The Poetry and Discursive Strategies of Spanish American Modernismo

The development of Modernismo was a turning point in the elaboration of the continental self-image. Modernista poets like Rubén Darío, Leopoldo Lugones, Julio Herrera y Reissig, Julián del Casal, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera and José Asunción Silva were among the first original Hispanic American creators of literature, but they did not share a common view on continental problems and solutions. The relevance of Modernismo for the shaping of Latin American self image cannot be overstated. Modernista 's conceptions on new intellectuals, aestheticism, l'art pour l'art , racism, immigrants, science and the occult, modernization, decadence, dandysmo , the body, sex, feminism, anarchism, cosmopolitism, pan-Latinism, universalism and nationalism will be discussed.