Content area
Andrés Bello (Caracas, Venezuela 1781–Santiago de Chile 1865) is one of the most significant Latin American figures of the nineteenth century. His fame encompasses his contributions as a poet, philologist, writer of prose, journalist, legislator and international educator. However, I propose that the evolution and development of Andrés Bello's literary criticism has not been given the scholarly attention that it deserves. This study traces and analyzes Andrés Bello's literary criticism, and shows how it has influenced present conceptualization of Latin American identity.
Bello's most poignant literary criticism was published during his nineteen years in London (1810–1829). This coincides with maturity as a writer; which is one of the reasons why his critical work included the historical currents and effects that shaped Napoleonic Wars, the Independence of some Latin American nations, and the Vienna Congress. Bello was able to create a unique universal view of Latin America as an entity with its own identity, separate from what is known as Western civilization. His many contacts with grammarians, historians, writers and thinkers of the period helped to incorporate variegated perspectives on his vision.
I show that Bello's literary criticism was innovative in many ways. For example, he drew connections that had not been previously established between medieval Spanish literature (Poema del Mio Cid) and English Romantic poetry and prose. Furthermore, he continued to contribute to the field of Hispanic American literary criticism upon his departure from England and his return to Chile (1829). One of the ways he did this was by introducing English Romantic authors at a time when French Romantic poets and writers were widely read.
Since Bello's work has implications that extend beyond the purely textual, this study includes an analysis of the illustrations published in both magazines that Bello coordinated in London: Biblioteca Americana (1823) and Repertorio Americano (1826–27).