Poesía, nación y ciudadanía en el siglo XIX hispanoamericano

Undergraduate / Graduate

In this course we will explore the relationships between poetry and the constitution of the modern nation-state in nineteenth-century Spanish America. How did poetry partake in the early figuration of national historical imaginaries and in the foundation of their heroic pantheons? Through what languages and aesthetic procedures did it help foster patriotic sentiments and identifications? Was poetry a disciplinary tool for the formation of notions of citizenship and of civic values? Through a series of close textual readings, we will investigate the nature of the entanglement between the poetical and the demands of the political and inquire if there were moments when this relationship proved to be traversed by frictions, if not impossibilities. Authors we may read are José Joaquín Olmedo, Andrés Bello, Esteban Echeverría, José María Heredia, Plácido, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, José Hernández, José Gautier Benítez, Juana Borrero, Juan Zorrilla de San Martín, and Lola Rodríguez de Tió, among others.