HISPANO-AMERICAN, LITERATURE. - It comprises the literary production of the various Spanish-speaking American nations and develops in three phases: the Spanish imperial era, that of the independence movements (19th century), and the modern one, begun by the work of Rubén Darío, which gives it originality, while nevertheless establishing continuous relations with the culture of Spain.
I. ARGENTINA
The culture of Argentina perhaps differs from that of other Spanish-American states in the greater absence of racial "mestizaje" with the aboriginal element. With a predominance of Spanish and Italian blood, it has also been attentive to the various voices coming from Europe, especially from France, England and Germany: for which reason one may say that Buenos Aires is the most Europeanized center of American culture. In its first phase Argentine literature is provincial, inspired by the environment of the "pampas," and finds expression in the poetry of the "payadores (troubadours) gauchos"; but already the first works formative of the national spirit are arising, such as the Himnos a la libertad of López Planes (1784-1836), or those intended to evoke the origins of the country, such as the Triunfo de Ituzaingó of Juan Cruz Varela (1794-1839).
In the romantic period there are active the poet and novelist Esteban Echeverría (1805-31), author of Elvira o la novia del Plata, and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a teacher of national importance. Devoted to politics, he went into exile during the dictatorship of Rosas, against whom he wrote the Facundo Quiroga (1845), a novelized biography of a figure who symbolized the cultural and political ideas of the author, to whom is also due, among other things, the collection Recuerdos de provincia. Formative of the Argentine national consciousness were also: Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810-84), who wrote the Bases para la organización constitucional de la República argentina, and General Mitre, who, in addition to his political activity, composed biographies of Sanmartín and of Belgrano.
A brief mention suffices for Víctor Olegario Andrade (1838-1882), author of Atlántica, El nido de condores, Prometeo, whereas a longer discussion is required by "gauchismo," which constitutes the core of the first Argentine literary epoch. Apart from the dramatic production, inaccessible without the aid of stage performance, three names define it exemplarily: Hilario Ascasubi (1807-81), creator of the figure of "Santos Vega, el payador"; Estanislao del Campo (1834-80), author of the poem Fausto, an account, given by one "gaucho" to another, of a performance of Goethe's drama; and, above all, José Hernandez (1834-86), author of the celebrated Martin Fierro, which must be considered the great epic of life in the American countryside in the intermediate period between independence and the progressive organization set in motion by the 20th century. The protagonist is a "gaucho" who recounts the misfortunes of his life in a most popular verse full of grace and freshness, leaving the testimony of a vanished form of life, elegiacally felt and sung with accents that make one think of Homeric ways. The meters and stanzas are those of the "payadores": sestets of orthosyllables. The added parts (La vuelta de Martin Fierro, etc.) concede more to folklore, rich as they are in popular songs intercalated. To be admired, in Hernandez, is the skill in fusing narration and lyricism and in handling a discursive language immediately derived from the mouth of the people. Welcomed upon its appearance as a national masterpiece, not only in Argentina but also in Spain (see, for example, the judgment of Unamuno), the Martin Fierro has perhaps been somewhat neglected by recent Argentine poetry, more directed toward European modes; it seems, however, that the value of this work is again operating in the present poetic consciousness.
Passing over two neoclassical poets: Carlos Guido Spano (1827-1918) and Leopoldo Díaz (b. 1862), author of Hellas, one arrives at the poetry of "modernismo" which boasts a great name: Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938), contemporary and younger friend of Rubén Dario. The assimilation of French poetry did not succeed in silencing his intense patriotic sentiments: thus there are aligned,
LA
ARGENTINE LYRIC POETRY,
6 COLECCION
DE LAS PIEZAS POÉTICAS,
BABAR A LUX
EN BUENOS-AYRES
DURANTE LA GUERRA
SINCE ITS INDEPENDENCE.
1824.
La Lira Argentina, printed in Paris and published in Buenos Aires, 1824.
