pensamiento critico y practica poetica en donald davie - Universidad ...

estética y doctrinal (NOBCV, lnt.- xix> que recibe el nombre de estilo llano
(plain style) cuyo modus operandí es “eschewing... not from incapacity but on
principIe” (ECH, 149). Dicho de manera extensa, en palabras de Yvor Winters
citadas por Davie,
iba p!ain siyla aschews both impassioned oratory and the pomp of public
ceramony. lis norm is a man speaking quietly lo otIlar man in iba ordinary
world, lIs vision is riel utopian. Iba poats of Iba plain style do riel build Ihe
‘golden worlds’ of which Sidney dreamad, but speak in tha sobar tones of those
on whom (in Grevillas pbrase) Iba black ox of axpariance has trod. Their
poetry is a poetry of direcí slatement, Ibe language almosí wbolly absirací, Iba
organization generally logical, the Ihemes broad, common, proverbial. It is a
poetry ... saved frorn platitude only, arid often narrowly, by the poet’s skill in
reanirnaling Iba emotional truth iii Ihe truisrn - in persuading Iba readar,
through tha precision of his síatemaní and the rhythmicai infíection of bis voice,
thai ha speaks nol by rote buí in Iba true accenis of fha axperiance whose
autbority be claims. (EcH, 141-142)
Como vemos, el estilo llano —ni pomposo, ni oratorio— se presenta
como medio, inferimos, entre lo sublime y, por descontado, lo vulgar. A lo
segundo le acerca el ser directo, a lo primero, ser abstracto. La razón de esta
mediación es, como otras veces, filosófico-religiosa. En este caso:
Wben a peal choeses a style, or choases between styles, be is making a
choice in which his whole self ja involved - inc!uding, if he ¡a a christian poel,
thai pad of himsalf which is mosí aarnestly and devoutly christian. Re
question is, ter bim: wbat sort of language is mosí appropriate wben 1 would
speak of, or to, my God? And ¡lis nol only Ihe puritans among poats who
appaar to bave decided thai tba or¡ly language proper for such exaltad
purposes is a language stripped of fripperies and seductiva indulgences, Iba
most direcí and unswarving English. To speak thus plainly has tha addiiional
advaniaga thai it ought lo be maaningful fo p!ain man and women, fha poat’s
fellow-christians; buí the main reason for choesing it is thaI when speaking lo
God, in poatry as in prayer, any sofl of prevarication or ambiguity is unseemly,
indaed unihinkable. (NOBcV, !nt.-xxviii-xxix)
Para Davie, “the plain style” se corresponde con “the persistent strain of
asceticism in Christianity” (NOBCV, lnt.-xviii-xix). Esta llaneza estilística se
concreta, haciendo algunas matizaciones, en himnógrafos como Wesley,
-186-