Portugal, Brasil y México en una nuez: estrategias de personalización en tres retratos transatlánticos de literaturas nacionales (Álvares de Azevedo, Juan Valera, José Zorrilla)

Abstract

Within the space of no more than a few years in the 1850s, three essays with similar transatlantic features, all written by literary authors, are published in the Hispanic world. Each of them is dedicated to portray a national literature and its greatest representants: besides José Zorrilla and his well-known essay México y los mexicanos, Álvares de Azevedo portrays from São Paulo the highlights of Portugal’s literature, and Juan Valera introduces Brazilian literature to the public in Spain (De la poesía del Brasil). Whereas Álvares de Azevedo speaks with a voice torn away by the exotism of ancient civilizations in the Old world, Zorrilla and Valera expressly pursue a more sober kind of style, distant from Romantic enthusiasm. In spite of that, their texts are not exempt of personalized markers like irony or self-thematization.

Keywords

• 19th century
• romanticism
• history of literary criticism
• rhetorics
• brazil
• mexico
• portugal