LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Literature of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking peoples of North and South America and the Caribbean area. Its history, which originated in the 16th century in the time of the conquistadores, falls roughly into four main periods. During the colonial period it was merely an appendage of the literature of Spain and Portugal. During the independence movement of the early 19th century, it was chiefly concerned with patriotic themes. In the subsequent period of national consolidation, Latin American literature experienced enormous growth. The literature of the area reached maturity in the 20th century, after 1910, and assumed a significant place in world literature. The literary production of the Latin American countries is not contained within particular boundaries and must be viewed as a whole. Latin American literature in Spanish will be considered below. For Latin American literature in Portuguese, see Brazilian Literature.

The Colonial Period.

The earliest Latin American literary works in Spanish are claimed equally by Spain and its overseas colonies. The first writers of the literature were not born in the New World, as, for example, the Spanish soldier and poet Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga, creator of La Araucana (1569–89; trans. 1945), an epic of the conquest of the Araucanian Indians of Chile by the Spaniards.

The business of war and of Christianizing and organizing the newly discovered continent was not favorable to the development of lyric poetry and prose fiction. Spanish-American literature of the 16th century excels mainly in didactic prose works and in chronicles of events. Noteworthy are Verdadera historia de la conquista de la Nueva España (1632; Conquest of New Spain, 1963), by the Spanish conquistador and historian Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a lieutenant of the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés; and the two-part history of the Incas of Peru and the Spanish conquest of Peru, Royal Commentaries of Peru (1609 and 1617; trans. 1869–71), by the Peruvian historian Garcilaso de la Vega. Early plays, such as El judicio final (The Last Judgment, 1533), served the extraliterary purpose of converting the Indians.

The spirit of the Spanish Renaissance, as well as much religious fervor, is apparent in the writings of the early colonial period. Men of the church predominated in all cultural endeavors. Prominent among them were the Spanish Dominican missionary and historian Bartolomé de Las Casas, who was active in Santo Domingo and other colonies in the Caribbean; the Spanish playwright Hernán González de Eslava (1534–1601) in Mexico; and the Peruvian epic poet Diego de Hojeda (1571–1616).

Mexico (now Mexico City) and Lima, the capitals of the vice-royalties of New Spain and Peru, respectively, became the centers of all intellectual activity in the 17th century. City life, a splendid replica of that of Spain, became a routine of erudition, ceremony, and artificiality. The creoles often outstripped the Spaniards in acceptance of the baroque styles then current in Europe. In literature the acceptance of current styles was evidenced in the popularity of the works of the Spanish dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Henao and the Spanish poet Luis de Góngora y Argote, and in the local literary production. The most notable 17th-century poet was the Mexican nun Juana Inés de la Cruz, who wrote verse plays, both religious, for example, El divino narciso (The Divine Fop, 1688), and secular. She also wrote poems in defense of women and autobiographical prose about her various learned interests. A mixture of satire with realistic traits, which was then current in Spanish literature, appeared also overseas, both in such poetry as the satiric collection Diente del Parnaso (The Cusp of Parnassus), by the Peruvian poet Juan del Valle y Caviedes (1652–96?), and in the novel Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (1690), by the Mexican humanist and poet Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645– 1700).

In Spain the Habsburg dynasty was replaced by the Bourbon dynasty in 1700. This event opened the colonies, with or without official sanction, to French influences, evidenced in a wide acceptance of French classicism and, during the later part of the century, in the spread of the libertarian doctrines of the Enlightenment. The Peruvian dramatist Peralta Barnuevo (1663–1743) adapted French plays. Other writers, such as the Ecuadorian Francisco Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo (1747–95) and the Colombian Antonio Nariño (1765–1823), aided the diffusion of French revolutionary ideas toward the end of the 18th century.

During this epoch new literary centers also arose. Quito in Ecuador, Bogotá in Colombia, and Caracas in Venezuela, in the north, and soon afterward Buenos Aires, in the south, began to vie with the old viceregal capitals in learning, publications, and literary gatherings. Contacts with the non-Spanish world became more frequent, and the intellectual monopoly of the mother country was challenged.

