The city of València in the poetry of Vicent Andrés Estellés

Abstract

This article reviews the relationship between the poetry of the Valencian writer Vicent Andrés Estellés and the city of València as a centre of a certain literary geography. Based on a corpus of the author’s poetic texts selected from the 1950s, we can see the evolution of València’s presence, with its different nuances and intensities, in Estellés’ poetry. Books such as Llibre de meravelles treat spaces in diverse ways: the streets and the city itself are associated with fulfilled or repressed desire, while interior spaces are linked to death and anxiety. Likewise, the sources of this relationship between poetry and the city, as well as the network upon which it is built, are also analysed. Thus, journalism and cinema—especially the latter—become the main cultural systems that comprise the poetry of urban spaces.