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Mariategui's Aesthetic Thought: A Critical Reading of the Avant-Gardes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Vicky Unruh
Vicky Unruh*
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
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José Carlos Mariátegui devoted the most productive years of his short life (1894–1930) to analyzing contemporary Peru. Because of this emphasis, a substantial portion of the research conducted in the past thirty years has addressed his political and social thought. More recent investigations, however, have sought to document the significance of his aesthetic ideas, an appropriate development in light of Mariátegui's extensive writings on literature and the visual arts. For example, the periodical Amauta, which appeared under his editorship twenty-nine times between September 1926 and March 1930, was primarily a magazine of the arts and intellectual life, notwithstanding its political agenda and indigenista orientation. Also, Mariátegui's detailed essay on Peruvian literature, “El proceso de la literatura,” is the most extensive of the Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (1928). In addition, between 1924 and 1930, the widely read Lima weeklies Variedades and Mundial regularly published his critical articles on national and international topics, including a large number of pieces on literature and the arts. Recent inquiries into Mariátegui's literary thought have addressed such issues as his modern concept of literary realism, the relationship between his artistic concerns and a Marxism that has been repeatedly characterized as “open,” and the role of aesthetic issues in his social agenda for Peru. This research has established Mariátegui's importance in the arts, not as a creative writer (although he did write poetry, plays, and short stories in his youth) but as one of Latin America's first practicing literary critics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , 1989 , pp. 45 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

Support for this study came from two sources. Initial research into Mariátegui's role in Peru's avant-gardes was conducted in the summer of 1983 in Lima with the support of a Tinker Foundation grant. Additional investigations, particularly into contemporary theories of the avant-gardes, were carried out in the spring of 1986 under a resident fellowship at the Center for Twentieth-Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. I would like to thank LAR Managing Editor Sharon Kellum and one anonymous LAR reviewer for constructive editorial suggestions.

References

Notes

1. The last three issues of Amauta (numbers 30–32) appeared after Mariátegui's death, under the editorship of Ricardo Martínez de la Torre.

2. Significant extensive studies of Mariátegui's literary work and views include Eugenio Chang-Rodríguez, Poética e ideología en José Carlos Mariátegui (Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas, 1983); and the collection of critical essays entitled Mariátegui y la literatura (Lima: Biblioteca Amauta, 1980), edited by the Centro de Documentación y Estudios “José Carlos Mariátegui” under the direction of Ricardo Luna Vegas. Seminal work has been done by Antonio Melis, whose “Medio siglo de vida de José Carlos Mariátegui” appears in Mariátegui y la literatura (125–35); other important pieces include his excellent introductory essay to the anthology of Mariátegui's literary writings, Crítica literaria: José Carlos Mariátegui (Buenos Aires: Editorial Jorge Alvarez, 1969), 7–45; his introduction to Mariátegui's Correspondencia (1915–1930) (Lima: Biblioteca Amauta, 1984); and “Estética, crítica literaria y política cultural en la obra de José Carlos Mariátegui: apuntes,” Textual, no. 7 (June 1973):66–69. Other studies dealing with selected elements of Mariátegui's literary thought include Eugenio Chang-Rodríguez, “Poética y marxismo en Mariátegui,” Hispamérica 12, nos. 34–35 (Apr.–Aug. 1983):51–67; G. M. Aguirre Cárdenas, “La estética de José Carlos Mariátegui,” TEQSE /Fundamento: Revista de Filosofía, Psicología y Arte (1970):53–65; Peter G. Earle, “Ortega y Gasset y Mariátegui frente al arte nuevo,” in Homenaje a Luis Leal: estudios sobre literatura hispanoamericana, edited by Donald W. Bleznick and Juan O. Valencia (Madrid: Insula, 1978), 115–27; Elizabeth Garrels, “Mariátegui, la edad de piedra y el nacionalismo literario,” Escritura 1, no. 1 (1976):115–28; Diego Meseguer Illán, “José Carlos Mariátegui y el realismo literario marxista,” Textual, nos. 5–6 (Dec. 1972):9–12; Yerko Moretic, José Carlos Mariátegui: su vida e ideario, su concepción del realismo (Santiago, Chile: Ediciones de la Universidad Técnica del Estado, 1970); and Antonio Pages LARaya, “Mariátegui y el realismo mágico,” Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, no. 325 (July 1977):149–54.

3. See, for example, Luis Monguió's La poesía postmodernista peruana (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954): “la influencia que, sin llegar a esos extremos de éxito en el proselitismo, ejercieron Mariátegui y Amauta en el vanguardismo peruano fue tal que esta etapa de la literatura peruana bien pudiera llamarse el ‘ciclo’ o el ‘clima’ de Amauta” (pp. 84–85).

4. For examinations of Mariátegui's unorthodox approach to political ideology, see Jesús Chavarría, José Carlos Mariátegui and the Rise of Modern Perú (1890–1930) (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979); and Harry E. Vanden, National Marxism in Latin America: José Carlos Mariátegui's Thought and Politics (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1986). For commentary on Mariátegui's lack of orthodoxy in the arts, see Antonio Melis's and Eugenio Chang-Rodríguez's work and Gerardo Mario Goloboff, “Mariátegui y el problema estético literario,” in Luna Vegas, Mariátegui y la literatura, 109–23.

5. Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, translated by Michael Shaw, vol. 4 of Theory and History of Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 56.

6. The group and its aesthetic position were often identified either with the name of the magazine (Martín Fierro in Buenos Aires, Contemporáneos in Mexico, Amauta in Lima, Revista de Avance in Havana, Klaxon or Revista de Antropofagia in Brazil), or with a specific ismo (agorismo and estridentismo in Mexico, ultraísmo in Argentina, euforismo, diepalismo, and atalayismo in Puerto Rico, verdeamarelismo in Brazil, runrunismo in Chile, and postumismo in the Dominican Republic). In a few cases, the ismo was the aesthetic project of one individual, as with Huidobro's creacionismo and Peruvian Alberto Hidalgo's simplismo.

7. Comprehensive characterizations of Latin America's avant-gardes include Merlin H. Forster, “Latin American Vanguardismo: Chronology and Terminology,” in Tradition and Renewal (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 12–50; Noé Jitrik, “Papeles de trabajo: notas sobre la vanguardia latinoamericana,” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 8, no. 15 (first semester 1982):13–24; Klaus Müller-Bergh, “El hombre y la técnica: contribución al conocimiento de corrientes vanguardistas hispanoamericanas,” Revista Iberoamericana 48, nos. 118–19 (Jan.–June 1982):149–76; Julio Ortega, “La escritura de vanguardia,” Revista Iberoamericana 45, nos. 106–7 (Jan.–June 1979): 187–98; Nelson Osorio, “Para una caracterización histórica del vanguardismo literario,” Revista Iberoamericana 48, nos. 118–19 (Jan.–June 1982):227–54; Hugo Verani, Las vanguardias literarias en Hispanoamérica (Rome: Bulzoni Editores, 1986), especially the introductory study; and Saúl Yurkievich, “Los avatares de vanguardia,” Revista Iberoamericana 48, nos. 118–19 (Jan.–June 1982):351–66, and selected essays in his A través de la trama: sobre vanguardias literarias y otras concomitancias (Barcelona: Muchnik Editores, 1984).

8. José Carlos Mariátegui, Correspondencia (1915–1930), edited by Antonio Melis, 2 vols. (Lima: Biblioteca Amauta, 1984), 2:331. The translation was taken from Vanden's National Marxism in Latin America, 113.

9. The primary source on Mariátegui's European experience is his own collection of crónicas and articles published in Lima's El Tiempo from 1920 to 1922, which have been reprinted as Cartas de Italia, volume 15 of the twenty-volume Obras completas de José Carlos Mariátegui (Lima: Biblioteca Amauta, first editions published between 1957 and 1970). The most comprehensive studies of his European experience include Estuardo Núñez's La experiencia europea de José Carlos Mariátegui y otros ensayos (Lima: Empresa Editora Amauta, 1978) and Bruno Podesta's Mariátegui en Italia (Lima: Biblioteca Amauta, 1981).

