays: magician of abjection and transcendence

Abstract

Dávila Andrade's essays (1984, Obras Completas II) are addressed here as testimonies of his poetic work. They give us keys to understand their literary positions. To demonstrate this, I compare its content with the comments of Dávila Vázquez (1993, 1998, 2007), Vintimilla (2012), and Carrión (2018). The essays speak of Davilian concern for accessing a transcendental state, and of the poet as a magician. At first, parallel to that of his first poetic period, Dávila Andrade was interested in characters that explored the essence of things. This concern, as he advances in his career, moves to a visceral  introspection of the self. The body then becomes central in his aesthetics; he understands it as materiality between life and death. Life becomes a paradoxical state, adjective of the finitude of beings, such as the sick and feminine bodies.