The Politics of Spanish American "Modernismo".

Falcoff, Mark

Gerard Aching The Politics of Spanish American "Modernismo" By Exquisite Design. Cambridge University Press, 183 pages, $49.95

The term modernismo in Spanish American literature refers to a group of poets and novelists who around the turn of the century embraced the model of French Parnassianism to reinvigorate literary form. The most prominent names associated with the movement are familiar to anyone who has ever taken an advanced course in Latin American literature--Manuel Gutierrez Najera, Ruben Dario, Julian del Casal, Jose Enrique Rodo Until now nobody has thought to associate the word "politics" with this movement, largely because most of its protagonists were either non-political or worked hand-in-glove with the Latin American politico-military-financial establishment (who also paid their bills). Also, nobody probably cares much about the politics of poets as good as these, and a good thing too.

This book obviously began as a doctoral dissertation, and on that score at least seems to have served its purpose--the flyleaf informs us that the author has found a berth in the Spanish department of New York University. Those of us who have written dissertations will recognize here (with embarrassment, I hope) examples of our own past sins--particularly the ponderous, pompous tone of voice, a kind of parody of our favorite professor discoursing in seminar.

But this is 1998, so there are some new features that probably didn't show up in our own efforts. There is the polite nod to the currently fashionable authorities (Terry Eagleton, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Fredric Jameson, Louis Althusser); the ever-so-slight dissent with received wisdom; the throwaway rejection of "vulgar Marxism" (as opposed to the other--the good-kind); the tendency to blow up trivial issues to major points of discussion; and so forth. In effect, it is a book written for the exclusive consumption of a committee of bored (and boring) senior academics. Not for the first time, to be sure.

Another modern touch is the deconstructionist gibberish in which it is written. There are "sites of literary production" "dialogical characters" "reading constituencies" "class alliances" that are "concretized" "identities" that are "constructed discursive[ly]." We are even invited to consider something Aching calls "the political economy of poetry"--I'd rather not.

The Politics of Spanish-American Modernismo is a useful heuristic device (a cliche from my own graduate school days, that) for understanding why ever fewer students are taking courses in literature in American universities these days, and how the craft of literary criticism, once the province of public intellectuals like Edmund Wilson, Christian Gauss, or, in the field of Hispanic letters, Samuel Putnam, Irving Leonard, and Gerald Brenan, has sadly become the exclusive province of people who can't read, can't write, and can't teach. And who probably hate literature to boot.

Mark Falcoff's book A Culture of Its Own: Taking Latin America Seriously was just published by Transaction.