Short Story Criticism | Cortázar, Julio - Marcy E. Schwartz (essay date winter 1996)

Marcy E. Schwartz (essay date winter 1996)

SOURCE: Schwartz, Marcy E. “Cortázar's Plural Parole: Multilingual Shifts in the Short Fiction.” Romance Notes 36, no. 2 (winter 1996): 131-37.

[In the following essay, Schwartz argues that “Lejana,” “El otro cielo” and “La autopista del sur” “exemplify Cortázar's manipulation of multiple language registers to underscore ontological displacement.”]

Geography and national languages in Cortázar's fiction operate as semiotic cultural codes from which the characters struggle to break free. Although much of his writing takes place in French-speaking surroundings, Cortázar's multilingual and interterritorial movements are not limited to his Argentine-French biographical axes. His writing reveals that beyond a Latin American-European cosmopolitanism lies a continuing exploration of alternative realms and the avenues of accessing them. “Lejana,” “El otro cielo” and “La...

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