CRIOLLISMO (LITERATURE): ORIGIN, CHARACTERISTICS, THEMES - LITERATURE - 2024

The criollismo was a literary movement that occurred in Latin America between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With exclusively American roots, it was born after the continent became aware of its differences with respect to Europe and the rest of the world. This awareness came hand in hand with a rebirth for the pride of indigenous culture.

Among its peculiarities, this trend privileged the rural over the urban and gave a face of its own to the new countries of the American continent. The geographical realities were splendidly presented. The different landscapes, plains, jungles, pampas as well as their inhabitants, ranchers, landowners and gauchos were an inexhaustible subject of writing.

Francisco Lazo Martí (1869-1909), representative of Creoleism

On the other hand, criollismo brought to the literary scene a struggle that the writers assumed as one between civilization and what they called barbarism. The writers of this genre took these two terms from the meanings given in ancient Greece and Rome.

In that sense, for the Greeks, the term barbarism was related to the peoples that only served to be slaves. For the Romans, for their part, the term civilization translated “come from the city”. Under these two meanings the writers of this literary current based their stories.

In this way, criollismo highlighted the conflict between civilization and barbarism. The fight of men against nature and the "barbarians" that inhabited it thus became a source of inspiration. Its representatives implied (and also sincerely believed it) that Latin America was a great jungle that refused to be conquered.

The resistance of its inhabitants constituted, then, an attempt of barbarism to prevail. All this symbolic and poetic charge was recorded by great narrators and prolific writers who were in charge of bringing this conflict to life.

Origin

The term criollismo comes from an expression that was coined during the colonial period: criollo. This word called the children of Spaniards who had been born in the lands of the New World.

This denomination began to be relevant during the times of the war of emancipation because it was used by the patriotic forces opposed to the king.

Over the years, this adjective evolved to become an identity feature of Hispanic America. In particular, it referred to the traditions, customs and ways of being of the descendant population of the pre-Hispanic settlers. Under this term indigenous people, gauchos, llaneros and other human groups were named equally.

Thus, literary criollismo arose from the desire to portray the customs of the people, reflecting the characteristic features of each of these human groups.

In their eagerness to differentiate them from the colonizing European groups, everything that reaffirmed the identity of these peoples was the subject of literary criollismo.

Regionalist literature

As the towns developed, the literary current of criollismo evolved. The reason went from being rustic and country to more urban and civilized in order to move at the pace of this social development. In this new stage of development, criollismo generated what became known as regionalist literature.

This new current was used to reflect the political, economic, human and social reality of a given geographic space. In this way, a type of original literature was created based on the elements of each of the natural spaces of the American continent.

Characteristics of criollismo

Cultural affirmation as a goal

The main objective of literary criollismo was to achieve cultural affirmation. Through his works, he sought to make a difference with European and universal culture.

This objective had its primary reason for being during the War of Independence. Politically, this differentiation was needed as a reason for their separation.

After independence, the need to establish the identity of the newly liberated countries promoted the exaltation of the autochthonous. Although still carrying patterns inherited from the colony, the American peoples proudly displayed their internal characteristics.

Space for complaint

Creole literary production was conceived by some of its writers as a social novel of denunciation. His reason was nothing but to show the criollos' handicap as a product of the colonialist treatment. The great autochthonous majorities were outside the spheres of social and economic decisions of the State.

Likewise, criollismo emerged as an element of what was later known as cultural nationalism. Each one of the social groups showed inherited weaknesses and revealed their differences between them, even between groups located on the same American continent.

The Creole novel privileged, as its representative characters, groups of the people, the sectors most affected by modernization. They were erected as representatives of the national idiosyncrasy. This action alerted the rest of the world to the change in the concept of nation that occurred between the 19th and 20th centuries.

Native aesthetic representation

Literary criollismo took advantage of the abundance of figures and characteristic signs of a country or region. He portrayed each of these specificities in order to represent a nationalist culture. He took, for example, the physical descriptions of the gaucho, the llanero, and the guaso, incorporating them into the story.

Similarly, he took their customs, traditions, joys and regrets to make the complete portrait. The more features were incorporated into the story, the more specific the portrait was. Any reader could geographically locate the characters described.

