Modernist Literature in Latin America.

Latin American literature not only is an expression of our reality, or the invention of another reality. It is also a question about the reality of those realities. A question and at times a judgment. The constant presence of critical thought in the poetry and fiction of our America is not accidental; it is the feature of all modern literature in the West… In this sense our literature are moderns. And they are so in a way that is more radical than our social and political systems, which ignore criticism and nearly always persecute it.

                                                                                                                   -Octavio Paz

The term Modernism refers to an artistic movement.

 As we know, Modernism is a manifestation of an universal crisis that is expressed trough arts, science, politics and religion.

This movement took place in Latin America during 1890-1910. Poetry was extremely rebellious, outrageous and narcissistic. What’s more, Modernist poets revolutionized the  aesthetics of language and the metrics.

One of the main characteristics in modernism is the denial and aversion of ‘’cotidianidad’’, dailylife, so the writer or poet will try to evade time and space recalling and evoking past times.

Another aspect is the use of musicality, the repetition of words, the rhythms inside the poem and the use of metaphors.

In addition, the  myths are used  as a way to recall the past, where we were more ‘’human, more primitives, a time where we were more connected with ourselves’’.

The yearning and aspiration of perfection towards the poem.

Some modernist writers in Latin America are Rubén Darío, José Martí Julián del Casal, Manuel de Jesús Galván ,Ernesto Noboa, Caamaño Arturo Borja Humberto Fierro, Medardo Ángel Silva among others.

 All in all, we can see that despite the fact that the modernist movement in Latin America differs in dates from the European, both share essentials aspects. For example, the musicality, rhythm, repetition inside the poem, the recurrent aspect of myths as a way of coming back to the past and poetry as a way to express the sense of loss, despair and crisis in humankind.

by.- M. Susana Cabrera