Art for art’s sake: Louise Glück awarded Nobel Prize

ENGLISH

The poet Louise Glück has received the Nobel Prize for her fourteen books in which she valued “the austere beauty that makes individual existence universal.” Respectful of tradition, the 77-year-old American poet and essayist also received the Tomás Transtromer Prize last February and the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. She is the second poet to win the Nobel and became a member of the group of sixteen women awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Glück’s work demands beauty and candor from the world, knowing that it cannot restore them, as she says in her poem “October”.

Her first book, Fistborn, dates from 1968 and her most recent, from 2017, is an essay: American Originality: Essays on Poetry.

Although her name did not appear on the list of Nobel candidates, she is highly recognized

among her peers because of the mythical substrate of her work, which constitutes the strength of her universality.

The Swedish Academy has consecrated a work that does not refer to social premises or political demands.

The author of the article underlines her approval for the foundation of this award and quotes Mercedes Roffé, Argentine writer and editor who from New York writes: “A work anchored in the most perennial of great poetry and art in general.”

Glück’s work draws on Greek mythology and the work of American poets such as Emily Dikinson, T.S. Elliot, Robert Lowell, Mark Strand, and William Carlos Williams, as well as psychoanalysis.

Her books translated into Spanish are: The Wild Iris, Praderas, Averno, Ararat, and Las Siete Ages.

Her main topics are destruction, duels, despair and losses for the mobilization of change. Her work does not show feminist overtones.

The recently awarded writer is dedicated to writing poetry and giving classes on this literary genre and as she says: “It’s the only thing I want to do,” although she admits that “Many people are not even remotely interested in poetry.” (La Semana)