Extract

Montserrat ROSER

University of Kent

J. V. Foix is one of those writers who defy conventional classification, not only due to the varied nature of his work but also because the writer plays with the identitary question, often changing his character.2

As Gabriel Ferrater once said, ‘For an author to be diverse is particularly irritating to the critic, because he scatters his playing cards’,3 and in the case of Foix critics have occupied themselves trying to rationalize him either by placing him within a tendency such as modernism or by contrasting him to the artists and other writers of his time. However, these attempts do not appear to have fully established what kind of identity his poems represent: that of J.V.Foix the citizen of Sarrià,4 that of Foix the avant garde writer, that of Foix editor and political commentator,5 that of Foix the poet, or that of a fictional character who did not personally get involved in any of the actions he described.

In 1929, in ‘Algunes reflexions sobre la pròpia literatura’, Foix himself provided certain explanations which, instead of clarifying his approach, I believe obfuscated the question even more. He told us: ← 267 | 268 →

Si m’acuso de la meva immoderació […] és perquè, en reflexionar sobre l’origen de la meva posició espiritual davant l’objectivació literària dels meus estats psíquics, de la meva indolència a evitar-la, del meu impudor a abandonar-la a ple carrer...