2 ?b90

343
tibetana" is synonymous with "la nueva causalidad" (11,1217). Oppiano
Licario's questing thoughts could indeed be compared with the systems of
ancient religions which looked beyond ordinary causality. The euforion
creature from Goethe's Faust (Part II, Act III) is another expression of
the fate of Icarus, since he also falls to his death from great heights.
Guillermo and Herndndez conclude from their reading of Faust that "Oppiano
viene a resultar asi una sintesis, mezcla sutil del ideal de belleza cldsi-
ca, representado por Helena de Troya, y el espiritu ron-Antico-medieval de
Fausto.... ", he will also have "algo de la temperancia y la resistencia
estoicas": finally they emphasize that for Goethe, Euforion "es un simbolo
de la poesia moderna, hija de la uni6n de lo cldsico y lo romdntico. , 21
If the encounter and fusion of Cemi and Oppiano Licario is to have any mean-
ing, it must produce a new culture, a new poetry, and so I find these comments
relevant, although I prefer to draw no close comparisons between the two
works. Licario embodies the personal past of Cemi and past culture and
poetry, from which he learns. Fortunately for Oppiano Licario and Cemi,
Lezama finds in faradiso that their union is possible in the formation of
his poetic system which appears in various forms in the fourteenth chapter.
As Rodriguez Monegal points out:
Si al lector le estä prohibido el acceso a la ceremonia
iniciätica misma, si el rito s61o aparece como ausencia,
el vaciado de la forma, y no la forma misma, hay suficientes
claves en el texto de
'
Paradiso para poder reconsý5uir
la podtica que subyace ese rito de Oppiano LiCario.
The principles upon which Paradiso is founded and the basic ideas expressed
in many of Lezama's. essays are examined once more as Oppiano Licario's
beliefs.
The first example of how the system operates appears when Oppiano Lica-
rio manages to connect a dish of pheasant with the work of Kafka, in a con-
versation with his sister (1.592-3). He deals with the unexpected: