The thesis focuses on defining identity in selected Latin American essays from the nineteenth to mid twentieth century. Thus, my main lines of research are devoted to the complex issues of representation of identity in selected essayistic works in the context of postcolonial Latin America.
The first chapter is dedicated to three essayists of the nineteenth century and has three parts corresponding to the selected essayistic works of the Argentinean writer and statesman Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811 -1888), the Uruguayan essayist Jos¿¿¿¿ Enrique Rod¿¿¿¿ (1872 -1917), and the Cuban national hero and writer Jose Mart¿¿¿¿ (1853 - 1895).
The second chapter is devoted to three essayists of the twentieth century: the Mexican essayist and poet Alfonso Reyes (1889-1959), the Peruvian journalist, political philosopher and activist Jos¿¿¿¿ Carlos Mari¿¿¿¿tegui (1894-1930,) and the great Mexican writer Octavio Paz (1914-1998), who is the Nobel Prize winner for Literature (1990).
Our selection of texts consists of selections from Facundo (1845) by Sarmiento, Ariel (1900) by Rod¿¿¿¿, “Nuestra Am¿¿¿¿rica” (1891) by Mart¿¿¿¿, “Visi¿¿¿¿n de An¿¿¿¿huac” (1915) by Reyes, selected parts of Siete ensayos de interpretaci¿¿¿¿n de la realidad peruana (1928) by Mari¿¿¿¿tegui, and El laberinto de la soledad (1950) by Paz.
The main research question is how each of these six authors imagine/ represent the identity of their nation and at a higher level of identity in Latin America? My research question is mainly based on the theoretical findings of Benedict Anderson and Fredric Jameson. My question is mostly determined by the definition of “national allegory,” given by Fredric Jameson in his article “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism.”
The main lines of my analysis are dedicated to find and interpret examples in each of the authors of the national allegories through which they represent/imagine their national communities.