The Independence Period.

The period of struggle for independence brought a flood of warlike patriotic writings, largely in poetry. The first Spanish-American novel appeared—Periquillo sarniento (1816; The Itching Parrot, 1942) by the Mexican author José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (1776–1827). In it, the adventures of a roguish protagonist afford panoramic views of colonial life, which contain veiled criticisms of society. Literature and politics were closely intermingled during this period, as writers assumed the pose of Roman republican tribunes. The Ecuadorian poet and political leader José Joaquín Olmedo (1780–1847) praised the South American revolutionary leader, soldier, and statesman Simón Bolívar in his poem “Victoria de Junín” (Triumph of Junín, 1825). The Venezuelan poet Andrés Bello extolled tropical agriculture in his famous Silvas Americanas (American Woods, 1826–27), which is similar to the bucolic poetry of the Roman poet Vergil. The Cuban poet José María de Heredia y Campuzano (1803–39) foreshadowed the coming of romanticism in poems such as “Al Niágara” (To the Niagara, 1824), written while he was an exile in the U.S. About the same time, in the south, an anonymous popular poetry of a political nature began to rise among the gauchos of the La Plata region.

The Period of Consolidation.

During the period of consolidation that followed, the new Latin American republics tended to look still more toward France than Spain, but with new nativistic emphases. Eighteenth-century classical forms gave way to romanticism, dominant through much of the 19th century. Argentina was exposed to French-European romanticism by Esteban Echeverría (1805–51). French influence also spread via Mexico, while the Hispanic realistic tradition continued through costumbrista writings (sketches of local customs).

Political and economic consolidation and struggle during this period involved many Spanish-American writers. Notable was the so-called Argentine romanticist-rebel-exile generation of opponents of the regime (1829–52) of the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas. This group, influential also in Chile and Uruguay, included (besides Echeverría) José Mármol (1817–71), author of a cloak-and-dagger romance, Amalia (1855; trans. 1919); and the educator (later president of Argentina) Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, whose biographical-social study Facundo (1845; trans. 1868) indicated that the basic problem of Latin America was the gap between its primitive state and European influences.

In Argentina, the songs of gaucho bards gave way to the creations of such educated poets as Hilario Ascasubi (1807–75) and José Hernández (1834–86), who used popular materials in a new gauchoesque poetry. Hernández’s Martín Fierro (1872; trans. 1948), recounting the difficult adjustment of its hero to civilization, became a national classic. Gaucho themes passed into drama and narrative prose in Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil.

Poetry in other areas was less regionalistic. Subdued romanticism continued to be dominant. Outstanding poets included the Cuban Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga (1814–73), who also wrote novels; and the Uruguayan Juan Zorrilla de San Martín (1855–1931), whose lyrical narrative Tabaré (1886; trans. 1956) was presymbolic.

The novel progressed notably in this period. The Chilean Alberto Blest Gana (1830–1920) made the transition from romanticism to realism, depicting Chilean society with Balzacian techniques (Martín Rivas, 1862; trans. 1918). María (1867; trans. 1918), a lyric tale of doomed love on an old plantation, by the Colombian Jorge Isaacs (1837–95), is the Hispanic masterpiece among romantic novels. In Ecuador Juan León Mera (1832–94) idealized the Indian in a jungle setting in the novel Cumandá (1871). In Mexico the outstanding romantic realist was Ignacio Altamirano (1834–93). Naturalistic novelists, like the Argentine Eugenio Cambaceres (1843–88), author of Sin rumbo (Without Direction, 1885), reflected the influence of the experimental novels of the French writer Émile Zola.

The essay in this period became a favorite medium for diverse thinkers, often journalists, active in political, educational, and philosophical directions. A typical polemicist-artist was the Ecuadorian Juan Montalvo (1832–89), author of Siete tratados (Seven Essays, 1882). Eugenio María de Hostos (1839–1903), a Puerto Rican liberal educator, was prominent in the Caribbean and in Chile. Ricardo Palma (1833–1919) developed the unique narrative historical vignettes called Tradiciones Peruanas (Peruvian Traditions, 1872–1910).

