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Literatura y paternalismo en Puerto Rico. By Juan G. Gelpi. San Juan: U de Puerto Rico, 1993. 201 pages.
This enlightened study is a valuable contribution to Puerto Rican literature, not only because it is critically sound and well-written, but also because it analyzes in great detail the effects of paternalism and patriarchy on this nation's literary tradition. At the beginning of his critical work, Juan G. Gelpi develops an innovative approach to Puerto Rican letters that does not conform to traditional literary criticism which has invariably organized and classified Puerto Rican works and authors based on the concept of generations. His claim that these arbitrary, chronological divisions serve to reflect and reinforce the impact of paternalism on Puerto Rican literature is noteworthy since until now all works written within a specific time frame have been traditionally grouped together because they revolve around a central "father" figure who serves as a model for each generation. This premise insures that all works and writers within a single generation must conform to the commonalities, characteristics and classifications imposed by literary historians and critics. According to Gelpi, the very notion of a generation inherently denotes the concepts of hierarchy and exclusion since individuality and differences are never permitted. Gelpi's research concentrates on the effects of patriarchy and paternalism on different genres in Puerto Rican literature, and subsequently provides comparative and contrastive analyses of traditional canonical works with contemporary ones. This critical investigation not only reassesses and demystifies the canon, but reconfigures it by including previously unheard and silent voices.
The monograph is divided into four chapters. The first summarizes the traditional linear and chronological literary theory that Puerto Rican literature, along with Western thought, has always emphasized the idea of generations; thereby, contributing to the creation and acceptance of an exclusionary, patriarchal canon. As a result, Puerto Rican nationalism, tradition and culture have been constructed upon this self-perpetuating, patriarchal rhetoric found in the few arbitrarially-chosen, privileged works which have become to be accepted as the canon. By comparing works by contemporary writers who are women, homosexuals, etc. with these past canonical texts, Gelpi destroys the idea of a generational approach to literature as he contests the cultural and political biases of the values upon which the current canon...