1-2-0. Trilce and the formula

Abstract

The enigmatic passage from “Contra el secreto professional” wherein Vallejo posits the “dialectical axis” underpinning Trilce’s poetics as encapsulated in the numerical triad “1-2-0” has received scant commentary. He further adds, lines below, that such formulation implies a “critical and revolutionary attitude towards dialectical determinism”. This article attempts an interpretation of such “dialectical axis” in order to shed light on the type of temporality that the poetry collection sets into motion. In contrast to the prevailing interpretation, which emphasizes a temporality characterized by differentiation and fragmentation, it seeks to discuss and highlight another type of temporality, perhaps more underground, of a rather prospective and premonitory nature. In a transversal manner, the article points out some guidelines that allow us to trace the path of that Vallejian aspiration formulated in his later years: to read Trilce in a Marxist key and adopting dialectics as the central axis of interpretation.