the nature of latin-american literature

The Nature of Latin-American LiteratureAuthor(s): Luis LealSource: Latin American Literary Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Fall, 1972), pp. 7-11Published by: Latin American Literary ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20118845 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 07:32

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Latin American Literary Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to LatinAmerican Literary Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.20 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 07:32:10 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=lalr

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20118845?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


THE NATURE OF LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE*

HP he eighteen republics and the Free State of Puerto Rico into which -*-

Spanish America is divided politically are conscious of their cultural

autonomy and proud of their national literatures. In spite of this division, due to geographical, historical and psychological factors, Spanish Americans

speak a common language, share a common history, and have a common

heritage, factors which give homogeneity to their literature. Within geograph ical regions, as for instance the Rio de la Plata area, the Andean Republics, the Caribbean, Central America, this homogeneity is much more noticeable.

For this reason we believe we are justified in speaking about a Spanish-Amer ican literature and not about national literatures. We are not forgetting, of

course, that there are national differences and we are not advocating an ob

literation of such differences. But it is our belief that the similarities are more

important than the divergencies, and that the tendency is toward more rather

than less homogeneity. The basis for this uniformity in the literary expression of Spanish Amer

ica was established during the three centuries of colonial life. The universities

founded by the Spanish Crown, together with the centers of learning built

around the churches and strengthened by the work of missionaries throughout the continent, served to mold the forms of literary expression that were to

prevail. The late critic, Pedro Henriquez Ure?a, commenting upon this pro blem, said: "In colonial times, strange as it may seem to unsuspecting ears, one

of the guiding principles of that society, after religion, was intellectual and

artistic culture. It was the crown of social life, just as sanctity was the crown of

individual life."1

After Independence, a factor which had great influence in the preser

vation of the literary unity attained during the Colonial Period was the

emergence of men of letters who considered themselves citizens of America, rather than of any particular country. Andr?s Bello, born in Venezuela, taught in Chile and was respected throughout Latin America. Eugenio Mar?a de

Hostos of Puerto Rico was commissioned to reform the educational system of the Dominican Republic. Jos? Mar?a Heredia, the Cuban poet, lived and

wrote in the United States and Mexico. Jos? Mart?, exiled in the United

States, considered himself a citizen of the Americas. Rub?n Dar?o, of Nica

* Originally published in Topic 21

(Spring, 1971), pp. 5-11. 1 Pedro Henri quez Ure?a, Literary Currents in Hispanic America (Cambridge,

Mass., 1945), p. 4l.



8 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW

ragua, served as minister of Colombia in the Argentine. Santos Chocano, the Peruvian poet, was

given the title of "Poet of the Americas." In our

own time, Gabriela Mistral of Chile lived and taught in Mexico, the United States and the Argentine.

It was not until 1846, however, that the first book including literary selections from writers of all Spanish America was

published. Before the

Argentinean Juan Mar?a Guti?rrez published in 1846 his Am?rica po?tica [Poetic America],* in which the principal poets of Spanish America are repre sented, no one had thought of a

Spanish-American literature. And it was a

North American, Professor Alfred Coester, who wrote the first history of

Spanish-American literature.2 Before Coester only the Spanish critic, Marce

lino Men?ndez Pelayo had written a history of Spanish-American letters, dedicated to poetry. His Historia de la poes?a hispanoamericana [History of

Hispanic American Poetry], published in Madrid in 1913, is an enlarged and revised version of his long introduction to his Antolog?a de poetas his

panoamericanos [Anthology of Hispanic American Poets] (1893). In his Preface, Professor Coester tells us that, a few years before he wrote

his History, an Argeninean professor had wished to establish a course for

students in Spanish-American literature. The plan was opposed by Mitre, ex-President of the Republic,

on the grounds that such a thing did not

exist. He held the view that mere numbers of books do not form a literature.

On the other hand, he admitted that the literary productions of the Spanish American countries might be considered "not as models but as facts, clas

sified as the expression of their social life during three periods, the colonial

epoch, the struggle for freedom, and the independent existence of the several

republics" (p. viii, 1924 ed.). Professor Coester goes on to say that the judgment which one renders

on the value of Spanish-American literature depends entirely on the point of view with which the critic approaches its study. I wish at this point to

discuss the principal approaches that critics have used.

A glance at what the interpreters of Latin-American literature have said

reveals that there are several points of view, some of them entirely opposed.

