César A. Comet, from Late Modernist Poet to Ultraist and Translator

Abstract

As with many other Ultraist poets, César A. Comet began writing in a Modernist mode.  After his conversion to Ultraism, he played an important role in the movement: he signed the foundational manifesto at the beginning of 1919, he contributed to the magazines Los Quijotes, Grecia, Cervantes, Vltra (Oviedo), Cosmópolis, Vltra and Alfar, where he published a hundred or so texts, he participated in both Ultraist literary soirées (Parisiana and Ateneo), he was part of the committee that founded Vltra, and he assumed the directorship of one of the last Ultraist magazines, Plural.  Later, he continued to publish though more sporadically, but he subsequently gathered together his poetic work composed from 1925 onwards in his sole collection, Talismán de distancias (1934).  At the same time, he followed a parallel path as a prolific translator.  This article studies all phases of his literary career: it documents his publications, analyzes them, and proposes critical interpretations of examples chosen from each period, with the aim of providing a more panoramic and at the same time more detailed account of the work of this author who is all too frequently overlooked or undervalued.