14
II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE Author(s): GEORGE PENDLE Source: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 111, No. 5083 (JUNE 1963), pp. 533-545 Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41367395 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 02:34 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTUREAuthor(s): GEORGE PENDLESource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 111, No. 5083 (JUNE 1963), pp. 533-545Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41367395 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 02:34

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Royal Society of Arts.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

by GEORGE PENDLE

delivered on Monday , 25 th February , 1963, with His Excellency Señor Victor Santa Cruz , Chilean

Ambassador , ш íAe Chair

the chairman : It is a great honour for me to present Mr. George Pendle to this distinguished audience. Mr. Pendle has always shown a great interest in Latin America, has travelled very much, has visited most of the Latin American countries and has written books on Chile - my country - and on the Argentine and Uruguay and Paraguay. In this country he is considered to be an authority on Latin America. We all look forward to listening to what I may call the very gallant effort of presenting in a short time an overall picture of what culture is in Latin America.

The following lecture was then delivered.

THE LECTURE

I take the word 'culture' to signify more than merely the arts. It means the whole process whereby a people cultivate a civilization of their own.

My purpose to-day is to try to indicate how the Latin Americans became the kind of people that they are, and to suggest the characteristics that distinguish them from others. This means that I believe that their culture, their attitude to life, is somehow distinctive. It also means that I believe that these twenty republics, in spite of the great differences among them, do possess a certain quality in common. Already, one hundred and fifty years ago, Latin America's greatest figure, Simón Bolívar, declared: 'We are a distinct variety of the human species.

' I do not know exactly what Bolivar meant: but certainly Latin Americans are unmistakably Latin Americans.

Of course the origins of Latin American culture can be traced far away into the past, and on both sides of the Atlantic : in Europe and Africa, on the one hand, and in the ancient civilizations of Mexico and the Andes, on the other.

The real beginning of Latin American culture dates, however, from that most memorable day in October 1492 when Columbus and his companions landed on the island that they baptized San Salvador, and European and American men met for the first time. Perhaps, indeed, we might even choose a slightly later date and say that the earliest 'cultural' event in Latin American history took place during Columbus's second voyage, when he disembarked on the island of Hispaniola with a consignment of ploughs, spades, seeds and shoots of sugar cane ; traced the rectangular plan of a city; inaugurated a municipal system on the Spanish model; and assigned a group of indigenous inhabitants to each European whom he left to settle there.

The Latin Americans, as you know, are not merely transplanted Europeans. The 'Indians' (Columbus imagined that he had reached India) of the plateaus

533

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 3: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 963 and the highland valleys taught the Spaniards to adapt themselves to strange surroundings: to sleep in hammocks and to paddle canoes; to smoke tobacco; to use the local medicinal herbs; to eat maize and potatoes. Thus the Spaniards entered into close relationship with the new land. By concubinage and marriage with the Indian women, a new mixture of races was produced. The new man - the mestizo - was neither Indian nor Spanish. And Spanish-speaking America has a predominantly mestizo culture to-day.

In Portuguese-speaking Brazil - where precious metals were not found until a relatively late date, and agriculture had to be the main basis of the settlers* economy - the Indian population was too small to provide the necessary labour. Therefore Negro slaves were imported from Africa and, as in Spanish America, a mixture of races and cultures resulted. Negro women nursed the children of Portuguese landowners, lulling them to sleep with old melodies from Africa.

The Europeans of course made their contribution to Latin American culture. They brought their own animals - horses, cattle, sheep - their plants, and their skills, the Catholic religion, and their laws. And it seems to me that they introduced a spirit of optimism. . . .

Long before the birth of Columbus, Europeans had supposed that an earthly paradise - a land of plenty, with a perfect climate - lay to the west, across the Atlantic Ocean. In the early fourteenth century the features of that land had been described in an English poem:

Out to sea, far west of Spain, Lies the land men call Cockaygne. No land that under heaven is For wealth and beauty comes near this.

Some 200 years after the writing of 'The Land of Cockaygne', Columbus wrote of the Caribbean landscape, its fertility and beauty. From the far side of the ocean he sent home his heartening message :

The island and all the others are very fertile, to an extraordinary degree. There are many rivers, good and large. Trees of a thousand kinds; and I am told that they never lose their foliage. Some of them were in flower, and some with fruit. It is a land to be desired, and, once seen, never to be left.

