Author: Chemris, Crystal

Source: Romance Studies, Volume 26, Number 2, April 2008 , pp. 136-149(14)

Publisher: Maney Publishing

Abstract:

Góngora's Soledades can be used as a base from which to examine failed pilgrimage as a recurring topos in Latin American texts which confront the Baroque legacy of frustrated modernity. Carpentier's 'El camino de Santiago', Rulfo's Pedro Páramo and Vallejo's 'Trilce LXV' constitute a sort of progeny of this Gongorine topos, contrasting in their different relation to the messianic. While Góngora, Rulfo, and Carpentier present historical repetition as a form of paralysis, Vallejo presents the frustration of historical progress in equally graphic terms, but also offers hope in his engagement with possibility from a socialist perspective. His poem suggests the 'weak Messianic power' of which Benjamin writes, one which engages the future without a pre-established teleology, locating pilgrimage instead in the collective and open space of human potential.

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/174581508x287437

Publication date: 2008-04-01

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