This dissertation explores the troubled relationship between Hispanic-American Modernism and modernity through the close study of a representative array of authors (José Martí, Rubén Darío, Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Augusto Dhalmar and Pedro Prado). My analysis departs from the revisionist theories of Angel Rama and Ivan A. Schulman, which changed the traditional views about the movement towards a more complete vision of its role as a literature that is highly subversive. During the XIX century, America experienced a vigorous cultural awakening unsupported by an incomplete modernization whose more fundamental principles are challenged by the systematic use of primitivism by these authors. I propose that by analyzing how primitivism is used as an essential tool for criticism, a deeper understanding of a highly codified literature and its importance as precursor of the Vanguard may be reached.