Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

The poem "Nervous Fit of Anguish" by César Vallejo provides an intimate portrayal of agony and yearning, themes which run deep in Vallejo's oeuvre. The language is highly symbolic, and its structure weaves together both religious and mythological references, reflecting the poet's preoccupation with suffering, love, and the enigma of human existence.

Vallejo's invocation of the "Sweet Hebrewess" conjures Biblical imagery, specifically suggesting a desire for salvation. The plea to "unnail my clay transit; unnail my nervous tension and my pain" evokes the Crucifixion, symbolizing the speaker's existential torment. The implication is that the speaker is nailed to his own anxieties and miseries, and is begging for release.

The poem emphasizes the tension between earthly suffering and spiritual transcendence. The speaker is "back from the desert where I often fell," a line that is loaded with Biblical undertones of temptation and exile. Vallejo utilizes this desert as a metaphor for emotional and spiritual aridity. The speaker begs the "Sweet Hebrewess," who could be seen as a mother figure or a divine feminine entity, to "put away the hemlock and offer me your wines." This duality of hemlock and wine symbolizes the choice between embracing despair and seeking intoxication or liberation through love.

The stanza that mentions "Longinus's steadfast blindnesses" references the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus's side, often portrayed as blind in later Christian tradition. The speaker feels pierced by his own inner tormentors, his "assassins," yet asks the beloved to "frighten off" these assailants with a "moan of love." The demand is paradoxical: to use love as a weapon against suffering.

The "Symphony of olive-trees" is another Biblical reference, pointing to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus was betrayed. It further underscores the ambivalence between suffering and hope, pain and redemption. While olives can signify peace, the olive trees here are asked to "pour out your weeping," suggesting that even symbols of peace and hope can be laden with sorrow.

As the poem progresses, the imagery becomes more complex and unsettling. The line "It's eight in a charmer cream-coloured morning" contrasts sharply with the somber tone that permeates the poem, as if to mock the notion that a new day could bring relief. The disturbing scene of "A dog goes by gnawing the bone of another / dog that passed" amplifies the sense of despair and the brutality of existence.

The phrase "Dionysiac loathing of coffee" in the concluding lines captures an overwhelming distaste for the mundane, for something as everyday as coffee. It's an expression of the speaker's rejection of life's banalities in favor of a Dionysian ecstasy or agony-extremes that remove one from the commonplace.

"Nervous Fit of Anguish" is a powerful exploration of existential despair, but it also reaches for transcendence through love and divine intervention. Its religious and mythological references provide layers of meaning that amplify the psychological and emotional complexities of the poem. Here, Vallejo achieves a striking balance between the metaphysical and the visceral, making "Nervous Fit of Anguish" a compelling testament to the human condition.

POEM TEXT:

Sweet Hebrewess, unnail my clay transit;

unnail my nervous tension and my pain . . .

Unnail, eternal beloved, my long care and

the two nails of my wings and the nail of my love!

I am back from the desert where I often fell;

put away the hemlock and offer me your wines:

with a moan of love, frighten off my assassins,

whose features are Longinus's steadfast blindnesses!

Unnail my nails, O new mother of mine!

Symphony of olive-trees, pour out your weeping!

And you will wait, sitting near my dead flesh,

for the threat to yield, for the lark to be gone!

You pass . . . come back . . . your mourning braids my hair-cloth

with curare drops, ridges of humanity,

the rocky dignity that lies in your chastity,

and the judithian quicksilver of your inner honey.

It's eight in a charmer cream-coloured morning . . .

It's cold . . . A dog goes by gnawing the bone of another

dog that passed . . . And a match I extinguished

in capsules of silence begins to weep on my nerves!

And in my heretic soul a Dionysiac loathing of coffee

sings its sweet Asiatic festival . . . !

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