Among its other attractions, the mythical Land of Cockaygne had offered precious metals and priceless stones:

. . . The bank about those streams With gold and with rich jewels gleams.

Columbus was able to reassure his European promoters even on that score. From the West Indies he reported :

Many of these people came to the shore. I saw that some of them wore little pieces of gold in their perforated noses. I learned that there was a king in the south who owned many vessels filled with gold. The New World was rich indeed - but also it was formidable. The conquistadores

who survived the tropical diseases, endured the rigours of the high Andes, and subdued the local tribes that greatly outnumbered them, had a self-confidence

534

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 4: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JUNE 1963 LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

that is still a trait of the Spanish- American character to-day. Men who had taken part in the Conquest now behaved almost as though they were of aristocratic standing, although usually they came from quite humble families. When Saint Teresa's brother returned to Spain from Quito, with great wealth, after thirty-four years of absence in the New World, he let himself be called Don , as he was wont to do in America. This was a matter of much gossip in the provincial society of Avila, and the Saint herself was grieved by such vanity and presumption.

In general Latin America becomes more understandable if we remember that this is the continent of El Dorado, the gilded man. The legend of El Dorado lured thousands to their death. Originally it was thought that untold treasure would be found in the altitudes of Colombia, where, at a height of some 10,000 feet, is situated the desolate, grey, sacred lake of Guatavita, completely encircled by mountains. Countless years before the Spaniards' coming, the beautiful and proud wife of an Indian chief, to whom she had been unfaithful, climbed to this lonely spot and drowned herself in the cold waters of Guatavita. Every year afterwards the unhappy chief came to the lake with offerings of gold. For the annual ceremony priests first covered his naked body with resinous gums and then spread fine gold dust over him from head to foot, so that (as one chronicler recorded) he had 'a second skin of gold'. While thousands of his tribe stood around the rim of the lake, the chief appeared, golden and splendid in the morning sun. The spectators chanted and thumped their drums as the gilded man climbed upon a raft that was piled with gold and emeralds. The raft was then paddled out into the middle of the lake; and there 4 el dorado' threw his offerings of gold and jewels into the water and himself dived in, to wash off his golden skin. The throng around the shore shouted and tossed their own gifts of carved gold into the depths.

The story of this ceremony fired the imagination of the Spaniards. They reached the lake, but never managed to dredge up the sunken treasure.

Then, as Humboldt explained, the Indians, to get rid of Spaniards, continually described the treasure as being located elsewhere, a short distance ahead, across the mountains perhaps, or down the next valley.

So El Dorado developed into a golden mirage that moved over the whole continent, leading adventurous men forward to new exploits, new discoveries. In the highlands of Peru the Spaniards ransacked the Incas' stores of gold, and the rich silver mines.

Thus - and that is why I have recounted to you this story of so long ago - El Dorado became symbolical of an attitude to life. The land where the conquistadores suffered almost incredible hardships was a land where the European could get rich quick, without tilling the soil, without himself working in the mines.

And later generations of immigrants, of many different races, have inherited - or acquired - the 'El Dorado outlook', the unbounded optimism. The Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset, wrote in 1930 of Argentina :

Everyone arriving on these shores sees, first of all, the 'afterwards' : wealth, if he be economically-minded; successful love, if he be sentimental; social advancement, if he be ambitious. The pampa promises, promises, promises.

535

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 5: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 963 The horizon is for ever making gestures of abundance and concession. Here, everyone lives on distances. Scarcely anyone is where he is, but in advance of himself. And from there he governs and executes his life, his real, present life. Everyone lives as though his dreams of the future were already reality. The optimism of the white and mestizo populations is not shared by the Indians,

still isolated in the mountains and the jungles. And this social division is one of the great problems of the present day.

So we can say that two of the main characteristics of Latin American life are : First: the optimistic, confident, El Dorado urge. Second: a reluctance to concede that man should dedicate himself to the task

of organizing material progress; and, among the Indians, an inability even to comprehend such a goal.

My Chairman will say that all this is generalization, and - quite rightly - that there are countless exceptions to the rules that I am propounding. In his own country, Chile, for example - and elsewhere too - public-spirited men do dedicate themselves to the task of organizing the material progress of the nation. And Chile no longer has communities of Indians isolated in her mountains and forests.