10. Obras completas de José Carlos Mariátegui, 20 vols., vol. 6 (9th ed.), 81. Subsequent citations from Mariátegui's work will be documented directly in the text according to volume and page numbers of the following editions of individual volumes of the Obras completas: vol. 1, La escena contemporánea (12th ed.), 1983; vol. 2, 7 ensayos de intepretación de la realidad peruana (22nd popular ed.), 1982; vol. 3, El alma matinal (8th ed.), 1983; vol. 6, El artista y la época (9th ed.), 1983; vol. 7, Signos y obras (6th ed.), 1980; vol. 11, Peruanicemos al Perú (7th ed.), 1981; vol. 12, Temas de nuestra América (7th ed.), 1980; and vol. 15, Cartas de Italia (5th ed.), 1980. Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations are my own.

11. In addition to Amauta, other Peruvian vanguardist magazines include the eight issues of Poliedro (Aug.–Dec. 1926), edited by Armando Bazán; the four-issue series Trampolín-Hangar-rascacielos-Timonel (Oct. 1926–Mar. 1927), edited by Magda Portal and Serafín Delmar; the two issues of Guerrilla (1926), edited by Blanca Luz Brum Parra del Riego; the single issue of Hurra (1927), edited by Carlos Oquendo de Amat; the thirty-five issues of the Boletín Titikaka (1926–1930), edited in Puno by brothers Alejandro Peralta and Gamaliel Churata; and the seven issues of Chirapu (Jan.–July 1928), edited in Arequipa by Antero Peralta Vásquez.

12. For more detailed accounts of the literary activities, little magazines, and cultural politics of Peru's avant-garde period, see Wilfredo Kapsoli, “Prospecto del grupo ‘Los Zurdos’ de Arequipa,” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 10, no. 20 (second semester 1984):101–11; Mirko Lauer, “La poesía vanguardista en el Perú,” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 8, no. 15 (first semester 1982):77–88; chap. 3 of Monguió, El vanguardismo en la poesía peruana, 60–86; chap. 2 of my dissertation, “The Avant-Garde in Peru: Literary Aesthetics and Cultural Nationalism,” University of Texas, 1984; and David Wise, “Vanguardismo a 3800 metros: el caso del Boletín Titikaka (Puno, 1926–1920),” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 10, no. 20 (second semester 1984):89–100.

13. Peruvian writers who received Mariátegui's support were numerous: José María Eguren, whom he regarded as a link between modernismo and vanguardism; Alejandro Peralta (Ande, 1926); Carlos Oquendo de Amat (Cinco metros de poemas, 1927); surrealists César Moro, Xavier Abril, and Emilio Westphalen; Martín Adán (La casa de cartón, 1928); and César Vallejo. For accounts of Mariátegui's or Amauta's support of vanguardist activities in Peru, see Mirla Alcibíades, “Mariátegui, Amauta y la vanguardia literaria,” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 8, no. 15 (first semester, 1982):123–39; as well as Estuardo Núñez, “José Carlos Mariátegui y la recepción del surrealismo en el Perú,” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 3, no. 5 (first semester 1977):57–66; and the chapter “Amauta and the Art of the 1920s” in David Wise, “Amauta (1926–1930): A Critical Examination,” Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1978.

14. These writers included Spain's Ramón Gómez de la Serna and Guillermo de la Torre, Argentina's Oliverio Girondo and Ricardo Güiraldes, Mexico's Manuel Maples Arce and the estridentistas, and Mexico's Jaime Torres Bodet and the Contemporáneos associated with the review Contemporáneo.

15. Other “complete” vanguardists for Mariátegui included Phillippe Souppault, André Breton, Blaise Cendrars, and Emilio Petto Rutti.

16. “Presentación de ‘Amauta,‘” Amauta no. 1 (Sept. 1926):1.