Non-modernized scenarios

At the beginning, the shares of the novels were preferably located in non-modernized regions. As societies evolved, other scenarios were used (streets, neighborhoods, cities). The only condition they had to meet was that they were more backward than the rest of the group in which they subscribed.

Within the stories the lives of the illiterate, ethnic minorities, women and the dispossessed were detailed. Readers could thus know the state of modernization denied to these characters.

Land as a fundamental element

The land is an essential element in the works of criollismo. Costumbrismo, tellurism or regionalism are categories that overlap in the traditional understanding of the term.

Propaganda effect

Creole literature was a propaganda form at the service of national integration. The social groups were consolidated in their common characteristics that identify them. We speak of gauchos, cariocas, nicas and ticos to signify groups of similar characteristics.

All these characteristics are united to the social appellation. Thus, the mention of the appellation brings to the mind of the reader its distinctive characteristics. For example, saying carioca brings to mind samba, carnivals and caipirinhas, but it also brings favelas, poverty and discrimination to mind.

Frequent Topics

From the moment that criollismo emerged as a literary trend, at the beginning of the 19th century, it was declared as a peasant literature. In it, descriptions of the landscape and the focus of colorful local environments predominated.

In general, it was thought that primitive customs were better preserved in the countryside and that it was a less polluted, more cosmopolitan place with more European forms.

Later, most writers disdained peasant life as a preferred subject and opted for the city with its descriptions and entanglements.

In the best of cases, the rural environment constituted a decorative frame or represented a resting place for a romantic character who went to its atmosphere to forget a love disappointment or to admire nature. In many cases, descriptions of landscapes were incomplete and marginal.

At the end of the 19th century, urban life in Latin American cities took preponderance within this movement. Cities impoverished and pressured by migratory floods replaced the peaceful country environment of their beginnings. These new contradictions served as a writing subject for the artists of literary criollismo.

Representatives and their works

Francisco Lazo Martí (1869 -1909)

Francisco Lazo Martí was a poet and physician whose works marked the trend of Venezuelan poetry and narrative of his time. His work was a source of inspiration for other writers such as Rómulo Gallegos (1884-1969) and Manuel Vicente Romero García (1861-1917).

In 1901, Francisco Lazo Martí published his masterpiece, Silva Criolla A Un Bardo Amigo. In it, the Venezuelan plain stands out as an iconic space of contemplation where evocations of his birthplace take place.

Among other poems of his authorship we can highlight Crepusulares, Flor de Pascua, Veguera and Consuelo.

Romulo Gallegos (1884-1969)

Rómulo Ángel del Monte Carmelo Gallegos Freire was a Venezuelan politician and novelist. His masterpiece Doña Bárbara, published in 1929, had its origins in a trip that the author took through the Venezuelan plains of the Apure state. On that trip, the region and its primitive character impressed him and motivated him to write the work.

Other works in his extensive repertoire also include El Último Solar (1920), Cantaclaro (1934), Canaima (1935), Pobre Negro (1937), El forastero (1942), S obre la misma tierra (1943), La rebelión (1946), The blade of straw in the wind (1952), A position in life (1954), The last patriot (1957) and The old piano.

Mariano Latorre (1886-1955)

Mariano Latorre was an academic and writer considered the initiator of Creole in Chile, showing the world the culture and customs of the local inhabitants. In 1944, he was honored with the Chilean National Prize for Literature.

His extensive production includes Cuentos del Maule (1912), Cuna de Cóndores (1918), La sombra del caserón (1919), Zurzulita (1920), Chilenos del Mar (1929) and Hombres de la selva.

José Eustasio Rivera (1888-1928)

José Eustasio Rivera was a Colombian lawyer and writer. In 1917, while working as a lawyer for a border commission, he had the opportunity to get to know the Colombian jungles and the conditions in which its inhabitants lived. From this experience Rivera drew the inspiration to write his great work which he entitled La Vorágine (1924).

This novel became a classic in Spanish American literature. The dozens of Colombian and international editions, as well as the Russian and Lithuanian translations, attest to this deserved fame.

Apart from his novelistic activity, Rivera was a prolific poet. It is estimated that in his entire life he wrote around 170 poems and sonnets. In his book entitled Land of Promise (1921) he compiled 56 of his finest sonnets.