Modernism, a movement of literary renewal, appeared during the 1880s. It was favored by the political and economic consolidation of the Latin American republics and the resultant peace and prosperity among the larger nations. It emphasized the purely artistic, rather than utilitarian, functions of literature. The modernists shared a cosmopolitan culture influenced by recent European trends, including French Parnassian and symbolist poetry; and in their writings they blended old and new, foreign and native forms and themes.

Most modernists were poets, but many were also artistic prose writers; Spanish prose was renewed by contact with poetry. Among the forerunners of the movement, the Peruvian Manuel González Prada (1848–1918) was both an aesthetic experimenter and a socially conscious essayist. The first important modernist poets include the Cuban patriot José Julian Martí, the Cuban Julián del Casal (1863–93), the Mexican Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (1859–95), and the Colombian José Asunción Silva (1865–95). The Nicaraguan Rubén Darío became leader of the group with Prosas profanas y otros poemas (1896; trans. 1922), his second major volume. The mature generation included the Argentine Leopóldo Lugones (1874–1938) and the Mexican Enrique González Martínez (1871–1952), who marked a turning point toward a more interior modernism. The Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó (1872–1917) brought new artistic dimensions to the essay with Ariel (1900) and spiritual guidelines to the youth of his day. Novelists included the Venezuelan Manuel Díaz Rodríguez (1868–1927), who wrote Sangre patricia (Patrician Blood, 1902) and the Argentine Enrique Larreta (1875–1961), author of La gloria de Don Ramiro (1908; The Glory of Don Ramiro, 1924). Modernism spread from Latin America to Spain, culminated about 1910, and left its mark on generations of writers in Spanish.

Concurrently, many writers bypassed modernism, continuing to produce realistic or naturalistic novels on regional social problems. In Aves sin nido (1889; Birds Without a Nest, 1904), the Peruvian Clorinda Matto de Turner (1854–1909) passed from the sentimental Indianist novel to the modern novel of protest. The Mexican Federico Gamboa (1864–1939) cultivated the naturalistic urban novel, N as in Santa (Saint, 1903), and the Uruguayan Eduardo Acevedo Díaz (1851–1924) wrote historical and gaucho novels.

The short story and the drama matured in the early 20th century. The Chilean Baldomero Lillo (1867–1923) wrote tales of miners, such as Sub terra (Under the Ground, 1904). Horatio Quiroga (1878–1937), Uruguayan author of jungle stories such as Cuentos de la selva (1918; South American Jungle Tales, 1922), combined a regional focus on humans against primitive nature with the psychologically abnormal in his hallucinatory suspense tales. The playwright Florencio Sánchez (1875–1910) enriched the Uruguayan theater with his regional social dramas.

Trends Since the 1920s.

The Mexican Revolution of 1910–20 coincided with a growing reemphasis by Latin American writers in Spanish on their own distinct character and social problems. Since then, writers have dealt with more universal themes and have produced an impressive body of literature that is truly international.

Nonfiction.

In poetry, many authors paralleled European trends in the various arts toward radical innovation, as in cubism, expressionism, surrealism, or the Spanish ultraísmo, a catchall name for various experimental literary tendencies in Spain. The Chilean Vicente Huidobro (1893–1948) developed creationism, which conceived of the poem as an autonomous creation, independent of ordinary exterior reality. The Chilean Pablo Neruda, who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in literature, passed through a wide range of themes and styles, including a phase of political militance. The Colombian poet Germán Pardo García (1902–91) achieved a more balanced humanitarianism, culminating in his poem Akróteras (1968), written for the Olympic Games in Mexico. An Afro-Antillean group, including the Cuban Nicolás Guillén (1902–89), was inspired by black rhythms and folklore.

