The reason why Paz won the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the Olympic selection committee said, is because his literary works are "full of passion and broad vision" and "bring together the American culture and Spanish culture before Columbus discovered the American continent." The culture of the conquerors merged with modern Western culture.” When he learned that he had won the award, Paz said: "This prize is not only announced to me, but also to Mexico and the entire Latin America." He was encouraged because he "always has many readers." It should be said that Paz's award once again shows that Spanish-language Latin American literature has suddenly emerged as a new force in world literature in the nearly half century after the Second World War and is shining brightly in the world literary world.
The greatest influence on Paz is still Surrealism. Surrealist expressive techniques and traditional symbolic techniques merged in Paz's poetry, but he remained true to his own creativity and the unique needs of this creativity. The language and images of his poems are quite consistent. His early poems mostly dealt with identity characteristics, while his recent poems mostly dealt with experiential events. His early poems were mostly short-line poems, and in the middle period, long-line poems were dominant. In his later period, he was also influenced by Eastern poetry such as Japanese traditional poetry. The influence of sentence form. Many of his poems are love poems, reflecting his theory of poetry, that is, poetry is communication and a means to break human loneliness and restore the integrity of existence. His gift is to build a bridge between the individual and the collective, between people and society, and to provide some comfort to those who have gone through hardships by revealing his own alienation and the worries unique to contemporary times. His collection of poems, "In the Shadow of Your Clearness and Others" (1937), already attracted attention, and "On the Edge of the World" (1942) made him recognized as one of the most promising poets in the Spanish-speaking world.
Paz's prose shows that he was familiar with tradition, had an extremely broad vision, and was very knowledgeable. He was the main interpreter of Mexico's national character. The racial composition of Mexicans is: 29% Indians, 5% European-Indian people, and 15% pure whites. Among large Latin American countries, the proportion of Indians and people of mixed European and Indian descent is the highest. It’s no wonder that when Chinese people visit rural areas in the mountainous areas of Mexico, everyone they see looks like Chinese people, and they feel as if they have returned to southern China, which is very friendly. Yet, who are Mexicans? In The Labyrinth of Solitude, Paz presents a complex and controversial analysis of the Mexican national identity and character. As a nation, what are the most homogeneous characteristics of Mexicans? The cultural heritage of ancient Indians certainly makes the Indians and European-Indian people who are their heirs proud. Although there are few white people, they also feel the same, because they are A citizen who was born and raised in Mexico and influenced by the Mexican cultural atmosphere. During the colonial period, although Indian culture was destroyed, Spanish culture and Catholic culture, which accounted for 90% of the population, formed the main body, but the customs, habits, and cultural methods of the Indians are still visible to all.
In "The Labyrinth of Solitude", Paz combines history, mythology and social behavior to analyze the Mexican character from a psychological perspective. Paz believes that the most observable and perceptible characteristic of Mexican personality is concealment, the use of "masks", because it is difficult for them to judge who they are. They are looking for their own national identity and experiencing a collective identity crisis, so they must always cover up. themselves (in fact, this is also seen in Latin American countries, especially Mexico). Latin American cultures are not so much a hybrid tradition that should be continued as a prospect to be realized; in other words, their characteristics and identities have yet to be formed. This is the meaning of "lonely labyrinth". Of course, when Paz discussed the dialectics of loneliness, he placed the issues of personal integration and social communication at the center of modern existence. Mexican literature expert Peter Vancita said: "Paz interpreted the history of Mexico as three ruptures: conquest, independence and revolution. When the Indians were conquered, they were abandoned by the gods and leaders and fell into panic. In the spiritual loneliness...the break with Spain did not form a dynamic national myth. The communist leaders were only concerned with consolidating their status as wealthy heirs, while the liberals were not yet motivated by the enterprising bourgeoisie. The theme of "The Labyrinth of Solitude" is that liberals have ignored another moving part of human beings, namely myths and dreams. Paz examines Mexicans' views on work and dreams. religious, sexual, and political attitudes, their current economic and political predicaments, and that the Mexican Revolution (the first of the great revolutions of the early twentieth century) was hardly a conscious attempt to unearth the long-buried Aztec Gifts from the people, the Spaniards, and the Moors—these gifts are like the pyramids of Mexico before the conquest, intertwined and overlapping... The revolution still emphasizes practice, like a grand festival, rather than a well-founded and academically based The program... now needs to get rid of the false Mexican identity, to return to the roots, to establish a true national self."
Octavio Paz's creations and writings are largely explorations. Human situation, human spiritual communication, especially the character traits and connotations of Mexicans, from his youth to the present. His efforts aim to grasp the pulse of the times and explore various problems of modern people. Vertically, he absorbed his country's ancient culture, European classical culture and Eastern traditional culture; horizontally, he kept pace with the trends of the times.
What runs through all of this is the focus on and exploration of the human spirit and consciousness, as well as the identity, characteristics and identity of the people of this country. This is exactly the vision and attitude that a modern poet and writer should have. The so-called facing the world must actually be to explore the traditions of the country, the inherent spirit and national character of the country, because although all the nations in the world have their own nationalities, they must explore, excavate, face up to and express themselves through literature. The specificity of nations, difficult as it is, is one of the main tasks of literature. This is probably one of the reasons why Paz won the Nobel Prize for Literature.