Rodriguez Nacif, Murat (2014-12). Del Centro a la Periferia: Surgimiento y Caida de los Poetas Intelectuales en America Latina. Doctoral Dissertation. Thesis uri icon

abstract

  • My dissertation studies the end of the poet as a public intellectual in Latin America. I analyze the works of Ruben Dario, particularly El Rey Burgues, the nonfiction works of Jorge Luis Borges, and culminate with the analysis of the essays of Octavio Paz, specifically El ogro filantropico, The three mention poets elaborated a vision of the dilemma of new intellectual as a public figure; they defied the Status Quo, personified by the "Rey Burgues" and the "Ogro filantropico". Furthermore, they witnessed the end of the intellectual writer as a builder of Nations. In the XIX century politicians were intellectuals as well: humanists, writers, philosophers such as Bello, Sarmiento, among others. With the new world order brought by the economic shift, the role of politician and writer parted ways and became specialized. Now, the intellectual poet confronts the power of the State. The writer strives to survive in the new economic order: he becomes journalist, teacher, and bureaucrat, among other things. He is now the poet in El Rey Burgues, who dies, the poet who consumes himself in the library, or deals with the Ogro filantropico in order to survive. Paz seems to be the last of these "Hombre de letras".

publication date

  • December 2014