To date, the Latin American essay remains little studied, certainly compared to other literary genres such as the novel, poetry and theater. This thesis examines prevailing theorists' conceptions of the essay and its historical development in Latin America. Employing the notions of cultural identity and difference, which have long been central to Latin American critical thought, this study distances the development of the essay in Latin America from Spanish colonial writings of the sixteenth century. In its place, this study proposes an innovative classification scheme that incorporates cultural codes as its main criteria in order to provide a more equitable treatment of essays from areas that have traditionally been marginalized in standard chronologically based classification schemes. Some of the paradigms used in this study to defend the integrity and specificity of the Latin American essay and culture are Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's affirmation of the values of the continent's indigenous pre-columbian heritage, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's discursive reinvention of South America, and Jose Marti's notion of hibridez—a cultural and racial complex mixture rooted in the region's history—as an affirmation of a continental Latin American cultural identity. This thesis demonstrates that since Latin American essays diverge thematically from colonialist discourse, studies of the origins of the Latin American essay do not have to perpetuate the colonialist legacy.

To date, the Latin American essay remains little studied, certainly compared to other literary genres such as the novel, poetry and theater. This thesis examines prevailing theorists' conceptions of the essay and its historical development in Latin America. Employing the notions of cultural identity and difference, which have long been central to Latin American critical thought, this study distances the development of the essay in Latin America from Spanish colonial writings of the sixteenth century. In its place, this study proposes an innovative classification scheme that incorporates cultural codes as its main criteria in order to provide a more equitable treatment of essays from areas that have traditionally been marginalized in standard chronologically based classification schemes. Some of the paradigms used in this study to defend the integrity and specificity of the Latin American essay and culture are Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's affirmation of the values of the continent's indigenous pre-columbian heritage, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's discursive reinvention of South America, and Jose Marti's notion of hibridez—a cultural and racial complex mixture rooted in the region's history—as an affirmation of a continental Latin American cultural identity. This thesis demonstrates that since Latin American essays diverge thematically from colonialist discourse, studies of the origins of the Latin American essay do not have to perpetuate the colonialist legacy. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Orientador: José Alves de Freitas Neto / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T14:36:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Vieira_FelipedePaulaGois_M.pdf: 1337919 bytes, checksum: 415ed55304105db092b286b8dd345f94 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: O presente texto de dissertação analisa os limites do Real Maravilhoso como conceito e discurso estético-político de representação da América Latina. A intenção é buscar nos debates entre os principais expoentes da chamada nova narrativa hispano-americana reflexões sobre a identidade do continente. Essa literatura iniciada nos anos de 1950 e continuada nas décadas seguintes é responsável por fomentar uma ideia de unidade latino-americana, criando um pastiche sobre aquilo que seria a América. Como salienta grande parte dos estudiosos do tema, a narrativa desse período, de maneira consciente, tentou realizar a busca de um centro do espaço americano e começou propensa a dar uma versão típica da nossa realidade: a América como espaço do maravilhoso. Divergindo dessa representação, na década de 1990 tem início o movimento McOndo, criado pelos escritores chilenos Alberto Fuguet e Sergio Gómez, para definir uma geração de novos escritores latino-americanos cuja principal característica era rechaçar o aspecto mágico que passou a ser o ?selo? dos autores do Real Maravilhoso. Analisar os limites e as implicações políticas desses discursos, assim como as formas através das quais os intelectuais da década de 1960 e 1990 representaram a América Latina, é o principal objetivo do trabalho / Abstract: This dissertation explores the limits of the Real Maravilhoso as a concept and an esthetic-political speech of Latin America representation. The purpose of it is looking for reflections about the continent identity through discussions among the main exponents of the new Spanish American narrative. This literature that was introduced in the 1950s and has been proceeded in the following decades is responsible for promoting a concept of Latin-America unity, creating a common sense of what would be America. As emphasized by many literary critics and historians, the narrative of this period, in a conscious way, tried to achieve the search of a center of an American space and began tending to give a typical version of our reality: America as a place of wonder. Diverging from this representation, in the 1990s the movement McOndo has begun, created by chilean writers Alberto Fuguet and Sergio Gómez, to define a generation of new Latin American writers whose main feature was to reject the magical aspect that became the "seal" of the Real Maravilhoso's authors. Analyze the limits and political implications of these speeches, as well as the intellectuals of the 1960s and 1990s represented Latin American, is the main objective of this study / Mestrado / Historia Cultural / Mestre em História