But I am trying to indicate the distinctive qualities of Latin America, not to prove that Latin American men and women have no such special qualities.

A general tendency among Latin Americans is to lay more stress on persons than on systems. In politics this has taken the form of a preference for personal, rather than party, rule. A North American, S. G. Inman, has written :

The world will hardly look to the Latin American for leadership in democracy, in organization, in business, in science, in rigid moral values. On the other hand [he continues] Latin America has something to contribute to an industrialized and mechanistic world concerning the value of the individual, the place of friendship, the use of leisure, the art of conversation, the attractions of the intellectual life, the equality of races, the place of suffering and contempla- tion, the value of the impractical, the importance of people over things and rules. Latin America has contributed to mankind, not scientists, engineers, or organizers,

but caudillos , liberators, and intellectuals. We must remember that Latin America is not just a vast, under-developed

New World: it is also a very old world. In Latin America to-day the pre-Columbian races and, to some extent, their cultures, survive. The old Spanish and Portuguese attitudes to the land, religion and the family still prevail in an extraordinary degree. Therefore, while Latin Americans are attracted by the material achievements of the United States, they nevertheless feel - as the Uruguayan writer Rodó suggested in his famous essay Ariel in the year 1900 - that they have a more mature judgement, a better grasp of human values, than the North Americans.

(This is one of the fundamental reasons why President Kennedy's 'Alliance for Progress' has aroused doubts and suspicions in the countries that it is designed to benefit.)

Thus in Latin America greater prestige has gone to the successful writer than to the successful business man. Whereas in the United States diplomatic posts have been given to business tycoons, in Latin America they have been given to

536

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 6: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JUNE 1963 LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

poets - such as Jorge Carrera Andrade of Ecuador, and the charming Chilean poetess Gabriela Mistral.

I have been referring particularly to Spanish America; but Brazil is also pre- dominantly ťEl Dorado' in attitude, and 'personalist' by inclination. Vargas, who came to power by coup d'état in 1930, was a caudillo from Brazil's gaucho state of Rio Grande do Sul; during his first period in the presidency he ruled with optimism and exuberance; and it was his Minister of Education who, in 1936, invited Le Corbusier to Rio de Janeiro to give advice on the design of public buildings, an event which was the origin of Brazil's great modern architectural movement. After Vargas's suicide, President Kubitschek, democratically elected in 1955, defied the orthodox rules of economics and shocked the International Monetary Fund by showing that, far from wishing to curb inflation, he looked upon it as a practical means for promoting economic expansion. In 1962 Brazil's military hierarchy, alarmed by the left-wing sympathies of the incoming President Goulart, contrived that the president's constitutional powers should be curtailed; but at a national plebiscite in January 1963 the electorate voted overwhelmingly for the restoration of those powers: a few months of ineffectual parliamentary government had confirmed their preference for more personal rule.

The Spaniard, Américo Castro, has written that 'Whereas in North America a person without things to do , without some collective function, is meaningless, in Latin America people have absolute value, following an orbit which begins and ends in themselves.' They conform with difficulty to organizations and regulations - such as the parliamentary system of government, or the payment of Customs duties.

The Latin Americans' special characteristics are reflected, of course, in the arts, and particularly in literature, for they are lovers of words. The English reader will usually find that Latin American authors are too prolix, and their work too shapeless. This is partly because they are fluent conversationalists, and their literature is an extension of conversation, the conversation of men and women who are trying to discover what kind of life they are making- or should make - in their continent. An Uruguayan author, Carlos Maggi, recently wrote of his own country: 'Here in Uruguay everything is improvized, haphazard, and rather ineffectual. In the end, everything is settled by conversation; and never completely settled .' The men who, 1 50 years ago, inspired and led the movements for liberation from Spain were intellectuals- and even when, like Bolivar, they were compelled to become soldiers, they continued to pour forth an endless stream of essays and discourses in the endeavour to fulfil their own ideas, their own personalities, in society.

The arts in Latin America have never been merely regional: they have always been profoundly affected by European fashions. The intellectuals of the liberation period were sons of the European Enlightenment. They believed that mankind should be guided by reason; that superstition and intolerance must be destroyed; that religious and intellectual liberty must be assured; that man was born free.

