The choice and delimitation of the study theme is usually one of the first signs of the doctoral thesis. Alex Gurrutxaga decided to investigate the poetics of Xabier Lete in a quite natural way. “One day in 2013, at the university office, with Lourdes Otaegi, we started talking about the history of Basque poetry and, very soon, we were talking about Lete. He said to me: ‘Hey, why don’t you investigate Lete’s work?’ And so we started. Lourdes has helped me not only to research Lete, but also to get to know Lete's archive and the literary realm. He has been and is a great driver.” Determined to investigate Xabier Lete's work, the next work was to limit the corpus. “A poetic work is an endless network where the philosophy of the writer, psychology, social change are mixed... Putting limits on this is always a matter of convention, but if you are going to do the research, you have to do it. I, like any silly and green young man, wanted to tie everything together.” However, as he progressed in the thesis he had to prioritize some aspects: Above all, the fundamentals of Lete's thought and his singing. But there was something else. “I wanted to be exhaustive, keep in mind everything that is written about Lete, be he himself, be written about him.” Gurrutxaga has also had the opportunity to analyze the personal file of Xabier Lete, as they keep the poet’s funds in the Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea.

Poetic, variants, evolution

As mentioned above, the poetics of Xabier Lete: analysis of variants and reading of evolution is the title of Gurrutxaga's doctoral thesis, in which there are three keys: poetics, variants and evolution. “‘Poetics’, or poetic thinking, I have analyzed it because I was interested in talking about the thought that sustains the work. ‘Variant’, because we often think that the text, once published, is made and finished forever. But it happens that many times the writer republishes a book or makes new versions of songs. And it’s the responsibility of ‘the critique of variants’ to analyze those published versions of a text to better understand the artist’s creative process.”

An example of this is Gurrutxaga’s song “Euskalerri nerea”, compared to the 1968 version and the 1992 variants: “By analyzing the changes, we can extract information about Lete’s poetic thinking. I, for example, have taken the variants of Lete's work, that is, all the versions that are in books and records, and I've compared them. For me it has been crazy to testify and compare variants.” However, it has been a fruitful work, as it has been able to bring to light variants and analyze the evolution of Lete’s poetic thinking. Hence the double word “Reading the Evolution” of the title of Gurrutxaga’s thesis, which has been able to show how Lete’s work and poetics were changed, analyzing the variants.

Variants and evolution

For Gurrutxaga, Lete did not have perfection, but he did have the most accurate statement: “I wanted the difference between what I meant and what I was saying de facto to be as small as possible,” he told us. “That is the final struggle of the poet; in Lete’s words, ‘trying to say the unspeakable’. But that's where a problem arises. Because the thought of the poet, what it means, is changing, and over the years it is not in keeping with some old pieces.” Gurrutxaga shows the famous Star Dust: “It’s a complex poem that gave rise to Lete’s inner struggles. After years, the writer has two options: either not touching the piece, or modifying the letter to adapt what the text says to thought at every moment.” And Xabier Lete continuously changed poems and songs. “He preferred to betray the originality of the poem rather than betray the development of his poetic thinking.” Thus, Xabier Lete resorted to the adaptation of the thought of the time: “In the 90s, for example, he looks for more elegant statements, more balanced than in the 70s poems.”

Therefore, there is the evolution of our poet, a path that opened in search of correct poetry, through various readings and sources, and that materialized in the land that the poet himself stepped on. “The trajectory of Xabier Lete is very similar to that of Euskal Herria. One thing Lete had in his favor: he showed a great skill in reading situations, guessing the directions of the environment, and that brought a very strong intellectual figure for the Basques,” explains Gurrutxaga.

Professor Gurrutxaga has researched the bowels of Xabier Lete’s work and has divided three phases in the evolution of the poet, three distinct periods “each with his books, his statements, his melodies”. It is, of course, also a tour of many Basques. “When I started researching Lete, two eras were distinguished: Until the late 1980s, the first and its successor, the second. I started working with that paradigm, but as the research progressed, I was getting problems. In particular, the keys were two elements: in poetry, publishing Urrats derailed in 1981; in singing, the abandonment of the song by Lete in 1978”. Gurrutxaga did not, therefore, accept that from 1965 to 1988 a single period would be considered and three periods would be marked: “The first, that of youth, that of the construction of the figure of Lete, in the 60s and 70s. Then, an era of crisis, with the two main facts cited, that dark book of poems, and, ultimately, the abandonment of the song. More or less, in the policy of the Spanish State we would be in the period of transition.” Since 1990, Gurrutxaga believes that a “recovery” phase has been seen.

