Abstract
The article examines The Man of the Ruins, a legend founded on true events that occurred in the 1868 earthquake of Francisco Javier Salazar Arboleda, published in 1869. It approaches such a forgotten novel of Ecuadorian literature as the first fantastic text, with a romantic-Gothic aesthetics. It discusses its structure on the symbolic level: a Christian vision about a liminal place where there would be a tension between mythological entities. This opens the discursive level with the allegory of the spirit of the time, where Ecuador is seen demolished thanks to the social classes with colonial mentality, which stop the establishment of a national project.
Highlights
The article examines The Man of the Ruins, a legend founded on true events that occurred in the 1868 earthquake of Francisco Javier Salazar Arboleda, published in 1869
It approaches such a forgotten novel of Ecuadorian literature as the first fantastic text, with a romantic-Gothic aesthetics. It discusses its structure on the symbolic level: a Christian vision about a liminal place where there would be a tension between mythological entities
This opens the discursive level with the allegory of the spirit of the time, where Ecuador is seen demolished thanks to the social classes with colonial mentality, which stop the establishment of a national project
Summary
Partamos de un planteamiento que sugiere Caillois al referirse a lo fantástico. Según él, este «manifiesta un escándalo, una rajadura, una irrupción insólita, casi insoportable en el mundo real» (1970: 10). Que podría ser más bien una premisa sobre la naturaleza de lo fantástico, sitúa una cierta tensión: algo que surge, que brota, que suscita algo, por cuya infiltración, el mundo real se transfigura. Otro vendría ser el concerniente con la literatura, es decir, cómo esta «traduce» todo lo que describe y caracteriza Caillois. Se requiere de un trabajo poético, de una estrategia poética, que permita imaginar tal acontecer de miedo, en el momento de la lectura, es decir, el espanto de lo literario en el texto narrativo «que causa estragos en un mundo incrédulo, donde las leyes de la naturaleza son tenidas por inflexibles e inmutables» (Bravo Rozas, 2013: 63). El interés por el discurso, desde el plano literario, trata de extraer la dimensión simbólica que permea lo místico-religioso bajo la estrategia de lo fantástico
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