The art of complaint

Abstract

These pages are the initial chapter of the new version, still unpublished, of my book El arte de la queja -la prosa literaria de Ramón López Velarde-; the task is to construct the intrinsic self that the work of velardiana emits. The emblem that governs the investigation is the phrase of the title: we are before an author whose work crystallizes an art of complaint. In order to establish a distance conducive to study and inhibit an atmosphere of emotional effusion, and also seeking that knowledge about the author due to biographical and historical documentation does not induce the intrinsic examination of the work, I name the writer-protagonist of this siege with its convenient acronym: RLV.