After the Enlightenment came Romanticism; and this suited the Latin Americans well, for it stood for individualism and emotional intensity. The best embodiment

537

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 7: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 963 of the romantic movement in Latin America was the Argentine author, educator, and statesman, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-88), who had the full impetus of romanticism, its imaginative energy and passionate flow of language. Sarmiento 's Facundo - a vivid description of life on the Argentine pampa - was first published in 1845, and is one of the Latin American classics. During the military campaign which overthrew the dictator Rosas in 1852, Sarmiento accompanied the rebel army, with a printing-press in a cart, and as the army advanced he issued a mass of bulletins, and broadsheets denouncing the dictator - publications which were at the same time first-class war propaganda, historical documents and literature. Before joining the army Sarmiento had bought a European uniform and equipment. In his romantic view, clothes were the symbol of culture, and if the Argentine people were to be civilized they must be compelled to change their rough gaucho clothing for the European. He explained afterwards: 'My saddle, spurs, polished sword, buttoned coat, gloves, French képi and overcoat, everything was a protest against the barbarous gaucho spirit. This seems a small thing, but it was a part of my campaign.' Yet Sarmiento was just as much a 'personalist' as any other Latin Americân, and when he became President of Argentina - although he wore, not the gaucho 's poncho , but the European frock-coat - he ruled just as high-handedly as any of the caudillos against whom he had so tirelessly and so fiercely campaigned. (Sir Richard Burton, a great admirer of Sarmiento, said that he was referred to in Buenos Aires as 'Don Yo', 'Mr. Г).

In the arts, as in social development generally, there is a conscious or unconscious desire to blend two elements: to blend together the influences that come from outside Latin America and the local realities. Some writers and artists have resisted submersion in the local ambiente - in her younger days the Argentine authoress and publisher Victoria Ocampo preferred to write in French, instead of in Argentina's language. Others - relatively few - have tried to achieve a purely local form of expression. Among the latter, the outstanding work is the Argentine epic poem Martín Fierro , by José Hernández, of which the first part was published in 1872. Written in the country dialect of the lands of the Río de la Plata, Martin Fierro celebrates the freedom-loving gaucho horsemen whom the authorities at Buenos Aires were gradually bringing under central control, treating them as bandits, the main cause of political anarchy and economic backwardness. Martin Fierro made its way to the country people in whose defence it was written. Printed in thin pamphlets, it ran into many editions and was read aloud in the almacenes - the taverns - of the pampa. Many of its lines have become proverbs; but the author took proverbs from the mouth of the people, and it is not easy now to tell whether a particular line was a proverb before Hernández wrote or became a proverb afterwards.

The central theme of the poem, then, is resistance to the rules of organized society. (An English translation of the first part of Martín Fierro , made by Walter Owen of Buenos Aires, was published by Blackwell of Oxford a number of years ag°o

If exuberance is a characteristic of the Latin American scene, this is particularly so of Brazil - the most prolific country of them all.

538

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 8: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JUNE 1963 LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

The greatest Brazilian man of letters so far is Machado de Assis (1839-1908). His collected writings fill more than thirty volumes. Several of his wise and witty novels, crowded with characters, are available in English: The Epitaph of a Small Winner , Dom Casmurro , The Heritage of Quincas Borba . They are novels of the imperial Rio de Janeiro of Pedro II and of the early period of the republic which followed the emperor's abdication. But it was not by means of local colour that Machado reproduced the Brazilian atmosphere. He achieved that result by descriptions of the people who lived in that atmosphere, and their development within it. Thus when he began to write, 'girls loved the wrong man and had to be married to the right' ; but after the coming of the republic we observe them having greater freedom in their choice. Machado, too, had the typical Brazilian melancholy, the saudade . 'The Southern Cross', he said, 'is too high in the heavens to distinguish between laughter and tears.'

Among all Latin America's many essayists the most exuberant is Brazil's sociologist Gilberto Freyre, whose books - and you can read his Masters and Slaves in English - are great jungles of Brazilian lore and opinions.

The Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos, who died in 1959, was another such exuberant creature. Villa- Lobos wrote more than 1,000 compositions and enjoyed conducting enormous choruses. He put everything that came his way into his music: the rounded mountains of Brazil, and the skyscrapers of New York. He even wrote a fugue to celebrate Brazilian cooking. He called this 'A Fugue without End' and divided it into four parts: 'Farina', 'Meat', 'Rice', and 'Black Beans' - the four essential ingredients of the national dish, the feijoada .

The representative Latin American artist - writer, composer, painter - endeavours to fuse all local and foreign sources and inspirations, all the races of the great cosmopolitan continent, in his work.

Often, as a result of trying to embrace too much, the artist leaves rather a shallow impression. That was the case - in my view, at least - of Rubén Darío, the Nicaraguan poet (1867-1916). Nevertheless, Darío - by his colourful imagery, his wealth of literary allusion, his verbal felicity, and his boundless variety - dazzled his contemporaries and left a permanent mark on the poetry of the whole Spanish- speaking world.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century conditions in Latin America had become generally more orderly: the wars of independence were long past (except in Cuba) ; most of the republics had established their modern boundaries ; railways had helped the central authorities to reduce lawlessness in the provinces; and, at certain levels of society, there was a considerable degree of prosperity. So the intellectuals, whose predecessors had played an active part in public affairs, found it possible to devote themselves to intellectual pursuits, abandoning politics to the mere politicians.

Then the social stirrings of the twentieth century affected the writers - and the painters, too. The great Mexican revolution of 1910 was preceded by an intellectual movement. In the 1920s one of Latin America's outstanding intellectuals, José Vasconcelos, became Mexico's Minister of Education. Not only did Vasconcelos

539

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 9: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 963 establish hundreds of schools in rural villages : he broadened the scope of education by adding the arts and vocational training to the curriculum, and he engaged a group of young artists to paint upon the walls of public buildings their interpretations of Mexican history. By reviving mural painting - which had been one of the chief art forms of Aztec times - Vasconcelos gave to young men such as Diego Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, their great opportunity. They attained world-wide fame.

Like so much else that has happened in Mexico in recent decades, the revival of mural art was a part of the continuing Revolution, which started in 1910. In this case, the Revolution brought together ancient walls and young muralists. Bohemians in their 20S - at most, their 30s - were given walls to paint, as other men earlier had been given palaces to sack. Rivera's frescoes, in particular, depicted the Mexican people's struggle for liberty, their desire to regain the land that had been taken from them by the Spanish conquistadores , by the Catholic Church, by local caudillos , and by the foreign investors who had backed the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. Although those vast paintings contain very many people - conquistadores , priests, liberators, peasants, and so on - each individual stands out alone, a personal portrait, in the Latin American 'personalist' tradition.

Out of the Mexican Revolution there also came Mexico's best-selling novel. This is Los de Abajo , by Mariano Azuela, written in 191 5 and translated into English as The Underdogs. Azuela's theme (he had served in the Revolution as a doctor) is that war and revolution are hell. The book is a series of vignettes of peasant life during the Revolution. A band of illiterate Indians gathers to fight the government, but it hardly knows why. As the Revolution progresses, the peasants become only more bewildered. The Revolution seems an outrageous force beyond their control. Their idealism gives way to cynicism, their heroism to savagery. 'The Revolution is like a hurricane', says one character, 'If you're in it, you're not a man. You're a leaf, blown by the wind.'

In the modern context, of course, social revolution means Communism. And now I come to a delicate matter : in the presence of the Chilean Ambassador I have to mention the undoubted fact, that the Latin American poet of greatest stature to emerge in our time is a Chilean and a Communist, Pablo Neruda. It was out of compassion for the poorer people in his own country that Neruda became a Communist. He subsequently wrote some atrocious political verse. But there was a period - ten years or more ago - when he contrived to blend, without any possible cause for offence, his social conscience and his lyricism. One poem that I have specially in mind was apparently written while Neruda was in Soviet Russia. It is a nostalgic poem in the traditional manner of the Chilean cuando , beginning:

Oh Chile, large petal of seá and wine and snow, ah when ah when and when ah when shall I be with you again . . .

The poet says that he belongs to his native earth. When it rains in Chile he, far away in Siberia, feels that rain; when the snow slides from the trees in Chile, it

540

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 10: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JUNE 1963 LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

falls on him, no matter where he may be; and the dark Chilean wheat grows within

and the wind which overthrew the last wave at Valparaiso hits me in the chest with a shattering noise as though it has found my heart a broken window.

It is the month of October: winter in Siberia, but spring in Chile. Oh my people, is it true that in Spring my name sounds in your ears. and you remember me as though I were a river that passes your door? I am a river ... place your ear to the ground, a subterranean river, singing. October, oh Spring, return me to my people.

Neruda longs to be home again taking part in the revolutionary struggle. Hie poem ends with a haunting Chilean melody.

The Latin American writers' 'involvement' in the social problems of the twentieth century caused them, of course, to study more closely than before the life of the people in their own continent. There resulted a large output of regional novels and critical essays.

Poetry generally continued to be greatly influenced by European poetry, but the novel was robustly Latin American. Unlike the European, the Latin American novelist was not encumbered with the cultural caparison of centuries. Instead of delving into the personality of his characters, he worked, so to say, in the open air, and there was an abundance of subjects to write about, all around him. Indeed, he had so much to write of, that he scarcely stopped to polish his style or to prune his verbiage. He was content to say what he felt compelled to say, and to leave it at that, confident in its human importance.

José Eustasio Rivera, a Colombian, published his novel La Vorágine vn 1924. (It has been translated into English with the title of The Vortex.) This is a terrible story of the South American jungle and of the exploitation of the labourers by those who employ them to search for rubber in the forests. The author takes his characters through the jungle from Colombia to Brazil, suffering appalling hardship. In the book's most striking episode, the travellers are compelled to throw themselves into a marsh and stay in it for twelve hours, surrounded by frightened rodents and serpents, while a huge army of red ants goes by, devouring everything that is sufficiently soft, stripping every plant of its leaves and every animal of its flesh.

The Venezuelan Rómulo Gallegos recorded a similar struggle against barbaric conditions in a novel to which he gave the symbolic title of Doña Bárbara, published in 1929. (There is an English, that is to say an American, translation under the same title.) Not only is nature barbaric in the prairies - the llanos - of Venezuela, but people are made barbaric by it, and so is the girl Bárbara herself. A man

541

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 11: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 963 who comes to the llanos from the city is determined that barbarism must be eliminated and the law imposed; but he discovers that this cannot be achieved 'from outside' : to succeed, he must first live among those people and become as tough and astute as they are.

Another famous novel is Don Segundo Sombra by the Argentine author Güir aides, published in 1926. (There is an English translation in Penguins.) This is the story of a boy named Fabio who, as protégé of an old gaucho, Don Segundo Sombra, roamed the pampa, breaking-in horses and driving herds of cattle from place to place. One day Fabio inherits an estancia ; but he does not wish to be a landowner, and at night he continues to sleep on the ground out of doors. For a short while Don Segundo stays with him, helping him to run his estate; but the old gaucho cannot for long tolerate being tied to the ranch, in spite of his affection for the boy. And so at the end of the book we see Don Segundo on horseback, riding away towards the horizon.

The economic crisis of the early 1930s aggravated the social problems and stimulated the writing of critical essays of a social - as distinct from a purely literary -type. The essayist now felt that he must contribute to the definition and orientation of Latin America; and in this task the Argentine essayists - citizens of Latin America's most highly developed country - displayed particular perspicacity and exercised remarkable influence.

One of the most influential of Argentine essayists was Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, who published in 1933 - under the title Radiografía de la Pampa - an investigation of Argentine history and of the prevailing state of affairs. One of his main themes was that the resources of the nation were being exploited for the benefit of foreign investors, and that Argentina was increasingly unable to organize her own existence. The British-owned railways had been planned, not with the object of developing the national economy, but to produce more pounds sterling for the British. Thus an unnatural pattern of communications had been imposed on the country, accentuating its already existing divisions, rather than assisting its unification; neglecting the inhabitants of vast areas in which the British were not interested; and contributing to the excessive growth of the city of Buenos Aires, upon which all the main railway lines converged. Martinez Estrada argued that it had now become apparent that the fathers of the republic - that is to say Sarmiento and company - with their faith in European and North American civilization, embarked upon a mistaken course, and that (as he said) 'the progress of the republic is contrary to the interests of those who made it prosper'.

Under the stress of the economic crisis, nationalism developed in all of the more advanced republics, and a call for nationalization spread. There was also a growing nostalgia for the days of the open pampa and the untamed gaucho. It was the city-dwellers, not only in Argentina, but elsewhere, who avidly read the violent regional novels to which I have already referred.