(from J. A. Leguizanion, Historia de la literatura hispano-americana, I, Buenos Ayres 1848, p. 315)
HISPANO-AMERICAN, LITERATURE - La lira argentina, Buenos Ayres 1824. Frontispiece.
alongside Los crepúsculos del jardín (1905), Lunario sentimental (1909), Las horas doradas (1922), other works such as Odas seculares (1910), of which the famous A los ganados y las mieses forms part. Other poets of this period are: Evaristo Carriego and Conrado Nalé Roxlo, both cultivators of a poetry of the suburbs, of a crepuscular tone; Pedro B. Palacios ("Almafuerte"), a poet of a rather ingenuous moral tone; Héctor P. Blomberg (b. 1890), singer of the illusion of the sea; Alfredo R. Bufano (b. 1895), poet (Romancero) and author of essays on Italian Renaissance mysticism; Rafael Alberto Arrieta (b. 1889), author of Alma y Momento; Enrique Banchs, B. Arturo Capdevila, Fernández Moreno, etc.
In prose one encounters several names of novelists inspired by country life: Carlos M. Ocanos (b. 1860), Roberto J. Payró (1867-1938; Cuentos de Payo Chico, Divertidas aventuras del Nieto de Juan Moreira), Manuel Galvez, Benito Lynch (b. 1885; Los caranchos de la Florida; Se llevaron el cañón para Machimbo) and, above all, Ricardo Güiraldes (1886-1927), author of Don Segundo Sombra, which sums up the heroic character of the "gaucho" as it was found in Martín Fierro, now, however, seen from the outside: a legendary figure, more alluded to than directly described, and moving through an environment and a psychology that are rather lyrical and sensitive than epic.
The widely diffused work of Hugo Wast (pseudonym of Gustavo Martínez Zuviria) leads toward a less poetic climate, but a very varied one and adapted to the taste of the crowd. In the case of Enrique Larreta (b. 1873), on the other hand, one should speak of a poetic novel, of modern atmosphere, especially in the celebrated La gloria de don Ramiro, set in sixteenth-century Avila. Among his works are cited: Zogode, a novel of the "pampa"; La calle del amor y de la muerte, lyrics on Spanish subjects; and the very recent La naranja (Madrid 1949).
In poetry, besides the characteristic world of Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938), a poetess of vivid sensibility, to whom Ocre (1923) and Mascarilla y trébol (1938) are owed, one witnesses the development of so-called "avant-gardism". Besides Oliverio Girondo, Jorge Luis Borges (b. 1900) is important, founder of the review Prismas and author of Ficciola, a work of fantastic prose of great singularity. Later, through Ricardo E. Molinari and Leopoldo Marechal (b. 1900), author of Sonetos a Sofía and El centauro, this poetry moves toward a more classical sense and at times a Catholic and Hispanic one, as in Ignacio B. Anzoátegui and Francisco Luis Bernárdez, born in Spain and author of La ciudad sin Laura.
Meanwhile prose takes on new life through the work of Eduardo Mallea (b. 1903), author of Todo verdor perecerá; Cuentos para una inglesa desesperada and La bahía de silencio, a description of the artistic and intellectual life of Buenos Aires with evident influences of the English novelists and of Proust. Novelists and essayists worthy of mention are: Ezequiel Martínez Estrada (Radiografía de la pampa), Macedonio Fernández and Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, author of El hombre que está solo y espera, an acute testimony to the anguish of the contemporary spirit of Buenos Aires.
In the field of activities less exactly literary, mention should be made of: the historians Rómulo D. Carbia, Guillermo Furlong and Vicente Sierra (El sentido misional de la conquista española en América); the philosopher Francisco Romero, author of several studies and director of the philosophical editions of the house of Losada; of special importance is the contribution of a large group of Neo-Thomist philosophers, some at the Cursos de cultura católica of Buenos Aires, such as the Rev. Julio Meinvielle, a polemicist against Maritain, and Fr. Octavio N. Derisi, and others at other centers of culture, such as Fr. Sepich at the University of Mendoza and Nimio di Anquín at that of Córdoba.