The Chilean Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American writer to receive the Nobel Prize in literature (1945), produced verse noted for its warmth and emotion. In Mexico the Contemporáneos group, including Jaime Torres Bodet (1902–74), José Gorostiza (1901–73), and Carlos Pellicer (1899–1977), was essentially an introspective group that focused on such themes as love, solitude, and death. Another Mexican, the 1990 Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz, whose metaphysical and erotic verse was influenced by French surrealist poetry, is considered one of the major post–World War II Latin American writers. Early Poems, 1935–55 was published in translation in 1973, followed by Selected Poems (1979). His volume of essays, The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950; trans. 1963), exploring the Mexican character, was widely acclaimed. He also wrote literary and political criticism.

Drama continued to mature in a number of Latin American cities as an important feature of cultural life, notably in Mexico City and Buenos Aires, with increasing activity in such areas as Chile, Puerto Rico, and Peru. Mexico passed through a complete experimental renovation, highlighted by the Teatro de Ulises (begun in 1928) and Teatro de Orientación (begun in 1932), activated by Xavier Villaurrutia (1903–50), Salvador Novo (1904–74), and Celestino Gorostiza (1904–67). The national drama of Mexico culminated in the work of Rodolfo Usigli (1905–79) and continued with a new group of dramatists, among whom Emilio Carballido (1925– ) was prominent. Noteworthy Argentine playwrights include Conrado Nalé Roxlo (1898–1971).

Postmodernist essayists have been most active and productive, both in the soul-searching nationalistic direction and in more universal, varied intellectual dimensions. The Mexican Centennial Generation of 1910 included José Vasconcelos (1882–1959), famous for his utopian dream of a “cosmic race” (La raza cósmica, 1925); the Dominican scholar Pedro Henríquez Ureña (1884–1946), author of Ensayos en busca de nuestra expresión (1928; Essays in Search of Our Self-Expression, 1952); and Alfonso Reyes (1889–1959), supreme “Universal Mexican,” complete humanist, and author of Visíon de Anáhuac (1917; “Vision of Anahuac,” in The Position of America and Other Essays, 1950). The Colombian essayist Germán Arciniegas (1900–99) stands out as an interpreter of history (El continente de siete colores, 1965; Latin America: A Cultural History, 1967). Prominent among Argentine novelists is Eduardo Mallea, author of Historia de una pasión Argentina (1935; History of an Argentine Passion, 1983).

Fiction.

Since 1900 the Latin American novel in Spanish has developed in three broad phases: first a strong concentration on local people, lands, and problems in regional fiction; then psychological and imaginative fiction with urban and cosmopolitan settings; and finally an adoption of contemporary literary techniques, leading to a greatly increased recognition in the international world of letters.

Regional fiction was produced by the Argentine Ricardo Guiraldes (1886–1927) in Don Segundo Sombra (1926; Shadows in the Pampas, 1935), the culmination of the gaucho novel; the Colombian José Eustasio Rivera (1889–1928) in La vorágine (1924; The Vortex, 1935), a novel of the jungle; and the Venezuelan Rómulo Gallegos in Doña Bárbara (1929; trans. 1931), a novel of the plains. The Mexican Revolution inspired such novelists as Mariano Azuela (1873–1952), author of Los de abajo (1915; The Underdogs, 1929), and Gregorio López y Fuentes (1895–1966), who wrote El indio (The Indian, 1935). The condition of the Indians aroused the interest of Mexican, Guatemalan, and Andean authors, including the Bolivian Alcides Arguedas (1879–1946), who treated the problem in Raza de bronce (Race of Bronze, 1919), and the Peruvian Ciro Alegría (1909–67), who wrote El mundo es ancho y ajeno (1941; Broad and Alien Is the World, 1941). The Guatemalan diplomat Miguel Ángel Asturias, who was awarded the 1966 Lenin Peace Prize and the 1967 Nobel Prize in literature, excelled as a political satirist in El señor presidente (1946; trans. 1963).

In Chile, Eduardo Barrios (1884–1963) specialized in such psychological novels as El hermano asno (Brother Ass, 1922). Manuel Rojas (1896–1973) moved away from the regional urban novel into a form of existentialism in Hijo de ladrón (1951; Born Guilty, 1955). Other Chilean writers embraced fantasy, for example, Maria Luisa Bombal (1910–80) in her novel La última niebla (The Last Mist, 1934).

