Salvat-Papasseit’s Rose to the Lips: Erotic Poetry
The Poem of the Rose to the Lips: An In-Depth Look
Introduction
The Poem of the Rose to the Lips is considered the best book of erotic poetry in Catalan. The poet conveys pleasure and joy with a zest for life and victory in sex. It brings together poems written between 1921 and 1923. The book tells a unified story of love that corresponds to Salvat’s biography, although it is difficult to find a real correlation. It is believed that he could have been circumventing an acquaintance when he was admitted to a French sanatorium.
The book presents a narrative of love and erotic experience. It is a hymn to hope and love of life because Salvat is convinced that love is the engine and power of the universe.
Title Significance
The title poem is a single unit, and “the rose to the lips” expression refers to the styles found within a context and to the triumph of the body, similar to floral anatomy. The title is intentionally suggestive.
Structure
The work consists of 31 poems divided into 20 sections and an introduction, though the real love story is explained in the first 15 sections. The poem can be seen as having two main parts:
- Narrative Process: Explains the love story in three stages (learning, preparation, and delivery of loving sex).
- Lyrical Area: The poet describes the joy of love.
There is an appendix in which the lovers are separated.
The book presents love as a pilgrimage, comparing the beloved with nature. The Poem of the Rose to the Lips broke definitively with the “maquinístic” world. To speak of love, the poet breaks away from the forms of futurism, and references to the city and machines turn to nature and traditional poetic forms. One of its most advanced features is the myth of everyday life.
Vitalist Exaltation
It is an intimate and realistic story where love is presented as a spontaneous, free, and satisfactory demonstration. Eroticism is introduced with power and the excitement of the joy of life. Love is saved because it sings of beauty, and sex is a party without any sense of guilt or sin. It is a triumphant expression of Carpe Diem.
Loving Dialogue
The story appears as a dialogue in which only the male voice is known because the poet is the expert and sensitive lover, unsure of his skills and knowledge, while his beloved is virginal and inexperienced. The initiation into love begins thanks to him.
Worship of Love
The poet and the girl are presented with qualities of a priest and a novice in this story of loving initiation, raised as a religion without sin or guilt. There are many religious images referring to God and the Christian religion, classical mythology (Cupid), and the exoticism of the Islamic religion. All this serves to enhance the domain of sexuality and the pleasure of the flesh.
Salvat-Papasseit (1894-1924)
- First two books (most advanced forms):
- Poemes en Ondes Hertzianes
- L’Irradiador del Port i les Gavines
- Poetry (more nostalgic and pictorial):
- Les Conspiracions
- La Gesta dels Estels
- Óssa Menor: More erotic, written in the anguish of death.