Naive but never innocent: the subversive current in the poetry of Joan Salvat-Papasseit and E. E. Cummings

Recent scholarship devoted to Joan Salvat-Papasseit has embraced less restrictive criteria in its reception of the poetic output. It is the intention of this article to contribute to this more flexible approach with recourse to comparative literature and cultural studies. A comparison with the American E. E. Cummings will confirm the ideological solidity of the naïf genre within the subversive chorus of the Avant-Garde whilst addressing, with reference to the graphic arts, the apparent contradictions which were previously believed to compromise the validity of the poets’ involvement in the global movement. The essay is informed by theories by Marx, Engels and Sartre regarding the condition of the individual in capitalist society and by Laura Mulvey’s seminal insights into female representation.