This study will provide a critical analysis of The Bow and the Lyre, by Octavio Paz. The book is subtitled "The Poem, The Poetic Revelation, Poetry and History," and it covers those subjects and many more. Its most essential subject, however, is the role which poetry has played and still plays in the lives of human beings. Paz says in his Foreword that he has written this book to try to answer a question: "From the time when I began to write poems, I wondered whether it was worth while to do so" (Paz, 1973, p. ix). Of course, Paz does think it was worthwhile to write poetry, but he wants to find out under what circumstances it is worthwhile, and what the relationship is between poetry and politics.
What Paz finds is that true poetry is poetry which has the power to change the world in dramatic and lasting ways. Poetry is "an operation capable of changing the world." Poetry "is revolutionary by nature; a spiritual exercise, it is a means of interior liberation" (Paz, 1973, p. 3). Paz says that it is an "abuse of language" to believe that all poetry is the same, but in a sense all successful and true poetry does do one thing: it threatens the status quo. This is true both with respect to the individual and the society. Poetry challenges what is, and clearly this is a dangerous thing to the state which wants to keep things as they are. If true poetry is revolutionary, then there is a natural and inevitable conflict between poetry and politics.
With respect to current problems in Latin America, it is clear that Paz's book does refer both in substance and in spirit to those problems. There are many states in Latin America which want to protect the status quo, so in each of those states poetry is a dangerous thing. When Paz addresses this conflict, he is dealing both with the problems of poetry and with the political problems of Latin America. For poetry to mean something, according to Paz's definition, it must have some effect ...