Augusto D'Halmar (1882-1950)

Augusto D'Halmar was the pseudonym used by the Chilean writer Augusto Goemine Thomson. Born to a French father and a Chilean mother, D'Halmar was awarded the National Prize for Literature in 1942.

His novelistic production includes Juana Lucero (1902), The lamp in the mill (1914), Los Alucinados (1917), La Gatita (1917) and The shadow of smoke in the mirror (1918).

Among his poems, Mi otro yo (1920), What has not been said about the real Spanish revolution (1936) and Words for songs (1942) are recognized, among others.

Baldomero Lillo (1867-1923)

Baldomero Lillo Figueroa was a Chilean short story writer. From his experience working in the coal mines he got the inspiration to write one of his most famous works, Sub terra (1904). This work outlined the harsh conditions in which the miners worked, especially those in the Chilean mine known as “Chiflón del Diablo”.

Among other works in his repertoire, we can mention Sub sole (1907), Popular stories (1947) and The find and other tales of the sea (1956). Likewise, La hazaña (1959) and Pesquisa tragica (1964) are well remembered.

Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937)

Horacio Quiroga was a Uruguayan short story writer who was recognized as a teacher of short stories. Their stories reflected the struggle of man and animal to survive in the tropical jungle.

In his works, he represented the primitive and the wild with exotic images. The work generally recognized as his masterpiece, Anaconda (1921), portrayed the battles of the tropical jungle snakes, the non-poisonous anaconda, and the poisonous viper.

Among other works in his repertoire are Cuentos de la selva (1918) and La gallina degollada y otros cuentos (1925). Similarly, he outlined what in his opinion should be the form of Latin American stories with his work Decalogue of the perfect storyteller (1927).

Ricardo Güiraldes (1886-1927)

Ricardo Güiraldes was an Argentine poet and novelist recognized for his work in which he reflected the gaucho lifestyle with which he lived for much of his life.

His most outstanding work was the novel titled Don Segundo Sombra (1926). In this literary production the hazardous life of the countryside and its threat of extinction due to the expansion of progress were narrated.

Among other works in his bibliography are El cencerro de cristal (1915), Raucho: moments of a contemporary youth (1917), Telesforo Altamira (1919), Rosaura (1922), Don Pedro Figari (1924), Ramón (1925) and The path (1932).

Benito Lynch (1885-1951)

Benito Lynch was a novelist and short story writer who dedicated himself to portraying in his work the psychology of ordinary people in Argentine rural life in daily activities.

His first major novel, Los caranchos de la Florida (1916), dealt with the conflict between a father, a ranch owner, and his son, who returned after studying in Europe.

Also noteworthy in her novelist and short story work are Raquela (1918), El inglés de los güesos (1924), La evasión (1922), The roano colt (1924), El antojo de la patrona (1925) and El romance de un gaucho. (1930).

Mario Augusto Rodriguez (1917-2009)

Mario Augusto Rodríguez was a Panamanian playwright, journalist, essayist, narrator, poet and literary critic. He has been one of the Panamanian writers who have best known how to portray the internal history of his country in the literary field.

Of his stories, the highlights are Campo in (1947), Luna en Veraguas (1948) and Los Ultrajados (1994). In his novelistic work, he finds Negra nightmare red (1994), and in his poetry his work Canto de amor para la patria novia (1957). Finally, from his theatrical production, Pasión campesina (1947) and El dios de la Justicia (1955) are well known.

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-)

Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist and university professor. He is one of the most important novelists and essayists in Latin America, and one of the leading writers of his generation. In 2010 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Vargas Llosa has an extensive bibliography of works of fiction as well as non-fiction. Among the former, the chiefs (1979), The city and the dogs (1966), The Green House (1968), Conversation in the Cathedral (1975), Pantaleón and the Visitors (1978), Aunt Julia and the Writer (1982) stand out.), The War at the End of the World (1984) and The Goat Party (2001).

The non-fiction works include García Márquez: Historia de un deicidio (1971), The Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and "Madame Bovary" (1975), The Truth of Lies: Essays on the Modern Novel (1990) and The Fish in the water (1993).

References

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