Cuentos fantásticos del Romanticismo hispanoamericano (review)

Romanticism, which was a late arrival in Spanish America, is often assigned the dates 1830-80. Like all chronological markers for literary schools or movements, these are somewhat nebulous. What is clear, however, is that the term "romanticism" in its New World context has a much broader application than the designation of a particular school or historical moment; it is, rather, more of an aesthetic tendency or attitude than a formal movement, and the same is true with regard to lo fantástico.

Innovative ways of looking at the world are by definition in rebellion against older, established models and outlooks, and, in particular, the reigning paradigm. Romanticism's rebellion was directed against the scientific, rationalistic worldview espoused during the Age of Enlightenment. That the fantastic and the supernatural, having been repudiated by reason and logic, would be embraced by this new aesthetic seems only natural, given the emphasis it placed on emotion, sentiment, passion, spontaneity, idealism, and subjectivity, all of which were embodied in the romantic hero's rebellious spirit and his exaltation of individual liberty and the imagination.

Although literature of the fantastic does indeed arise out of nineteenth-century romanticism, one finds relatively few examples in Spanish America during the first half of the century. In the second half of the 1800s, however, under the influence of the two principal models, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe, fantastic literature abounds, especially in the latter decades of the century when many examples appear by authors usually classified as realist, naturalist, or modernista. Needless to say, the fantastic as a literary subgenre has been with us ever since.

In his lengthy introduction to this anthology, Martínez recognizes the foundational work of Eric Rabkin, Tzvetan Todorov, and others in identifying and categorizing fantastic literature. He also discusses the ambiguity inherent in the concept of the fantastic, especially when conflated with lo maravilloso and lo extraño, and comments on the nuances that separate these categories. Briefly, lo maravilloso typically refers to narratives that take place in an unrealistic setting, such as science fiction, ghost stories, and fairy tales, while lo extraño usually designates those in which unusual events occurring within a realistic environment are eventually given a rational explanation. In his view, the fantastic in its purest sense takes place within a realistic setting and concerns a surprising or baffling occurrence that cannot be explained by natural laws.

Martínez also examines the important roles played by oral tradition and folklore in the development of the cuento and its various manifestations, such as the cuadro, the leyenda, and the tradición. He rightly interprets the term "short story" in its widest sense by including all of these forms in the anthology. The twenty-seven selections chosen represent the work of twenty-two authors from eight South American countries, plus Mexico and Cuba; Central American writers are not represented. Most coverage is given to Mexico, with five authors and a total of seven stories included, and Argentina, with three authors and five stories. Works by lesser-known writers (for example, Temístocles Avella Mendoza from Colombia and Julio Lucas Jaimes from Bolivia) appear in the collection along with stories by such canonical figures as Juan Montalvo, Justo Sierra, and Javier de Viana, in addition to three of the leading Spanish American women writers of the nineteenth century: Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Juana Manuela Gorriti, and Clorinda Matto de Turner. This volume contains all the scholarly features readers have come to expect from Cátedra's Letras Hispánicas series, namely, ample notes, an extensive bibliography, and a critical introduction. The footnotes accompanying each selection provide biographical information on the author, notations on the first appearance of the story (and, when applicable, its subsequent publication history), and explanations of obscure vocabulary items.

With this scholarly edition, Martínez has contributed greatly to our understanding of the nature of fantastic literature and how nineteenth-century examples of the fantastic...