Latin-American Literature

Abstract

Modern Spanish-American literature begins, appropriately enough, with modernismo (modernism), which I have here called by its Spanish name in order to avoid confusion with the generic term ‘modernism’ (q.v.). (The different or, rather, specific Brazilian modernismo of 1922 is referred to, where confusion could arise, as ‘Brazilian modernism’.) Before the publication in Argentina of José Hernández’ (q.v.) poem of gaucho life, Martín Fierro (1872–9), which is among other things a protest against a Europeanizing, urbanizing government’s treatment of rural dwellers, Spanish-American literature had exhibited most of the usual characteristics of a colonial literature. The often bizarre and always colourful reality of the Spanish-American nineteenth century is practically ignored; there are no movements to speak of — just a number of individual versions of romanticism. Spain and things Spanish were nominally rejected; but, so far as the literature is concerned, this rejection is in favour of non-Spanish Europe rather than the native South America. The conditions were not yet conducive to the creation of a truly indigenous literature: ceaseless and often violent political activity effectively hindered the development of an intelligent and educated reading public. The only indigenous culture, although vigorous, was rural, illiterate and entirely cut off from the other, Europeanized one. Hernández’ Martín Fierro — which is successfully written, not in a gaucho dialect, but instead in a Spanish that conveys the gaucho spirit — is important because it is the first serious attempt to bridge this gap.