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CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 Purdue University Press ©Purdue University Volume 4 (2002) Issue 2 Article 7 Latin American and Comparative Literature Roberto González Echevarría Yale University Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: <[email protected]> Recommended Citation González Echevarría, Roberto. "Latin American and Comparative Literature." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 4.2 (2002): <https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1154> This text has been double-blind peer reviewed by 2+1 experts in the field. The above text, published by Purdue University Press ©Purdue University, has been downloaded 2404 times as of 11/ 07/19. Note: the download counts of the journal's material are since Issue 9.1 (March 2007), since the journal's format in pdf (instead of in html 1999-2007). This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license. UNIVERSITY PRESS <http://www.thepress.purdue.edu > CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 < http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb > Purdue University Press ©Purdue University CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture , the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." In addition to the publication of articles, the journal publishes review articles of scholarly books and publishes research material in its Library Series. Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Langua-ge Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monog-raph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: < [email protected] > CLCWeb Volume 4 Issue 2 (June 2002) Article 7 Roberto González Echevarría, "Latin American and Comparative Literature" <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol4/iss2/7> Contents of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 4.2 (2002) Thematic Issue Comparative Cultural Studies and Latin America Edited by Sophia A. McClennen and Earl E. Fitz << http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol4/iss2/ >> Abstract : In his paper, "Latin American and Comparative Literature," Roberto González Echevarría asks whether comparative literature, a literary discipline dedicated to the proposition that linguistic boundaries must be transcended, can overcome the "cultural arrogance" of the "Eurocentrism" that he believes pervades it currently. González Echevarría argues that if it is to endure, compara- tive literature will have to undergo "a truly pitiless redefinition," one that effectively displaces "the hegemonic powers of nineteenth-century Europe" and that Latin American literature, by the nature of its historical development on the margins of these "hegemonic" texts and traditions, could -- and should -- play a central role in this rehabilitation. González Echevarría's paper includes a dis- cussion of how Carpentier's The Lost Steps can serve as an example of how Latin American litera- ture reads the canon and how reading those readings can lead to new insights into both canonical works and those presently excluded. González Echevarría argues that Carpentier's text, for exam- ple, ought to be considered required reading for both Latin Americanists and students of compara- tive literature -- especially those seeking to make Spanish and Portuguese their primary lan- guages -- and he makes a clear and convincing case for using the literatures of Brazil and Spanish America as the mechanisms by which comparative literature can be both redefined and revitalized. Roberto González Echevarría, " Latin American and Comparative Literature" page 2 of 11 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 4.2 (2002): <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol4/iss2/7> Roberto GONZÁLEZ ECHEVARRÍA Latin American and Comparative Literatures One has to wonder, in the wake of the radical critical revision of the past twenty years, and more important, the international recognition of writers from parts of the world not generally included in the curriculum, if comparative literature as a discipline has survived. Has there been a realignment of literary history parallel to the one in the international arena that calls for a fresh critical ap- proach to the discipline, for a remapping, as it were? The debates sparked by the assault on the canon dramatize the urgency of such questions. Work on colonialism and literature is giving cur- rency in literary studies -- properly translated -- to the linguistic dictum that a language is a dia- lect with an army. Many would now say that a literature is a body of texts with an army and an Alliance Française. It would probably be a shock to the founders of comparative literature, who acted to combat the scourge of nationalism, that the field is now seen as the reflection of only a slightly more encompassing kind of cultural arrogance: Eurocentrism. Even at its most liberal, when conceived as a study of literature transcending linguistic barriers, comparative literature compared literature to itself, meaning that it compared authors, works, and movements within the confines of the hegemonic powers of nineteenth-century Europe. This seems intolerable today and at odds with what should be the thrust of the discipline: to compare literature more broadly to texts not commonly considered literary, as well as to others coming from outside the confines of what were the imperial powers of the last century. In the current climate, there seems to be little future for comparative literature, unless a truly pitiless redefinition can be negotiated. But what has occurred so far has merely been a prelude (one hopes), with very few real chang- es having taken place. In what follows I shall give my assessment of the situation, consider the place of Latin American literature in a new, redefined comparative literature, and close with a reading of a scene of Alejo Carpentier's The Lost Steps that may help in understanding how I think Latin American texts read the canon and how they can be "comparative." I will be expressing, for the most part, opinions based on personal experience rather than finely tuned and supported ar- guments. Has the questioning of the canon really changed things, and has "theory" truly ventured beyond the canonical works? I am afraid not or, at least, not yet and not enough. The situation is, in terms of everyday experience, bewildering. On the one hand, Hispanists and colleagues in disciplines other than comparative literature, English, German, or French usually know, in addition to their language and literature of specialization, at least French and English, if not both, and they are conversant with the literatures of the hegemonic languages. But colleagues who specialize in those languages or in comparative literature rarely know ours. We know our literatures as well as our Proust, Dickens, or Schiller, but they have only the vaguest of notions, if any, about Lope de Vega, let alone Andrés Bello or Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. A Latin American intellectual would choose a slow, painful death over being caught short on his Mallarmé, and I have yet to meet one who did not know French. But I have never met a French intellectual or professor who knew Spanish. We, the "colonized," are cultural polyglots; they are generally conversant only with English, French, or German. We "know more," yet have to constantly justify our membership in the field of compara- tive literature. They can go around saying Valejo (as in "Valley Joe") for Vallejo, Borgés (as in "Boar Jess") for Borges, and Marqués
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