Potencia de Pérez (The Power of Pérez) was published in Maremágnum (1957), a collection of poems that is part of Clamor. Jorge Guillén’s attitude toward the world is less positive in Clamor than in Cántico.
The recurring topic is contemporary life with its confusion and lack of humanity; its tone, however, is not moralizing or arid because Guillén expresses this theme through a plethora of perspectives and images based on his personal and poetic experience, which infuse the collection with a rich and nuanced vision.
Potencia de Pérez is a satirical take on Spanish leader Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. Pérez, like Franco, assumes power after winning a civil war, is ruthless, and considers his mandate to govern as coming directly from God—an assumption that Guillén uses to great ironic effect.
Pérez/Franco has:
“Destino tan insigne / Que excluye a muchedumbres de adversarios / Presos o bajo tierra: / No votan, no perturban. ¡Patria unánime!”
(Such a glorious destiny / that it excludes the multitudes of adversaries / who are imprisoned or beneath the soil. / They do not vote, they cause no disturbance. Unanimous homeland!)
It is a long poem with numerous characters: the dictator himself and the bureaucracy that he has created (which includes the police, the clergy, and civil servants—people and organizations that agree with his reactionary views and objectives and implement his mandates).
Guillén ridicules them, often making them speak using rhymes, rhythms, words, and expressions that highlight their corruption and the absurdity of their ideas, as exemplified in the following stanza (in lines of six syllables rhyming abab, which create a dreary, singsong effect, reflecting the mediocrity of the characters) from the “Police Chorus”:
“Correctos, brutales, / Sutiles, entramos / Salimos, rivales / De lobos y gamos”
(Proper, brutal, / subtle, we come, / we go, the rivals / of wolves and bucks.)
Throughout the poem, rhymes and rhythms change frequently to mimic the various personalities of Pérez and his henchmen. Although Pérez/Franco has established his residence in a royal palace and attends magnificent parades in his honor, at the end he is nothing but what his name, Pérez, indicates—a common and undistinguished man.
Bibliography
Guillén, Jorge. Our Air. 2 vols. Translated by Carl W. Cobb. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1997.
MacCurday, G. Grant. Jorge Guillén. Boston: Twayne, 1982.