The greatest folklorist is Juan Carrizo, collector of Argentine popular songs. Among the reviews, mention should be made, for its long continuity and for its representative character of Buenos Aires ultra-Europeanism, of the review Sur, directed by Victoria Ocampo, a Spanish essayist who lived for a long time in France.
II. BOLIVIA
At the time of Romanticism Bolivia's principal poet was Ricardo J. Bustamante (1821-84). In the "modernist" movement, alongside Rubén Darío and Lugones, the Bolivian Ricardo Jáimes Freyre (1868-1913) was also active, author of Castalia Bárbara, followed by Franz Tamayo (b. 1880). The best-known novelist is Alcides Arguedas (b. 1879), author of Vida criolla. Mention should also be made of the narrator and critic Adolfo Costa du Rels (b. 1891), often a writer in the French language.
III. CHILE
The great national epic poem of Chile is not Chilean but Spanish: La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla, which recounts the war of domination. Still in the seventeenth century, in Chile itself, a poet continues the narration of Ercilla's deeds: Pedro de Oña, whose formal innovations upon the classical "royal octave" used by Ercilla have been much praised by recent Spanish criticism. To the era of Spanish imperial rule belong the novel El cautiverio feliz by Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán, reappraised and published by the younger Chilean critics, and the chronicle Restauración de la imperial by Fray Juan de Barrenechea. Later is the (Latin) work of the Jesuit Manuel de Lacunza, founder, with his commentaries on the Apocalypse, of so-called "millenarianism" in America, which in our own day retains a certain influence over a select group of Chilean Catholic intellectuals, albeit of the most faithful orthodoxy.
The era of independence offers only a few isolated names of singers of the new revolutionary spirit, such as that of Camilo Enriquez (b. 1769).
In the period of nineteenth-century consolidation, which finds political expression in the state organization of President Portales, one should note the influence exercised over the entire nation by the Venezuelan Andrés Bello (1781-1865), famous for his grammatical works. José Victorino Lastarrias (1817-88) is of national importance, in sociological doctrine and in the founding of Chilean narrative. Still in the nineteenth century, the novel flourishes especially through the work of the so-called "Chilean Balzac," Alberto Blest Gana (1830-1920), and of others, such as Luis Orengo Luco (1866) and Eduardo Barrios (b. 1884). The name of Pedro Prado (b. 1886) carries us from the novel to poetry, which he also cultivated, and which in 1949 won the national prize. Poetry is in general more important in Chilean literature of this period. After the years of the turn of the century, which boast the names of poets such as Carlos Pezoa Velis (1829-1908), Manuel Magallanes Moure, Carlos Prendez Saldías (b. 1892), Max Jara (b. 1886), Luis Felipe Contardo (1880-1921) and Carlos R. Mondaca (1881-1928), there appears a great trilogy of poets of continental and universal importance: Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda and Vicente Huidobro. Gabriela Mistral (pseudonym of Lucila Godoy), b. 1889 and recently awarded the Nobel Prize, has, after the sentimental depth of Desolación (1922), undertaken a progressive turn in her conception of poetry, through Ternura and Tala, which considerably enriches her lyric poetry, with a new humble, ironic and affectionate sense toward small things, alongside the historical grandeur of her Cantos de América. She is currently consul of her nation at Petropolis (Brazil). Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948) is, on the other hand, alongside the Spaniard Gerardo Diego, the founder of "creationism," an avant-garde tendency whose spirit is in harmony with the new tendencies of Paris. In the anthology published by the Chilean publishing house "Zig-Zag" on the occasion of his death, one can see a progressive evolution of his poetry — in French and in Spanish — from initial avant-gardism toward a more human sense (Altazor). His literary importance perhaps depends more on his masterly and renewing influence than on his work. But without doubt the most evident influence on the current poetry of all America is that of Pablo Neruda (pseudonym of Neftali Reyes, b. in 1904). The most important titles in his output are: Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (1924), Tentativa del hombre infinito (1926), Anillos (1926) and, above all, Residencia en la tierra (Santiago de Chile 1933; 2 vols., Madrid 1933), more recently followed by the Tercera Residencia (Buenos Aires 1945), which contains España en el corazón, Canto general de Chile and other poems. His radical linguistic originality and the force of his obscure feeling, conceived in a manner that could be called "surrealist", without excluding his singularity, have made Neruda the currently most famous poet of Spanish America, a fame however due in part to his political activity (he was a communist senator), which has at times dangerously limited his poetic horizon. Like his most recent output, phonographically published by Arturo Soria in Santiago de Chile, the Alturas de Macchu-Picchu and Nuevas alturas de Macchu-Picchu are to be remembered (the most important study of his poetry is owed to Amado Alonso: Poesía y estilo de Pablo Neruda, Buenos Aires 1940).
