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Sonetos
Book by Greiff, Leon de
156 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1992
About the author
León de Greiff
51 books7 followersFrancisco de Asís León Bogislao de Greiff Haeusler was a Colombian poet known for his stylistic innovations and deliberately eclectic use of obscure lexicon. Best known simply as León de Greiff, he often used different pen names. The most popular were 'Leo le Gris' and 'Gaspar de Nuit'. De Greiff was one of the founders of Los Panidas, a literary and artistic group established in 1915 in the city of Medellín. It was a precursor of the modernismo movement in Colombia.
De Greiff was of Swedish and German ancestry. His first book, Tergiversaciones (1925; “Tergiversations”), while displaying the musicality common to the Latin-American modernist poets, was innovative in its invention of words, use of strange adjectives, and breaking of the flow of language in an attempt to portray a world laden with symbolic meanings. Libro de los signs (1930; “Book of Signs”) uses the same stylistic devices; the predominant themes of this poetry collection are solitude, the tedium of existence, and the past. There is a conscious striving for formal perfection in an attempt to create a union of the language of poetry with the sounds of music. Variaciones alrededor de la nada (1936; “Variations About Nothing”) contains deeply confessional poems with philosophical speculations on the nature of love, the artistic ideal, and the poet’s feeling of life as an adventure.
Obras completes (1960, rev. 1975; “Complete Works”) reveals the poet’s continued interest in language and sound experiment. The later poems treat themes that show the paradoxical side of human nature. De Greiff’s poetry is often ironic, humorous, and satirical to the point of self-mockery.
De Greiff was of Swedish and German ancestry. His first book, Tergiversaciones (1925; “Tergiversations”), while displaying the musicality common to the Latin-American modernist poets, was innovative in its invention of words, use of strange adjectives, and breaking of the flow of language in an attempt to portray a world laden with symbolic meanings. Libro de los signs (1930; “Book of Signs”) uses the same stylistic devices; the predominant themes of this poetry collection are solitude, the tedium of existence, and the past. There is a conscious striving for formal perfection in an attempt to create a union of the language of poetry with the sounds of music. Variaciones alrededor de la nada (1936; “Variations About Nothing”) contains deeply confessional poems with philosophical speculations on the nature of love, the artistic ideal, and the poet’s feeling of life as an adventure.
Obras completes (1960, rev. 1975; “Complete Works”) reveals the poet’s continued interest in language and sound experiment. The later poems treat themes that show the paradoxical side of human nature. De Greiff’s poetry is often ironic, humorous, and satirical to the point of self-mockery.
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