Another Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges, examined this trend from a point of view that was neither political nor economic. Borges explained :

Nowhere on earth is there a man who does not secretly aspire to a full life : that is to say, to the sum of all the experiences of which man is capable. There

542

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 12: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JUNE 1963 LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE is not a man who does not fear that he may be defrauded of some part of this infinite patrimony. Certain philosophers have honestly thought that man's only aspiration is pleasure; but man also longs for defeat, danger, pain, desperation and martyrdom. Thus, weary of useless glory, Oscar Wilde provokes a lawsuit which will gain for him the entrance into prison, so that he may enrich himself with darkness.

According to Borges, it was when the Argentine and Uruguayan people realized that the hard and dangerous days of the nomad horseman were past and life had grown tame, that gaucho literature became fashionable. Reading

Martín Fierro and Don Segundo Sombra , the civilized inhabitants of the modern cities of the River Plate now compensate themselves for what they have missed: the physical dangers, the barbarous duels with flashing knives, the nights spent in the open air with the saddle as pillow, the drunkenness, rape and violent death.

I hope that I have conveyed to you some impression of the vitality of Latin American culture in some of its manifestations.

While experiencing simultaneously the effects of the industrial revolution and the modern social revolution, the Latin Americans go ahead in a typically Latin American manner, with a happy certainty that human beings are more important than 'things and rules'.

DISCUSSION

the chairman : I do not think I could quote Mark Anthony and say that I come here to bury Mr. Pendle, not to praise him; but perhaps I could misquote Shakespeare, and say that I come here to criticize Mr. Pendle, not only to praise him. I believe, however, that critics should not only express objection and contradiction but also agreement.

I congratulate Mr. Pendle again on what, even before he addressed the audience, I thought a very gallant attempt to produce an overall picture of Latin American culture in a very short time. If I were asked to lecture in three-quarters of an hour on European culture, including, say, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Spain, France and Britain, I would confess myself defeated from the beginning; for I would not find in common more than that they all descend from the Acropolis of Athens in Greece, from the order and law of the Roman Empire and from the lessons of the Christian Gospels; besides that, they are absolutely different. Something similar could be said of Latin America. If they have something in common it is the legacy of Europe transmitted first by Spain and Portugal and then by other European countries, mainly Britain and France. These European influences met and clashed with a brilliant existing culture in Mexico. There we had a happy land, a brilliant blend of both cultures, European and Indian. Where they met with no pre-existing culture, as in my country, you have only the legacy of Europe, and if you find there qualities and defects you will always be able to trace them back to Spain, or other European countries.

I consider it extremely interesting that these general pictures of Latin America should be presented to the British public, but I would ask for something. If, as I believe to be the case, the object of this work that the Royal Society of Arts and many other institutions are doing is to bring the British people and the people of Latin America into closer and better knowledge of each other, then I think the general studies, the overall pictures, of Latin America should be followed by individual studies of each country, presenting their peculiar qualities and also

543

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 13: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS JUNE 1 963 their peculiar defects, that might not be the defects or the qualities of another region or of another country.

don gustavo luders de negri : I am most impressed by Mr. Pendle's commendable and exhaustive work. There are a number of points in it on which one would like to hear more. However, I should like to raise one point in particular.

He said that, 'A general tendency among Latin Americans is to lay more stress on persons than on systems.' That 'in politics this has taken the form of a preference for personal, rather than party, rule.' That 'a North American, S. G. Inman, has written: "The world will hardly look to the Latin American for leadership in democracy, in organization, in business, in science, in rigid moral values. On the other hand" (he continues) "Latin America has something to contribute to an industrialized and mechanistic world concerning the value of the individual, the place of friendship, the use of leisure, the art of conversation, the attractions of the intellectual life, the equality of races, the place of suffering and contemplation, the value of the impractical, the importance of people over things and rules".' I should like to ask Mr. Pendle if he would care to expand on this quotation.

Mr. Pendle followed this by saying that 'Latin America has contributed to mankind, not scientists, engineers, or organizers, but caudillos , liberators, and intellectuals'. As a Mexican, with due respect, I should like to ask if by caudillos he means something like those who are now spread across Europe?

the lecturer: As I think I said, I would have called Sarmiento a caudillo. Sarmiento was a modern caudillo in a frock coat, wasn't he? He intervened in the provinces, for example, he behaved like any other Latin American 'personal' ruler.

don gustavo luders de negri : But you, Sir, were speaking to our friends here in England, and they might not understand what you mean.

the lecturer : Yes, of course, one should define every word of this kind, but as the Ambassador implied, I have not had time to take each subject separately or adequately. This 'caudillism' is an enormous subject in itself. Your own country, Mexico, is rather a special case, because it has a permanent revolution in progress and is, in a sense, governed by a Party.