During the nineteenth century it was fashionable to think of Spanish-Amer ican literature as a poor imitation of Spanish literature. These critics ?among them Men?ndez Pelayo?ignored the native influences, as well as the influ ences of other literatures outside of Spain, especially the French. Implicit in this point of view is the idea that a literature can be imported. The notion

of cultural lag is usually associated with this theory. In Spanish America, it

was said, the Romantic Period in literature flourished at a time when Ro

manticism had been superseded in Europe by other literary schools. This

cultural lag, we believe, is more apparent than real. If we accept the theory that culture, being an internal outgrowth and having its roots in the center

of the social organism, cannot be imported, and knowing that Latin Amer

* Translations in brackets supplied by Editor.

2 Alfred Coester, The Literary History of Spanish America (New York, 1916).



THE NATURE OF LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE 9

ican society was a new society, it follows that there can be no cultural lag. How can we then explain the appearance in Spanish America of a type of literature outmoded in Europe? We believe it is a

question of semantics.

Spanish-American Romanticism is not synonymous with European Roman ticism. Furthermore, in some cases, as in the appearance of the first histor ical novel in Spanish, the anonymous Jicotencal published in Philadelphia

(1826), the first romantic poem, Elvira o la novia del Plata [Elvira or the

Argentine Bride] (1832) by the Argentinean Esteban Echeverr?a, and later the literary reforms brought about by the modernistas, Spanish America moves

ahead of Spain.

Today, especially in countries where the Indian heritage is predominant, the opposite point of view is not uncommon. For certain critics, Spanish

American literature is not basically Spanish, but native American. These

critics go as far as to reject the terms Latin-American literature, Hispanic American literature, Iberian-American literature, and have coined a new one, Indo-American literature (literatura indoawiericana). This school of thought, based upon the idealization of the primitive Indian cultures, is the logical continuation of the old theory about the

* 'noble savage", a theory which can

be traced through the writings of Guevara, Montaigne, Palafox y Mendoza,

Vico, Clavigero, Rousseau, and Herder. Today, however, this point of view, which reached its

peak in the thirties with the indigenista novels of Jorge Icaza

(Ecuador), Gregorio L?pez y Fuentes (M?xico), and Ciro Alegr?a (Per?), has very few followers.

An intermediate point of view between these two extremes seems more

satisfactory. Spanish-American literature is basically Hispanic, but radically modified. The true nature of Spanish-American literature seems to be a

synthesis of both European and American elements as welded by such out

standing writers as the Argentinean Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811 1888), the Cuban Jos? Mart? (1853-1895), the Mexican Alfonso Reyes (1889-1959), whose works are typically Spanish-American. The problem

consists in determining when this synthesis was accomplished, and by what means. Did the modifications take place during the Colonial Period, after the Wars of Independence, at the end of the nineteenth century, or after the Mexican Revolution of 1910? Here again, critics disagree. Professor Federico de On?s, in his stimulating essay on the originality of Latin Amer ican literature, takes the following position: "It is not, as some think and

say, that these nations developed their personality slowly, becoming more

original each day. It is not so; originality is not created. Originality comes from origin and means something that is found within each one of us. The

originality of the American continent is to be found in the fact that it is America and not Europe."8 This theory, attributing originality entirely to

environment, disregards the racial and ethnological changes undergone by the Europeans in the New World, as well as the creation of new social groups.

3 Federico de Oft?s, "La originalidad en la literatura hispanoamericana," in his book Espa?a en Am?rica (San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1955), p. 120.



10 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW

The writers belonging to these new social groups (the criollo, the mes

tizo), created their own literature. In their search for new forms of expres sion they made use, of course, of Hispanic forms and techniques. But they

utilized Indian and Negro motifs, which were as much a part of their world

as the Hispanic. This process took place not only in the areas where the

Indian or the Negro predominated, as in Mexico, Peru, or Cuba, but also

in other countries. In the Argentine, for example, the presence of the gaucho, an original American type, became the subject of the gauchesca literature,

which produced such great works as the Epic of Mart?n Fierro (1872) by the Argentinean Jos? Hern?ndez.

The evolving of this original Latin American literature did not take

place at an even rate. During certain periods the process accelerated; during

others, it was retarded. The periods of acceleration seem to coincide with the

occurrence of great political and social changes, such as the Wars of Inde

pendence, the civil strife of the nineteenth century, the social revolutions of

the twentieth. But even during periods when apparently there is no social

change new forms of expression appear, as in the case of the modernista

movement, which begins during the eighties and ends during the first decade

of the twentieth century.

