Resumen

KONIG, IRMTRUD. NOTES FOR COMPARISON IN LATIN AMEERICA: SYMBOLISM IN ARIEL AND CALIBAN BY RODÓ. Atenea (Concepc.) [online]. 2008, n.498, pp.75-95. ISSN 0718-0462.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-04622008000200006.

This work proposes an initial theoretical reflection on comparative literary studies in Latin America in order to move towards establishing some basic premises. From this theoretical framework we will examine the significance of the reelaboration of the characters from Shakespeare’s Tempest, especially Caliban and Ariel, which Rodó undertakes in his essay Ariel. The hypothesis advanced is that Rodó makes explicit an intertextual dialogue with the English author but that the symbolic signification that he assigns to the figures of Ariel and Caliban is linked critically to the historical reinterpretation that Ernest Renan proposes in his drama Caliban…, written some years after the populist-worker uprising of 1871 in Paris. Rodó shares Renan’s alarm as to the consequences of modernization and democratization in their respective societies but he disagrees with his reactionary and aristocratic ideology. A comparative analysis is proposed in order to specify the signification of Ariel and Caliban in Rodó’s essay and their symbolic function in the service of a critical vision of reality in an underlying and profoundly committed Latin American project.

Palabras clave : Latin American Comparative Literature; intertextuality; productive reception; José Enrique Rodó; Ariel; Ariel and Caliban in Latin America.

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