The great Nerudian influence is evident among many younger Chilean poets, e.g., Juvencio Valle, author of Nimbo de Piedra, Rosamel del Valle, and Humberto Díaz Casanueva, editor of the journal Pro-arte. To be remembered, not only as poets but also as critics and professors, are Roque, Esteban Scarpa (Martial mantenimiento), José M. Souviror, a Spaniard by origin, Angel Custodio González, Alfredo Lefebvre and Eduardo Anguita. In history, besides Rosales's books of recollections, the work of the young Jaime Eyzaguirre, editor of the journal Estudios and author of O'Higgins; Ventura de Pedro de Valdivia and Hispano-américa del dolor, is to be noted.
IV. COLOMBIA
Colombia, through its literary history, has managed to remain a nation conservative in the classical and balanced sense, with an inclination toward the cult of oratory and grammatical studies. Even in the seventeenth century one finds a Gongorist poet, Hernando Domínguez Camargo, and the great nun, author of mystical works, Sister Francisca Josefa del Castillo y Guevara (1671-1742). In the eighteenth century, responding to the tendency of the age, the "Academia del buen gusto" was founded, forerunner of the great Colombian academic life down to our own days. The time of independence has two poets: José M. de Salazar (1785-1828) and Luis Vargas Tejada (1802-29), the "Colombian Chénier."
Romanticism was introduced into Colombia by José Joaquín Ortiz (1814-92), who represents for his nation what Quintana was for Spain; but it truly reaches its most typical expression with José Eusebio Caro (1817-53) and Julio Arboleda (1817-62). Afterwards, and among countless other poets, Rafael Pombo (1833-1912) attained national importance, without forgetting Gregorio Gutiérrez González (1826-72). At the end of the nineteenth century one finds the figures most decisive for the formation of a grammatical and humanistic consciousness: Miguel Antonio Caro (1843-1909) and, above all, Rufino José Cuervo (1844-1911), called by Menéndez y Pelayo "the most eminent philosopher of the Spanish race in the nineteenth century," author of a famous Spanish Grammar, of another Latin one, of a Diccionario de la construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, and of several other works. In this period there also appears a novel that has enjoyed great fame throughout the entire Spanish-speaking world: María by Jorge Isaacs (1837-95).
Colombian poetry, always abundant, has in these years one of its classics: José Asunción Silva (1865-96), whose life, made unhappy by an excessive sensibility, was cut short by suicide. His Nocturno remains one of the most celebrated pieces of American lyric poetry. Subsequently, through a long life of scanty and perfected labor that calls to mind a Flaubertian or Parnassian attitude, Guillermo Valencia (1872-1943) appears in a prominent place, author of Ritos. But perhaps the poet who becomes ever more interesting to the taste of our own days is Barba Jacob (pseudonym of Miguel Angel Osorio, 1883-1942), a decadent personality answering to the type of the French "maudit," and who in his brief and varied work has two or three poems (Los desposados de la muerte; Balada de la vida profunda), worthily reappraised by the most recent American and Spanish criticism. Besides a few books of sonnets, José Eustasio Rivera (1889-1928) has written La vorágine, considered by many the best novel of the Spanish-American world. Among the present-day poets, none attains the high prestige of the poet Eduardo Carranza. Finally, mention should be made of the prose writer Germán Arciniegas and, among the ever numerous poets of "piedracelista" influence, Helcías Martín Góngora.
