AN ANALYSIS OF MARTI’S ‘OUR AMERICA’ AND LEVERTOV’S ‘LIFE AT WAR’:

KAYJATTA

INTRODUCTION:

Jose Marti was born and educated in Havana, Cuba in 1853. Marti was a radical political activist and intellectual, writing articles for a clandestine newspaper since he was seventeen years old until his arrest and deportation to Spain. He then settled in the United States after travelling extensively in Europe. In the United States, he continued his clandestine activities, writing about Latin America for the Central American audience.

Marti’s most important piece of work is called ‘Nuestra America’ completed in 1887, a sort of a socialist revolutionary manifesto that laid out the practical foundation for mobilizing Latin American working class. This work is largely informed by revolutionary literature, Latin American folk heroes and culture, as well as his religious convictions as a catholic. Marti was both an intellectual and a warrior. He did not only articulate his political views in written form, but also actually went to war for those ideas.

Denise Levertov on the other hand is an outright pacifist. Born in Essex, Wales in the United Kingdom in 1923 to Jewish parents from Russia; Levertov’s rich background of Jewish, German, and English origins will influence her later writings and world views. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1955.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Levertov’s writings turned to political activism as she became a very vocal anti-war advocate. Her major work, ‘Life at War’ is perhaps her most important anti-war writing; in which she consistently deplored the injustice of the Vietnam War with vivid imagery largely drawing inspiration from religious and compassionate convictions.

ANALYSIS:

The Cuban writer and political activist, Jose Marti was a nationalist anti-imperialist, who nonetheless had deep admiration for the United States but strongly opposed its expansionism in Latin America. In this regard, Marti compares strongly to the English-American poet, Denise Levertov. Levertov, an anti-imperialist on a somewhat equal standing was a strong opponent of the Vietnamese war and American expansionism in Asia largely on the grounds of religious morality. In his essay, “Our America”, by which according to Dr. Ramirez, Marti referred to Latin America; he celebrates North America but also condemns it for its activities in Latin America much like Levertov’s polarity between America at home and America abroad (in Vietnam).

While religion runs deep in both Marti’s “Our America” and Levertov’s “Life at War”, Marti leans more on political ideology than the more religious morality of Levertov. Also the more pragmatic and perhaps virulent Marti who would eventually organize and even go to war for his cause contrasts starkly to the more subdued appeals by Levertov.Levertov is by all indications a pacifist who laments the horrors of war in such succinct language and compelling imagery as in these lines: “the scheduled breaking opens of breast whose milk/ runs out over the entrails of still-alive babies/ transformation of witnessing eyes to pulp-fragments/ implosion of skinned penises into carcass-gulleys” (Levertov 80).

In that respect, Marti is more of a revolutionary like the Great Simon Bolivar of Latin America whom he admirably alludes to in his writings. This is unlike Levertov who feels herself physically detached from the war so far away that it renders her unable to act as she expressed in this line: “The disasters numb within us" (Levertov 79). Therefore if Marti, a revolutionary cum socialist intellectual were a hybrid of Frantz Fanon and Leo Tolstoy; then Levertov, with her strong religious background and training as a nurse, would be a cross between Florence Mahoney and Mother Theresa. There is some kind of intellectual nostalgia and nationalism about Marti that is not seen in Levertov, as he paid homage to Latin American culture and heroes as well as a yearning for peasant life closer to nature similar to Tolstoy. That is perhaps why, he argued, “the natural man has triumphed over the imported book in Latin America, the mestizo over the exotic Creole,and nature over false erudition” (Barnett 2002). Marti’s arguments stem largely from his vision of himself as part of the oppressed while Levertov’s lamentations derive from her position as part of the oppressor, yet both are deeply concerned with the enormous human suffering brought about by oppressive government policies (Rosenthal, 2006). While Levertov laments the tranquilizing effect of “breathing in the war” daily which renders us immune to the horrors of war, Marti actively sought an uprising against imperialism and to achieve Latin American liberation.

As a Latin American nationalist, Marti condemns both Washington and Europe as he argues that “there is no nation to be more proud of than the … republics of Nuestra America that rose among the silent Indian masses…” (Barnett 2002). This kind of nationalism was not seen in Levertov, despite her anti-war stance and advocacy for American (military) withdrawal from the world particularly Vietnam. In addition to his revolutionary ideas, Marti also laid out an impressive political philosophy about the nature and operation of government. He argued that “to govern well in America, one has to know the elements of the country and how to unite those elements so that each citizen can attain self-realization…” (Marti 86, 87). Levertov, a social activist nonetheless, did not venture much into political philosophy. Marti also celebrates ideas, but then he was very wary and suspicious of those who wield so much power in ideas. He recognized that “a powerful idea, waved before the world at the proper time, can stop a squadron of iron-clad ships” (Marti 84).

CONCLUSION:

There is a broad common thread that runs between the works of Jose Marti and Denise Levertov. They are both pre-occupied with the socio-political condition of man, the condition of human suffering and how to achieve a better living condition for mankind.

However, Marti appears more inclined to pragmatism than Levertov. Marti actively sought to transform his philosophy into action for liberation while Levertov concedes to the paralyzing effect of the daily dose of news about war. Religion played a key role in the ideas of both writers, but again Marti leans more towards political ideology and revolutionary literature than the more puritanical Levertov whose condemnation of war (in Vietnam) is derived from a purely religious and compassionate position. Therefore, Marti arguably is a more objective advocate than Levertov.

Also Marti is a Latin American nationalist who appealed to his readers to look inwards unlike the more internationalist posture of Levertov. In addition to being a poet and essayist, Marti is by all means a political philosopher, sometimes going to extreme length to lay out his vision of government and the governed. Levertov makes no such attempt at political philosophy. Levertov is a writer first, then a political activist whereas Marti is a political activist first, then a writer.

Citations:

1.      Rosenthal, Peggy. Making Peace: Denise Levertov (2006).

2.      “Nuestra America” by Jose Marti

3.      Life at war, Denise Levertov

4.      Dr. Ramirez. Caribbean Literature: Online Overview of Jose Marti’s “Our America”

5.      Breslin, Paul. Modern American Poetry