In Argentina, Manuel Gálvez (1882–1962) wrote a modern psychosocial novel of urban life, Hombres en soledad (Men in Solitude, 1938). A rich current of narrative fiction, accentuating the psychological or the fantastic, developed in Argentina and Uruguay. The Argentine Macedonio Fernández (1874–1952) reached into the absurd in Continuación de la nada (Continuation of Nothingness, 1944). Leopoldo Marechal (1900–70) produced a symbolist novel in Adán Buenosayres (1948), and Ernesto Sábato (1911– ) wrote an existential novel in El túnel (The Tunnel, 1948). Jorge Luis Borges, first an ultraísta (or avant garde) poet, became the most distinguished writer of modern Argentina, specializing in the esoteric metaphysical tale (Ficciones, 1945; Labyrinths, 1962). His works are also widely read in translation. In collaboration, he and Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–99) stimulated interest in the sophisticated detective story and in fantastic literature. Bioy pioneered in the science-fiction novel with La invención de Morel (1940; The Invention of Morel, 1964); and the Uruguayan Enrique Amorim (1900–60) introduced the full-length detective novel with El asesino desvelado (The Insomniac Assassin, 1944). International acclaim came to Julio Cortázar for his experimental counter-novel Rayuela (1963; Hopscotch, 1966). Cortázar’s works have been praised as brilliant and original. Uruguayans concentrating on the urban psychological novel of anguish include Juan Carlos Onetti (1909–94) in El astillero (1961; The Shipyard, 1968) and Mario Benedetti (1920– ) in La tregua (The Truce, 1960).

The new Mexican novel departed from mere crude realism as a result of the influence of the British writers Virginia Woolf and Aldous Huxley, the Irish writer James Joyce, and, especially, the American writers John Dos Passos and William Faulkner. Within a regional framework, José Revueltas (1914–76) wrote El luto humano (Human Mourning, 1943) and Agustín Yáñez (1904–80) wrote Al filo del agua (1947; The Edge of the Storm, 1963), adding new psychological and magical dimensions. Juan Rulfo (1918–86) wrote in a similar vein in Pedro Páramo (1955; trans. 1959). Carlos Fuentes (1928– ) in La región más transparente (1958; Where the Air Is Clear, 1960) alternates in manner between the purely fantastic-psychological and the nativistic. Juan José Arreola (1918–2001), author of Confabulario (1952; Confabulario and Other Inventions, 1964), is best known for his brief allegorical, symbolic, and satirical prose fantasies. Among novelists who have experimented with multidimensional techniques are Vicente Leñero (1933– ), author of Los albañiles (The Masons, 1964), and Salvador Elizondo (1932– ), who wrote Farabeuf (1965).

Among other Latin American novelists in Spanish who have achieved some international recognition, the old regionalism has been transcended by new sophisticated techniques, styles, and perspectives. The stylistic label “magic realism” is applicable to many of the stronger narrators, those who seem to convey a sense of the mystery hidden behind reality. The Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier gave a new mythological dimension to the novel of the jungle in Los pasos perdidos (1953; The Lost Steps, 1956). His compatriot José Lezama Lima (1912–76) achieved in Paradiso (1966) a total myth-world of neobaroque complexity. The Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa (1936– ) found many perspectives in the apparently closed world of a military school in La ciudad y los perros (1962; The Time of the Hero, 1966). The Colombian-born Gabriel García Márquez, who won the Nobel Prize in 1982, is best known for his Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1970), which transcended a very local world through a magical and timeless unity. The Chilean-born José Donoso (1924–96), who is often compared with Llosa, is best-known internationally for his masterpiece El obsceno pajaro de la noche (1970; The Obscene Bird of Night, 1973). In the work of these writers, the Latin American novel in Spanish not only came of age, but also appeared to impress a widening international public as a most vigorous development of universal interest. J.W.R., JAMES WILLIS ROBB, Ph.D.

For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography, sections 847. Latin American literature–848. Portuguese literature.
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