V. CUBA
From the very "first air of local flavor," found by Menéndez y Pelayo in the Oda a la piña of Manuel de Zequeira y Arango (1760-1846), Cuban literature developed rapidly, acquiring its own physiognomy. The Romantic era has the great personality of José M. de Heredia (1803-1829), still formed in the classical mentality and author of a lyric full of fire (El Teocallí de Cholula; Al Niágara). In the era of the war of independence, the name of the mulatto Placido (pseudonym of Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, 1809-1844) is important, a poet of simple and popular style, and of a combative and unfortunate life, like the other poet Juan Clemente Zenea (1832-71). The poetess Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda is usually included in Spanish literature, because of her residence.
The true shaper of the national consciousness is José Martí (1853-95), poet of the Versos sencillos, writer, journalist, fallen in the war of independence. As a premodernist poet, one may name Julián del Casal (1863-95). In the twentieth century there was the flowering of "poesía negra," anthologized by Emilio Ballagas (b. 1908), and whose principal figure is Nicolás Guillén (Balada de los dos abuelos). In the most recent era one encounters Mariano Brull (b. 1891), Luis Palés Matos and Fernando Ortiz, alongside the narrator Lino Novás Calvo. Now poetry continues with notable activity: among the young there is the poetess Dulce María Loynaz (Juegos de agua, Madrid 1948; Versos, S. Cruz de Tenerife 1948), Eugenio Florit and José Lezama Lima, inspirer of the young "Origenes" group, which in turn counts poets such as Fina García Marruz, Eliseo Diego and Cintio Vitier.
Literary criticism is practiced mainly by José M. Chacón y Calvo.
VI. ECUADOR
Leaving aside a few names from the seventeenth century, such as, for example, Father Jacinto Evia, anthologist of a Ramillete, and Friar Matías de Cordoba, in the nineteenth century more important names are found. José Joaquín de Olmedo (1780-1874) occupies the most prominent place in Ecuadorian poetry in this century, with his verses of a Pindaric character (La victoria de Junín). President Gabriel García Moreno, famous for his Catholic zeal, was also a political and sociological writer. Other Romantic poets were Julio Zaldumbide (1833-87) and Numa Pompilio Llona (1832-1907). In the twentieth century, richer for Ecuadorian literature, poetry, renewed by the influence of European movements, flourishes first with Jorge Carrera Andrade (b. 1903), of copious output, and with Jorge Reyes (b. 1904), singer of his land (Treinta poemas de mi tierra).
In our own day the novelist Jorge Icaza has value, whose novel Huazipungo is translated into Italian. Finally the poet José Rumazo has published Raudal in Madrid and has made known the part already completed of his poem Memoria de la sangre, perhaps a capital document of the new American lyric poetry.
VII. MEXICO
From the very time of the conquest, a mixed Indian-Castilian literature arose in Mexico, in the Maya, Aztec or Nahuatl language, but in Latin letters, as in the case of the Popol-Vuh, a collection of aboriginal traditions, or of the Chilam-Balam of Chumayel. Among the first Mexican historiographers were Juan Suárez de Peralta (Tratado del descubrimiento de las Indias), Fray Diego Durán, a mestizo (Historia de las Indias), Hernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc (Crónica mexicana; Crónica chichimeca) and Fernando de Alba Ixtlilxochitl, the latter two of Mexican royal descent, and Fray Agustín Dávila Padilla (Historia de la fundación y discurso de la provincia de Santiago de Mexico, del Orden de Predicadores). Francisco de Terrazas, praised by Cervantes, wrote the epic poem Nuevo Mundo y conquista, while Juan de Castellanos is the author of the very long Elegias de varones ilustres de Indias (1589). The Baroque age boasts the name of the nun, poet and scholar Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (v.).