17. Obras completas de Vicente Huidobro, 2 vols., edited by Braulio Arenas (Santiago: Zig-Zag, 1964), 1:653–54.

18. Notes from a Dada Diary, translated by Eugene Jolas in The Dada Painters and Poets, edited by Robert Motherwell (New York: Wittenborn, Schulz, 1951), 222.

19. En Avant Dada: A History of Dadaism (Hanover, 1920), translated by Ralph Manheim, in Dada Painters and Poets, 36.

20. “Note on Poetry,” translated by Mary Ann Caws in Tristan Tzara: Approximate Man and Other Writings (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1973), 169.

21. Manifesto of Surrealism, translated by Richard Seavar and Helen R. Lane, in Manifestoes of Surrealism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969), 30.

22. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” translated by Harry Zohn, in Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt (New York: Shocken Books, 1969), 223–24.

23. For an analysis of the avant-gardes' attack on the notion of the organic work of art, see the chapter “The Avant-Gardiste Work of Art,” in Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, 55–82.

24. “Manifesto of mr. aa. the anti-philosopher,” from the Seven Dada Manifestoes, in Motherwell, Dada Painters and Poets, 84.

25. See Roberto González Echevarría, The Voice of the Masters: Writing and Authority in Modern Latin American Literature (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), 34.

26. Tristan Tzara, “Note on Poetry,” translated by Mary Ann Caws, Tristan Tzara: Approximate Man, 169.

27. Guillaume Apollinaire, The Poet Assassinated, translated by Roger Shattuck, in Selected Writings of Guillaume Apollinaire (New York: New Directions, 1971), 259.

28. Andreas Huyssens, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), vii–viii.

29. Fillippo Tommaso Marinetti, with Emilio Settimelli and Bruno Corra, The Futurist Synthetic Theatre, in Marinetti: Selected Writings, translated by R. W. Flint and Arthur A. Cappotelli, edited by R. W. Flint (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1972), 128.

30. Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, History of Dada, translated by Ralph Manheim, in Dada Painters and Poets, 109.

31. Seeds and Bran, translated by Mary Ann Caws, in Tristan Tzara: Approximate Man, 215.

32. André Breton, “What Is Surrealism,” translated by David Gascoyne, in What Is Surrealism: Works of André Breton and Other Documents of Surrealism, edited by Franklin Rosemont (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1978), 116.

33. Breton, “The Surrealist Situation of the Object,” in Seavar and Lane, Manifestoes of Surrealism, 262.

34. Marinetti, Beyond Communism, translated by Flint, in Marinetti: Selected Writings, 155.

35. Marinetti, Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature, translated by Flint, in Marinetti: Selected Writings, 87.

36. Hans Arp, “Dadaland,” in Dadas on Art, edited by Lucy Lippard (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), 27.

37. René Crevel, “Resumé d'une conférence,” from Le Surréalisme au service de la révolution, translation by Ana Balakian, in Surrealism: The Road to the Absolute (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1957), 139.

38. See, for example, Gerardo Goloboff, “Mariátegui y el problema estético literario,” in Luna Vegas, Mariátegui y la literatura, 110.

39. Mikhail Bakhtin, “Discourse in the Novel,” translated by Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson, in The Dialogic Imagination, edited by Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 272–73.

40. Angel Rama, La ciudad letrada (Hanover, N.H.: Ediciones del Norte, 1984), particularly 23–39.

41. For González Prada's ideas on language and literature, see “Discurso en el Teatro Olimpo,” “Conferencia en el Ateneo de Lima,” and “Notas acerca del idioma,” all in Páginas Libres / Horas de Lucha, edited by Luis Alberto Sánchez (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1976).

42. Issue 16 of Amauta (July 1928), dedicated to González Prada, included essays on his poetic work and his ideas.

43. See José de la Riva Agüero, Carácter de la literatura del Perú independiente (Lima, 1905), Volume 1 of the Obras completas de José de la Riva Agüero (Lima: Publicaciones del Instituto Riva Agüero, 1956).

44. See Rosalind Krauss, “The Originality of the Avant-Garde,” in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), 157.