Spanish-American Literature

At the close of the revolutionary period the poets, imbued with a hatred of all things Spanish, turned for their inspiration to aboriginal themes. In "La cautiva" (Rimas, 1837) the Argentine Esteban Echeverria (18o5-51) wrote the first significant poem of the pampas, and in A conspiracdo dos Tamoyos (1834) the Brazilian Domingos Jose Gonsalves de Magalhaes (1811-82) extolled the rebel Indians. Through the works of these men, who had studied in Paris, French romanticism was introduced into America. It was carried from Argentina to Uruguay and Chile by political refugees who fled the tyranny of Rosas, among them Juan Maria Gutierrez (1809-78), compiler of the anthology America poetica, and Jose Marmol (1818-81), author of El peregrino, a South American Childe Harold, and of the famous political novel Amalia (1851). In its later phases the movement is represented in Argentina by Olegario Victor Andrade (1838 83), author of Atldntida and the greatest poet of the republic. The type of romanticism which reached other sections of Latin America came directly from Spain. In Mexico, Ignacio Rod riguez Galvan (1816-42) and Fernando Calderon y Beltran (1809-45), like their models Espronceda and Zorrilla, were both lyric poets and dramatists. The poetry of Jose Joaquin de Pesado (18o1-61), author of Las Aztecas, and of Manuel Maria Flores (184o-85) and some of the work of the Colombian, Jose Eusebio Caro (1817-53), is romantic in tone. Although the romantic period is richest in lyric poetry, it also produced three important novels : Marmol's Amalia, the Maria of Jorge Isaacs (1837-95) and the Moreninlia of the Brazilian Joaquim Manoel de Macedo (182o-82).

Of especial significance in the development of Hispanic-Ameri can literature is the appearance in the latter half of the 19th cen tury of an indigenous phenomenon peculiar to the Argentine, the so-called "Gaucho poetry." The gaucho's life as literary material had been used in the dialogues of Chano y Contreras by Bartolome Hidalgo (1787-?) and in Domingo Faustino Sar miento's Facundo (1845). Now it received epic treatment in the popular idiom in Estanislao del Campo's Fausto (1866) and Jose Hernandez's Martin Fierro (187 2 ) .

Another original literary genre, which appeared at about the same time in Peru, is the creation of one man, Ricardo Palma (1833-1919), who in his famous Tradiciones peruanas (first series 1872) elevated the historical anecdote to the realm of art.

Two Modern Movements.

Within more recent times two forces have come to direct the course of Hispanic-American letters. The first of these, the "modernista" movement, has been concerned chiefly with problems of literary form. It calls for the

enrichment of poetry by new rhythms and new words. Its spokes man was Ruben Dario (1867-1916), a native of Nicaragua, but a resident of most of the countries of South America at some time of his life. Among its adherents have been counted poets from almost all the Latin American republics. The most eminent of them are the Colombian, Jose Asuncion Silva (186o-96), the Uruguayan, Julio Herrera y Reissig (1875-191o), the Mexicans, Manuel Gutierrez Najera (1859-95), whose poems even before the publication of Dario's epoch-making Azul (1888) had been modernistic in spirit, Salvador Diaz MirOn (1855-1928), and Amado Nervo (187o-1918), the Cuban, Julian del Casal (1863 93), and the Bolivian, Ricardo Jaimes Freyre. Most of the pres ent generation of lyric poets are still under the influence of the "modernista" tradition.

The second movement, "Americanismo" or "Criollismo," is concerned with the subject matter of literature. In its broadest aspects it is a gospel of nationalism and racial solidarity. Its prophet was the Uruguayan, Jose Enrique Rod) (1872-1917), the "Latin Emerson," who wrote his message in the essay Ariel (1899). It was introduced into poetry by Jose Santos Chocano and into the novel by Manuel Romero Garcia (1865-1916) in his Peonia (189o). It is expressed in the dramas of Florencio Sanchez (1875-191o) and the lesser playwrights of the Argentine teatro criollo (creole theatre). The greater number of its followers are writers of fiction. Among the novelists Gonzalo Picon Febres (186o-1918), Carlos Reyles (1868- ), Ricardo Giiiraldes (1886-1927) and Enrique Larreta (1875- ) write of ranch life; Martin Aldao (1879- ) and Manuel Galvaz (1882- ) of urban society; Rufino Blanco Fombona (1874 ), Manuel Diaz Rodriguez (1868-1927), Lorenzo Marroquin (d. 1918) and Roberto Payro (1867-1928), of national or local politics. The short-story writers, Luis Urbaneja Achelpohl, Man uel Ugarte (1875- ), Javier de Viana (1872-1926), Horacio Quiroga (1879- ) and Coelho Netto (1864-1934), prefer rural settings and local colour.

With the recent economic and industrial development of the Hispanic-American States the different nationalities have become more individualized and their cultural life more distinct. In the economically more advanced countries prose fiction is replacing poetry as the favourite vehicle of expression. The future literary history of Spanish America will be more and more a history of the literature of the individual countries.