In the eighteenth century the Franciscan Manuel de Navarrete founded the "Arcadia Mejicana", that is, the first academy. From the era of the struggles for independence comes Fernando Calderón (1809-45: Soldado de la libertad), alongside more remembered figures, such as Manuel Eduardo Gorostiza (1789-1851), a playwright who lived in Spain, Manuel Rodríguez Galván (Profecia de Guatimoe) and José Joaquín Pesado (1801-61: Los aztecos). The Indian Altamirano (1834-73: El Zarco) is of great importance, also as a national and political figure of the war. Other names, such as Manuel Acuña (1849-73), Justo Sierra, Manuel José Othon, and Salvador Díaz Mirón, lead toward "premodernism", better represented by Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (1859-95). In this era worked the critic and poet Francisco A. de Icaza (1863-1925), who lived for a long time in Madrid, and was portrayed poetically by Antonio Machado. The era of "modernism" has, as Mexican poetic representatives, Luis C. Urbina, José Juan Tablada, author of "hai-kais", Amado Nervo (1870-1919), of vast success, especially in Spain (El arquero divino; La amada inmóvil), with a lyrical tone between Becquerianism and prosaism, and Enrique González Martínez (b. 1871), who inclines toward a greater sentimental and psychological intimacy, rising up against ornamental rhetoric ("Tuércele el cuello al cano..."). Among the new poetic generations are Carlos Pellicer (b. 1899), Xavier Villaurrutia, more avant-garde (Nostalgia de la muerte, 1908), Jaime Torres Bodet (b. 1901) and talented poetesses such as Concha Urquiza, Margarita Paz Paredes, etc. Ramón López Velarde (1888-1921) sang of provincial life, with a style between humor and tenderness (La suave patria; Zozobra).
In the field of historiography Carlos Pereyra (1871-1944) was the shaper of a true historical consciousness, aimed at the critical revision of facts. Of his works mention should be made of: La obra de España en América; Hernan Cortés y la epopeya del Anáhuac; Las huellas de los conquistadores; Breve historia de América; Historia de la América española; El mito de Monroe; Tejas: la primera desmembración de Méjico.
As a thinker and philosopher José Vasconcelos (b. 1884) established himself, having converted to Catholicism, the creator of the concepts of the "cosmic race" and the "fifth race" (Indologia; El monismo estético; Estética; Tratado de metafísica; Ética; Historia del pensamiento filosófico, etc.).
Literary criticism boasts Alfonso Reyes (b. 1889), poet, author of essays and editor of classics (Cuestiones estéticas, 1910-11; Simpattas y diferencias, 1921-26; Cuestiones gongorinas, 1927; La antigua retórica, 1942; La experiencia literaria, 1942; El Deslinde, 1945; etc.). The novel is also cultivated, from Federico Gamboa (1864-1939), called the "Mexican Zola", to Martín Luis Guzmán (b. 1887) and Mariano Azuela, author of Los de abajo and a novelist of popular life.
VIII. NICARAGUA
Its small size and population did not prevent Nicaragua, during this half century, from placing itself in the vanguard of Spanish-American poetry. First of all, it was the homeland of the great initiator Rubén Darío, the pseudonym of Félix Rubén García Sarmiento. Born at Metapa, today Ciudad Darío, in 1867, and died at León (Nicaragua) in 1916, he lived for many years in Paris, Spain and Argentina. After assimilating modernism and French symbolism, noted by Valera in his youthful Azul, he oriented himself toward the classical Spanish models, contributing decisively to the flowering of poetry in Spain from the so-called "generation of '98" onward, although at times the less profound and more rhetorical-musical part of his multifaceted work exercised a greater influence on the public.
