New critical edition of “Masa”

Abstract

The fundamental purpose of this work is based on the need to update the study of the poem “Masa” in the Obra poética of Vallejo, published in 1991, based on a manuscript that ap­peared in 2006 and that unfailingly explores the consolidation of solidarity through of uni­versal love. In addition to the publication, it is also necessary to take into account different studies on the genesis of the poem’s essential idea, which emerges from writings prior to the poem, alluding to a revolutionary, socialist, dynamic and technical mass that is based on the universal love, but it was definitely the Spanish Civil War that precipitated its compo­sition. Also, the comments of various specialists who have made on the different meanings that the poem may have: the first socio-political, related to the revolution of the masses; the second, the movement of the mass to transform itself into energy; the third, associated with the bread dough and the last one that associates it with the clay. It also contrasts the religious and materialist positions denying the relationship with the mystical and sacred character; finally, discard that Martí’s prose text “Subject” is a source of inspiration for Vallejo to write “Masa”.