José María Arguedas Criticism
José María Arguedas (1911–1969) stands as a seminal figure in Peruvian literature, renowned for his profound engagement with themes of cultural identity, linguistic struggle, and the societal impacts of modernization. Initially grounded in the "indigenista" tradition, Arguedas sought to forge a cultural identity independent of European dominance, a mission reflected in his innovative use of language that skillfully blended Quechua and Spanish. This linguistic fusion enabled him to authentically depict the complexities of indigenous life and the broader societal issues facing Peru.
Arguedas's first major work, Agua, emerged from his indignation towards the mistreatment of indigenous communities and their portrayal in mainstream literature. His narrative prowess is perhaps most evident in Deep Rivers, often considered his masterpiece, which follows a boy navigating the cultural divide between indigenous and dominant Spanish-speaking society. As noted by Sara Castro-Klarén, these works explore the irreconcilability of indigenous and modern consciousness, a recurring theme in his oeuvre.
Critics have extensively examined Arguedas's exploration of cultural duality and linguistic landscapes. Lucía Lockert discusses his depiction of Peruvian social realities, noting the tension between solidarity and individualism. Similarly, Walter D. Mignolo reflects on Arguedas's linguistically charged landscapes as legacies of colonial imposition. In works like El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, Arguedas interrogates the cultural clashes in urban settings, described by César N. Caviedes as "a synthesis of contemporary Peru."
Arguedas's life and work also provoke discussion on literature's role in social and political discourse. While some, like Mario Vargas Llosa, critique his later works for their social commitments, others celebrate his literary efforts as a powerful translation of indigenous realities into the Spanish-speaking world. His narratives are lauded for their poetic engagement with the Andean world and the complexities of cultural identity, capturing the tension between indigenous consciousness and external realities. Phyllis Rodríguez-Peralta notes the evolution of his work from regional themes to broader sociopolitical narratives, while Wolfgang A. Luchting regards El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo as a profound exploration of indio-mythology and capitalism's societal impacts. Despite his tragic death by suicide in 1969, Arguedas's works continue to resonate for their deep empathy and cultural insight, with M. E. Davis emphasizing his depiction of Andean life as a realm where magic and harsh reality intersect.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Arguedas, José María (Vol. 10)
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The Literary Progression of José María Arguedas
(summary)
In the following essay, Phyllis Rodríguez-Peralta highlights José María Arguedas's evolution from regional to broader sociopolitical themes in his literature, illustrating his integration of Quechua and Spanish languages and his enduring commitment to portraying the Peruvian indigenous experience and societal dynamics.
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Wolfgang A. Luchting
(summary)
In the following essay, Wolfgang A. Luchting examines José María Arguedas's novel "El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo," highlighting its thematic exploration of indio-mythology, the societal impact of capitalism, and its poignant yet incomplete narrative, arguing that it is one of Arguedas's finest works despite its flaws.
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M. E. Davis
(summary)
In the following essay, M. E. Davis examines José María Arguedas's mastery in depicting conflicting emotions within his stories, highlighting his portrayal of Andean life as a blend of magic and harsh reality, where indigenous consciousness and art coexist with oppression.
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The Literary Progression of José María Arguedas
(summary)
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Arguedas, José María (Vol. 18)
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The Indigenista Fiction of José Maria Arguedas
(summary)
In the following essay, Peter Gold argues that José María Arguedas' work distinguishes itself from other indigenista literature by deeply penetrating the Indian mentality and exploring cultural and social conflicts in Peru, emphasizing Indian values while confronting language challenges and depicting the complex realities of Peruvian identity.
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Spanish: 'Deep Rivers'
(summary)
In the following essay, Julio Ortega argues that José María Arguedas's work, particularly Deep Rivers, transcends regionalism and indigenismo by passionately exploring the complex cultural identity of Peru, advocating for social justice and the recognition of the rights of oppressed indigenous peoples through literature.
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On Arguedas' Poetry
(summary)
In the following essay, Antonio Cornejo Polar contends that José María Arguedas' poetry, deeply rooted in the Quechua language and culture, serves as a powerful expression of collective indigenous identity and resistance, addressing themes of historical oppression, cultural survival, and the transformative connection to nature.
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Arguedas' Last Novel
(summary)
In the following essay, Julio Ortega critiques José María Arguedas's posthumous novel El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo as a profound document intertwining personal despair and societal critique, where Arguedas's struggle with suicidal thoughts and the chaos of industrialization in Peru manifests in a unique, unfinished narrative.
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Seeing with the Indian's Eyes
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In the following essay, Mario Vargas Llosa argues that José María Arguedas revolutionizes Andean literature by authentically portraying the Indian experience through a unique narrative style that blends social realism with linguistic innovation, offering an unprecedented vision of the transcultural dynamics between indigenous and white communities in Peru.
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The Indigenista Fiction of José Maria Arguedas
(summary)
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Arguedas, José María
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Indian of the Heart
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In the following essay, Muñoz examines Arguedas's struggle to describe a future for the Andean Indians that relies on neither liberalism nor western socialism and retains their sense of the magical.