Rubén's absorbing continental renown did not prevent the continuation of Nicaraguan poetic life; thus one finds two or three almost contemporary names, before the appearance of the two young poetic generations of the present day: the priest Azarias H. Pallais (b. 1885), master of the younger avant-garde group, Salomón de la Selva (b. 1893), a poet also in the English language, and, above all, Alfonso Cortés, who, born at the end of the 19th century, mad from his youth, is one of the most enigmatic and magical figures of American poetry. Between the years 1925 and 1930 a "vanguardia" group appeared in Nicaragua, formed among former pupils of the Jesuits: this explains how its political tendency has always been oriented toward Catholic, Hispanic and hierarchical ideology. The great master of this group was and is - without forgetting the influence of the aforementioned Father Pallais - José Coronel Urtecho (b.
in 1906), translator of North American poetry, folklorist, playwright and, in particular, a continuous and effective conversationalist. The most remarkable and active figure of this group, which has now reached a more integral maturity, is the poet Pablo Antonio Cuadra (b. 1912), founder of the Cuadernos del Taller de san Lucas, and theoretician of the idea of "Hispanidad" (Hacia la Cruz del Sur, Madrid 1936; Breviario Imperial, ibid. 1940; Entre la cruz y la espada, ibid. 1946). Joaquín Pasos (1915-47) constitutes with his telluric lyric poetry (Misterio Indio; Canto de guerra de las cosas) the starting point for the work of a very young generation, from Ernesto Mejía Sánchez to Carlos Martínez Rivas (b. 1924) and Ernesto Cardenal (b. 1925).
For knowledge of the poetic life of Nicaragua, the anthology Nueva poesía nicaraguense is useful, with an introduction by E. Cardenal and notes by Orlando Cuadra Downing (Madrid 1949).
IX. PARAGUAY
In Paraguayan land, poetry was cultivated, especially in the modernist era, by Juan O'Leavy (b. 1879), Pablo Max Insfran (b. 1894) and Carlos Zubizarreta.
X. PERU
In the era of Spanish imperial rule, the literary life of Lima left behind, besides names such as that of General Alfonso Picado, the memory of an anonymous poetess, "Amarilis," who sent Lope de Vega a metrical epistle, earning a long reply in verse.
The eighteenth century boasts Pablo de Olavide (1725-90), an important figure in the politics of the Spanish court, and a poet in Miserere. The nineteenth century has romantic poets such as Felipe Pardo Aliaga, Clemente Althaus (1835-90) and Carlos A. Salaberry, famous for the poem Acuérdate de mí. But the great monument of Peruvian literature is constituted by the Tradiciones peruanas, a long series of volumes of popular tales, collected and developed in art form by Ricardo Palma (1833-1919). The era of "modernism" and "symbolism" has Manuel González Prada (1848-1918), author of Minúsculas, Grafitos and other books of poetry, Carlos Germán Amézaga (1862-1906) and, especially, José Santos Chocano (1875-1934), a poetic figure who filled the American literary scene with himself, even if today he is less appreciated. His vast oeuvre, of extreme musicality and with the most characteristically American themes, then had continental significance. Noting in passing the name of the refined poet and the aristocratic José M. Eguren, one arrives at César Vallejo (1898-1938), whose lofty and candid lyricism is spreading its ever-growing influence in America and in Spain. With his books (Los heraldos negros; Trilce; Versos humanos; España: aparta de mí este cáliz; El tungsteno) Vallejo created a new language, strongly expressive of original emotion and which is coming to be recognized as one of the essential American voices.
Among the youngest, apart from other poets such as Sologuren or the hermetic Martín Adán, a group of sociological and political intellectuals deserves mention, among them Luis Alberto Sánchez, Mariátegui and Xavier Abril. Historians worthy of mention are: José de la Riva Aguero and, at present, Raúl Porras Barrenechea and Guillermo Lohmann Villena.