Singing

“Lete is the giant monster of the song,” Gurrutxaga has started, as soon as we wanted to start with the song of the poet. He's blown topicals and others. “A pretty idiot topic that says Lete is a bad singer. It is not worth contradicting one another. What is more, I do not know whether there has been anyone in Basque music who has understood and exploited the cultural functionality of the song as well as Lete; that is, he has exploited for the benefit of the Basques. Lete noticed, very young, the potential of the new song. On the one hand, poetry flourished in music. Bernardo Atxaga said that in the 1970s Lete's way of saying was very surprising: that language in songs, those poetic formulations... Lizardi is also known by many Basques thanks to Lete.” And, in addition to the work of Xabier Lizardi, our old and new verses. “We cannot forget the great work done singing the work of the bertsolaris. It's terrible." But Gurrutxaga says: “Lete gave ‘non-formal education’ to the Basques through their songs. Lete was, above all, a poet of thought, and in many of his famous musical pieces there is a great ethical and emotional content”, so great that “through them he managed to reach the collective feelings of the Basques”.

Many will remember the posts that Xabier Lete used to make to her songs during the recitals. The hosts lacked feet and hands. Gurrutxaga, for his part, has also been launched to analyze these entries in order to bring to light what they show. “Lete, unlike most of our politicians, had one good thing: when he spoke he always said something. Their speeches, their conversations -- they used to be substantial, they gave something to think about. Also in the presentations of Kant. Lete was very clear how he wanted to reach the public and what he had to do to achieve his goal. The entries of the songs I have analyzed provide data on their creative characteristics or processes, and we have very good traces to understand Lete’s poetic world.” And there, for example, Gurrutxaga has arguments that Lete has tried to explain why the poem Izarren hautsa is not like that.

Plagiarism yes, regeneration also

Rilke has been mentioned, Riba has been mentioned, Cernuda has been mentioned… The word plagiarism of some has been mixed in some Lete’s poems with words of reinterpretation and reelaboration of others. Asked for his opinion on the subject, Gurrutxaga’s reader has responded without hair: “It’s not a joke that an icon like this has plagiarized a lot of poems: this has implications when it comes to valuing the work of the poet. But having said that, it is clear to me that it is not for me to judge anyone. There is the morb, and there have been those who have started to judge Lete, but it is not for me. Every Basque has to decide where he wants to put Lete on his mental map.”

And, in the answer chain, Professor Gurrutxaga takes over from the reader Gurrutxaga: “As a researcher, the question is why Lete made those versions, plagiarism or translations. It's hard to answer. And at that point the biographical constraints – which he was very ill – cross, the social situation of his figure – which at that time was a little marginalized –, the search for a new tone – that is why Rilke – etc. I think there is the essence”, despite all the morbidity of the world...

(DE) consensus

Up until now, Gurrutxaga has had to read the testimonies of researchers, professors, critics and others to write the thesis, and has some discrepancies. “I would say that the main discrepancy is that the completion of the thesis itself demonstrates this. Historians and researchers ignore Lete's work. Maybe we've got the label of a singer and we've been shaped. But Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize in Literature, what should we be given? Dylan Nobel and we Leteri ignore? I think we have fallen short. The dust of the stars is known to thousands of Basques and Basques. And isn't it a poem? I think there is a plus there, it is a poet and also sings! It's a plus, not a minus! The thesis, in this sense, is a demand, both at the intrinsic literary level and at the stratospheric level, to reclaim the shadow of Lete’s work”. The paths of research are always there. Interpretations, among others. “And the paths of interpretation are many and, of course, I have occasional discrepancies with some previous interpretations.” For example? “Read studies about Lete’s faith, for example, and in them the work of Lete is read in the light of the Christian faith. I do not agree. I believe that these studies have not sufficiently analyzed the literary and aesthetic aspects”. So here's the discussion on the table. Alex Gurrutxaga’s doctoral thesis on Xabier Lete’s work has always opened doors, windows and windows in the poet, as he had not yet done.

Let's understand Lete even better and enjoy his work even more.