The article is dedicated to the reception of Ruben Darío’s works in the essays of Octavio Paz. A special attention is paid to the essay from the book «Quadrivium» (1965) — «The Siren and the Seashell»: among great number of Paz’s critical works the essay is of particular importance for two reasons. First, Paz develops an original vison of the Spanish-American modernism, inscribing it into a universal paradigm of Romantic culture and thus revealing its unexpected spiritual relation to Surrealism — the first part of the essay contains in germ ideas that will be expanded in «Children of the mire» (1974). Second, though criticism for Paz is always a way of recognizing himself in the other and vice versa, in Darío’s case recognition rises to subconscious identification. Paz’s observations concerning Darío’s eroticism, experience of time and universal correspondences, poetical principles, are applicable to himself. Besides, Paz’s passion for S. Mallarmé and his constant interest in G. de Nerval shows itself through the text. The article is followed by the translation of the second part of the essay, dedicated to Darío’s creative itinerary and life.