XI. URUGUAY
The literary flowering of Uruguay came relatively late: in the early nineteenth century there is the name of the neoclassical poet Francisco Acuña de Figueroa (1790-1862), but only at the end of that century does a notable work appear, the epic poem Tabaré, a fantastic narrative of an episode of the conquest, by Juan Zorrilla San Martín (1855-1931). After him, the leading Uruguayan novelist was Carlos Reyles (1870-1939), author of El embrujo de Sevilla.
The age of modernism has as its first poetic representative Julio Herrera Reissig (1875-1910); but the most singular fact (setting aside that of the Franco-Uruguayan poets, that is, French in life and language but Uruguayan by birth, such as Isidore Ducasse - "comte de Lautréamont" - and Jules Supervielle) is the appearance of several poetesses of continental renown: María Eugenia Vaz Ferreira (1875-1924), the delicate Delmira Agustini (1890-1914) and the passionate Juana de Ibarbourou - "Juana de América" - (b. 1895).
The thinker José Enrique Rodó (1871-1917), above all in Ariel, but also in Motivos de Proteo and El mirador de Próspero, advocated the preservation of traditional Greco-Latin values in the face of Saxon and North American material splendor. Worthy of mention are other poets, such as Carlos Julio J. Casal, Carlos Vaz Ferreira, Fernán Silva Valdés (b. 1887), Carlos Sabat Ercasty, Alvaro A. Vasseur, translator of Whitman, and Emilio Oribe, who later devoted himself to philosophy (Teoría del nom). The essays of Alberto Zum Felde exert a notable influence.
XII. VENEZUELA
The literary history of Venezuela counts in the eighteenth century the Gongorine poet Alonso de Escobar; in the epochs of the Enlightenment and in the early nineteenth century, José Antonio Martín, Abigail Lozano, a Romantic poet, José Ramón Yepes. Thus one arrives at the great philologist and grammarian, master of the Colombian Cuervo: Andrés Bello (1781-1865), who in Chile exercised a decisive influence on the intellectual formation of the nation, and who was also the author of lyrics (Silva a la agricultura de la zona tórrida).
Recent writers are, among the poets, Rufino Blanco-Fombona (1874-1944); among the novelists, Rómulo Gallegos (b. 1884), author of Doña Bárbara; La Trepadora; Cantaclaro; Canaima and Pobre negro, which convey the sense of virgin American nature, mistress of man. There remain to be named, for our own day, Mariano Picón Salas, narrator, author of essays and eminent critic, and the historians Angel C. Rivas (1873-1930) and Laureano Vallenilla Lanz (1870-1936).
XIII. OTHER CENTRAL AMERICAN COUNTRIES
Still in the nineteenth century, a Jesuit from Guatemala, Rafael Landívar, wrote a long Latin poem, Rusticatio mexicana, much praised by Menéndez y Pelayo. In the same Guatemala, after other names, such as J. Batres (1809-44), come those of Rafael Arévalo Martínez (b. 1892), a poet of scant output but very interesting, and Miguel Angel Asturias. Puerto Rico has had Eugenio M. de Hostos (1839-1903), a political writer of the era of independence. The Dominican Republic (San Domingo), besides the eminent critic and literary theorist Pedro Henríquez Ureña, boasts the poet Manuel del Cabral, whose Antología Tierra, a selection made in Madrid (1949, La encina y el mar, ed. Cultura Hispanica) of his entire output up to that year, reveals a sense of language at once very human and inventive. On the same island, leaving aside Haiti, which is French-speaking, lives a group of young poets: Franklin Mieses Burgos, Antonio Fernández Spencer, etc.
Honduras has the poet and anthologist Rafael Heliodoro Valle. Costa Rica counts poets such as R. F. Guardia, María Isabel Carvajal and the critic and teacher Roberto Brenes Mesén. Poets of El Salvador are Juan Bernal, J. J. Cañas, J. Aragón.