Poetry
Alma América
Not translated into English
José Santos Chocano · 1906
Synopsis
The collection, presented as a series of Indo-Spanish poems, sets out to rediscover Latin America through verse and to set against Rubén Darío's modernism a poetry of the New World. In Blasón, the poet proclaims himself the bard of America, native and wild; another piece celebrates the horses of the Spanish conquerors. The poet reacts there against Parnassian and modernist influence, and intends to speak in the name of the continent.
Context
The volume appeared in Madrid in 1906, from the bookshop of Victoriano Suárez, printed by Ricardo Fé and illustrated by Juan Gris with sixteen reproductions of woodcuts and fifty-eight photolithographs of drawings; Miguel de Unamuno wrote the preface. The poet was then living in Madrid, where Spanish and Latin American writers had just recognised his poetry. Critics hesitate over how to classify it: some link it to romanticism, others, such as Willis Knapp Jones, speak of a novomundista poetry.
Who it is for
Poems in Spanish, in a broad, declamatory tone; two of them are still recited aloud in Peru.
Prizes and reception
The book that earned him his nickname of Cantor de América, taken from one of his lines, and which Peru honoured in 1922.
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