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Peruvian Social Realities in José María Arguedas
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In the following essay, Lockert presents Arguedas's work as examples of the tensions in his thought between solidarity and individualism and acculturation and assimilation.
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José María Arguedas: Godfather of Liberationism
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In the following essay, Wall-Smith examines Arguedas's conceptualization of highland culture as a spiritual force under pressure from the materialist pressures of Peru's coastal areas, and he shows how this influenced the development of liberation theology.
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Arguedas's De-Auto-Rized Biography: A Failed? Trickster's Tale
(summary)
In the following essay, Columbus likens Arguedas and his narrator in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo to a trickster who inhabits “compound characters who, like him, straddle several language worlds.”
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The Real Life of the Latin American Novelist
(summary)
In the following essay, Vargas Llosa categorizes Arguedas's works as “literature meant for him” and the later works, such as Todas las Sangres, in which he succumbed to the pressures to produce works of social and political conscience, which Vargas Llosa found “a total failure.”
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We Wretched of the Earth: The Search for a Language of Justice
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In the following essay, Hawley draws on Bakhtin's claim that language shapes our self-definition to frame Arguedas's personal and literary development as a three-stage development of mythological consciousness: his childhood immersion in the language and culture of the Quechua Indians; his “agonistic and abstract phase” when he learned Spanish and received his formal education; and his years writing fiction when he tried to break out of colonial and oppressive forms of consciousness and extend the power and meaning of ancient stories, songs and myths.
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Linguistic Maps, Literary Geographies, and Cultural Landscapes: Languages, Languaging, and (Trans)nationalism
(summary)
In the following essay, Mignolo compares Arguedas's efforts to write in a transcultural language with the efforts of two other writers—a Mexican-American and Caribbean; where the other writers are seen facing the challenge of communicating the linguistic and cultural conflicts of a “Third World” immigrant living in the “First World,” Arguedas is seen as exploring the conflicts of hundreds of years ago, when the native peoples of America were confronted with the colonizing migrations from Spain and other regions of the Americas.
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Tangible and Mythical Places in José M. Arguedas, Gabriel García Márquez, and Pablo Neruda
(summary)
In the following essay, Caviedes explores Arguedas's allegorical depictions of the physical geography of Peru in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, a work he declares “a synthesis of contemporary Peru” crafted by Arguedas “with perhaps more propriety and sensitivity than a historian, sociologist or geographer.”
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Oracular Foxes, Archaic Times, Twentieth-Century Peru: J. M. Arguedas's The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below
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In the following essay, Columbus notes that the foxes symbolize art in The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below and are presented as symbols struggling against the bureaucratization of folk art and culture.
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The End of Magical Realism: José María Arguedas's Passionate Signifier (El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo)
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In the following essay, Moreiras declares that the death of the author in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo symbolizes the death of Magical Realism, and with it “Latin American foundational utopianism comes to its end.”
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A Bullfight in the Andes
(summary)
In the following essay, Vargas Llosa argues that Arguedas's first novel, Yawar Fiesta, succeeds as fiction because the narrator presents the world of the novel 'as an indivisible though heartbreaking totality' from an anti-rational perspective Vargas Llosa concludes is deeply conservative.
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Introduction to José María Arguedas: Reconsiderations for Latin American Cultural Studies
(summary)
In the following essay, Sandoval first describes the social and political setting of Arguedas's life, then depicts Arguedas's work as representing “a drama of the unspeakable, of the undecidable, of the culturally and linguistically untranslatable.”
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The Persistence of Center: José María Arguedas and the Challenge to the Postmodern Outlook
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In the following essay, Kelley asserts that Arguedas, despite using post-modernist techniques to depict the world of modern man, could not be a post-modernist; post-modernism, she contends, accepts no redemptive or transcendent force, whereas for Arguedas writing was itself a transcendent act of communion with the still-vibrant culture of the Quechua.
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Reading Arguedas's Foxes
(summary)
In the following essay, Rowe describes “diaries” in The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from Down Below as “an erratic form of writing … that function as a threshold or multiple bridge between the fictional world, the sociocultural circumstance, the weave or Peruvian culture through many centuries, and the life of the author.”
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The Death of the Author in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo
(summary)
In the following essay, Fernández provides great detail about Arguedas's life, but ends by arguing that the diary entries included in The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from Down Below should be read as fiction and not as Arguedas's actual diaries.
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Like a Pig, When He's Thinkin’: Arguedas on Affect and on Becoming an Animal
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In the following essay, Castro-Klarén argues that Arguedas's engagement with Quechua myths and his conclusion that there cannot be harmony between the consciousness of the Indian myths and the consciousness of the modern world.
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Gender and Mestizaje in the Andes
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Archibald explores Arguedas's tendency to use mestizo characters as symbols of merging influences, and sexual lust and impropriety as symbolic of the Andean migration to the coast with a “redemptive anarchy” that was transforming Peru.
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Indian of the Heart
(summary)
- Further Reading