By the end of the Colonial Period Spanish-American literature had achieved its greatest unity. During the second half of the eighteenth century, however, a new factor appeared, which was to upset the balance that had

been attained. Spain's isolation from the rest of Europe had prevented her

colonies from becoming acquainted with other aspects of European literature

not present in the mother country. In spite of their vigilance, Spain and

Portugal could not, however, keep Latin America completely isolated from

the rest of the world. Educated Latin Americans were beginning to travel,

especially in France. French literature and ideas began to spread throughout Latin America. As a result of the American and French revolutions Latin

Americans began to think about obtaining independence from Spain. With

its achievement, early during the nineteenth century, the literatures of France,

England, and the United States began to exert a decided influence upon the

unfolding of Latin American literature. This brought about the most impor tant transformation since the Colonial Period, due to the influence of French

literature which surpassed that of Spain. This influence culminated with the

modernista movement. Dar?o, ?ervo, Mart?, Lugones brought about a thor

ough reform of Spanish prose and poetry. Jos? Enrique Rod? (1871-1917), influenced by the philosophical ideas of Renan, formulated his theory of the

harmonious personality, which is the theme of this famous essay, Ariel (1900),

one of the most influential books to appear in Latin America.

The period of exclusive French influence comes to an end during the

early part of our century. During this period, a new orientation in the fields

of philosophy, education, and literature takes place, with ideas and influences

coming now from other European countries and the United States. Implicit in Rod?'s book was a revolt against positivistic philosophy. In Mexico, a



THE NATURE OF LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE 11

group of writers, among them Alfonso Reyes, Jos? Vasconcelos (1881-1959), the Dominican Pedro Henr?quez Ure?a (1884-1946) and Antonio Caso

(1883-1946), openly rejected positivistic philosophy and proclaimed freedom of thinking and choice. Shortly thereafter, the Mexican Revolution was to

bring about a complete change in the social order and a r??valuation of liter

ature and the arts. A renaissance in painting, music and literature was one

of the most important results of the Revolution of 1910. Artists and writers

(Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros, Azuela, Guzman, Chavez) drew upon native

themes. In their works, the Indian for the first time becomes an integral

part of literary and artistic expression. In other parts of Latin America similar movements were taking place.

The desire to give expression to what is genuinely American seemed to be

the main preoccupation of artists and writers. They succeeded admirably in

interpreting and portraying Latin American thoughts and feelings through their works of art and their literary output. In literature the names of the

Colombian Jos? Eustasio Rivera (1888-1928), the author of La vor?gine

[The Vortex]; the Argentinean Ricardo G?iraldes (1886-1927), author of

Don Segundo Sombra; R?mulo Gallegos (1884-1968), famous both as nov

elist and in politics (he was

president of Venezuela for a short period) ; the

Chilean Eduardo Barrios (1884-1963), the Guatemalan Miguel Angel As

turias, Nobel Prize winner in 1967, and Jorge Icaza of Ecuador are too well

known to need comments. And this brilliant group of writers has been fol

lowed by another outstanding group, among whom we find the names of

Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, Agust?n Y??ez, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo,

Julio Cort?zar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Alejo Carpentier and Joao Guimaraes

Rosa. It is to the books of these writers that we must go if we want to

know the real Latin America. To read Do?a Barbara by R?mulo Gallegos is to know Venezuela; to read El mundo es ancho y ajeno [Broad and Alien

is the World] by Ciro Alegr?a and La ciudad y los perros [The City and the Dogs] by Mario Vargas Llosa is to know Peru; to become acquainted

with the nature of the South American Jungle we must read La vor?gine: the

problems of the Indian are revealed to us in Icaza's novel Huasipungo; the

evil inherent in dictatorships is brought out with great impact in El se?or

Presidente [Mister President] by Asturias. With the poets we become acquaint ed with the beauty of Latin America and learn of its dreams and aspirations;

with the essayist, we become aware of the Latin American mind. With the

artists and musicians we are transported to a world of color and sound which

gives us a new and intense aesthetic experience. These artistic and literary

expressions, based upon a synthesis of the various cultural elements inherited

by Latin Americans, reflect a high degree of originality. During the twentieth

century Spanish-American literature comes of age.

University of Illinois LUIS LEAL



the nature of latin-american literature

Documents