The Slaves of the Church

Abstract

Manuel GonzÁlez prada (1844-1918), like inca garcilaso de la vega, César vallejo, josé marÍa arguedas, and mario vargas llosa, ranks among the top Peruvian literary figures, but only in Peru, where his work is hotly debated by literati, social scientists, historians, politicians, and journalists. Outside Peru he rates no more than the inclusion in anthologies of one of his poems; his most famous essay, “Nuestros indios” (“Our Indians”); or the occasional critical article on his work. However, with the Cuban José Martí (1853-95), González Prada is a founder of Latin American modernism, a movement that critics generally accept as running roughly from the publication of Rubén Darío's Azul, in 1888, to Darío's death, in 1916. Gordon Brotherston notes that Darío coined the term modernismo the same year he published Azul (vii). There are many reasons there has been less interest in González Prada than in Martí and other modernists. To begin with, Darío, in an 1888 visit to Peru, met with Ricardo Palma but not González Prada (Castro). Palma, writing in a more traditional style—even though he invented a genre, tradiciones—was the establishment's literary darling, while González Prada, always the innovator in style and an agitator in subject matter, remained largely unknown outside his native land. Thus, it made perfect sense that the maker of literary movements would visit the internationally known Palma but not González Prada, who could not add to his fame and expanding literary networks. Furthermore, when Darío later went to New York he turned his epistolary relationship with Martí into a personal friendship (Henríquez Ureña 93). In the United States there is much more interest in Martí, who lived here, than in González Prada, who did not. Hispanic modernism is typically understood to include the like-minded people whom Darío knew personally, such as Martí, Julián del Casal (Cuba), Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (Mexico), Ricardo Jaimes Freyre (Bolivia), and Juan Ramón Jiménez (Spain), and to exclude those whom he did not, such as Adela Zamudio (Bolivia) and González Prada. Finally, González Prada's anarchism, his feminism, and his tell-it-like-it-is essays did not endear him to many people.