ABSTRACT
This conclusion assesses the merits of Fábula de Equi y Zeda, and its place at the center of the European avant garde, in light of observations made by major poets, music critics and philosophers. Diego’s masterwork establishes precedents in four areas. He wrote a good long poem, even though Poe declared such impossible. He successfully adapted the sonata-allegro form to poetry, a feat Calvin S. Brown had concluded was unachievable. Diego’s poem possesses diagnostic and curative powers, which Ezra Pound defines as the hallmark of truly great poetry, ones he admits he himself failed to achieve with his Cantos. Fábula’s curative power stems from its striking imagery, grounded in an elaborate taxonomy of imagery that Diego spelled out elsewhere. Its diagnostic power extends into the twenty-first century, allowing today’s readers to detect the pulse of the Spanish avant garde. And finally, Fábula’s music of romanticism-inspired by the Cervantes’s entremes, which, in turn, embraced the commedia dell’arte tradition-captures the very qualities that Nietzsche found lacking in the music of Wagner, and for which he saw no hope for the future. Gerardo Diego’s musical architecture is a monument to the precise, pure, integrative work of the composers of his day.