What I really meant is that Latin Americans do give greater value to a man who has masculine charm than they do to a political programme. I do not want to go into politics, but in my view a caudillo is a man who, whatever his uniform, and even if he obeys the constitution (and he may change the constitution to suit himself, like Peron for instance), runs the country personally with the approval of a very large percentage of the population.

the chairman: I should like to come to the help of our lecturer. Let us not get too involved in political questions. Perhaps our friend Señor de Negri would be satisfied if we said that even some European countries are just beginning to learn the art of impersonal rule and would have much to learn from some Latin American countries who have practised the party system, as opposed to personal rule, for a long time. As Chairman I would ask that we should not now get involved in any political question concerning countries.

the lecturer : I quoted this particular United States author, Inman, not in the sense of criticizing Latin America. On the contrary; I think the qualities which he ascribes to Latin America are absolutely admirable - the value of the individual, the place of friendship, the use of letters, the art of conversation. That is fine, and what he meant I think is that a future civilization should combine material efficiency and progress and these qualities which Latin America can contribute to it.

the chairman: And I think that is typical of the Mediterranean culture which we have inherited to a large extent through Spain and Portugal. There is a difference between the Mediterranean culture and the Northern culture. For the Mediterranean

544

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 14: II. LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE

JUNE 1963 LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE - be he Greek, or modern Spaniard, or modern Greek or Italian - the individual is of greater value than the organization. For the Northern Europeans the organization has prevailed over the individual, and in a blend of the two lies a happy future for mankind.

MR. j. M. JOHN ( World Trends): The bringing of Christianity to Latin America created an important point of contact. It is the only continent in the great discoveries of the New World where all the states are Christian! I think that Christian values have taken a more important root and mean much more in the family there, and could indeed play an even more important part in the future in helping expand their civilization and industrialization.

the chairman: We all agree with your comment. MR. L. SHiPMAN : There are two writers whom I think ought to have been mentioned

as the typical representatives of the new social conscience of Indo-America. They are the Ecuadorian Jorge I caza, author of Huasipungo and the Peruvian Ciro

Alegria, whose El mundo es ancho y ajeno is not just a novel, but also a social appeal and a piece of history. It is a pity his books are unobtainable here.

the lecturer: He also is well known outside his own country in translation. Books are of course a kind of history, and that is one of the points I tried to make : that in my purely personal view these authors try to get everything in, the whole past from the beginning right through to Communism. The Chairman said that you could some- times trace the culture of Latin American countries to Spain and Portugal and certain European countries, with perhaps something of the old Indian mixed in. What I feel, and tried to suggest at the beginning, was that the geographical con- ditions in which these cultures exist must obviously affect them powerfully also. These authors of whom you speak have not only their history, and some of the characters, the technical points which they have absorbed from European literature, but also the geographical inheritance. And they do rather churn it out.

MR. A. D. DEYERMOND , M.A., B.LiTT.(oxoN.) : I understood Mr. Pendle to say that from Neruda's conversion to Communism until about ten years ago, he wrote some good Marxist poetry. I do not know whether Mr. Pendle meant that all of Neruda's work since then is of little value. I agree that a great deal of it is disappointing, but some of Neruda's most recent work, even that extraordinary book Canción de gesta (i960), dedicated to Fidel Castro, does contain some very interesting things.

The question I should also like to put is: how important does Mr. Pendle think the Negro strain in Latin- American culture is? In particular, how would he assess the 'poesia negra' of Nicolás Guillén in Cuba?

the lecturer: The Negro influence is obviously very important in Cuba, Brazil and certain other countries. As to what proportion of importance it has generally - I cannot say, but it must be a very powerful one.

I did not say Neruda had only written work of no value since he became a Communist. On the contrary, he has written very fine things.

Negro influence is extremely powerful, but we can only assess it by picking out individual poets and tracing the extent of the influence of those individuals.

the chairman: Before we put an end to the proceedings I propose a very well deserved vote of thanks to the lecturer.

The vote of thanks to the Lecturer was carried with acclamation and, another having been accorded to the Chairman upon the proposal of Sir John Taylor , the meeting then ended .

545

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.176 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:34:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions