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[ 125 ] Chapter 4 Rewriting Modernity, Authoring Spain We must take absolutely seriously the fact that the racial theories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries define communities of language, descent and tradition which do not, as a general rule, coincide with historical states, even though they always obliquely refer to one or more of these. This means that the dimension of universality of theoretical racism . . . plays an essential role here: it permits a“specific universalization” and therefore an idealization of nationalism. —Etienne Balibar,“Racism and Nationalism” The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them. —Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism By 1900, Spanish American modernismo had attained consecration in the transatlantic literary field and was reaching the height of its prestige. Indeed, not long before, Spanish American writers had sought legitimation and recognition from the Spanish establishment, leading Amado Nervo to complain that no American poet could be considered such until a Spanish writer said so. By the end of the century, however, the tables had turned. Many young Spanish writers looked up to their Spanish American peers, seeking their approval and respect in what amounted to an unprecedented reversal of authority in the Hispanic literary field. While in 1888 it had been Rubén Darío who sent his book for Valera’s seal of approval , in 1900 it was young Spanish poet (and future Nobel laureate) Juan Ramón Jiménez who addressed Darío as“Maestro” and begged him for a prologue (Darío, Epistolario 132). That same year, the young and still unknown Jiménez was one of many young writers who looked across the Atlantic to José Enrique Rodó, not just with admiration, but in search of recognition: [ 126 ]   The Inverted Conquest Una misteriosa actividad nos cojía a algunos jóvenes españoles cuando hacia 1900 se nombraba en nuestras reuniones de Madrid a Rodó. Ariel, en su único ejemplar conocido por nosotros, andaba de mano en mano sorprendiéndonos. ¡Qué ilusión entonces para mi deseo poseer aquellos tres libritos delgados azules, pulcros, de letra nítida roja y negra: Ariel, Rubén Darío, El que vendrá! Después, en 1902, tuve ya una carta inestimable de Rodó por mis pobres Rimas enfermas. Luego, para mí solo, sus libros aquellos anhelados. (Rodó, Obras completas 1408) [A mysterious activity seized some of us young Spaniards when, around 1900, the name of Rodó was uttered at our meetings in Madrid. Ariel, in what was the only copy known to us, would circulate from hand to hand, surprising us. How I desired to own those three small books, thin, blue, delicate, in neat black and red font: Ariel, Rubén Darío, El que vendrá (That Who Will Come)! Later, in 1902, I finally received an invaluable letter from Rodó about my poor, sickly Rhymes. And then, all to myself, those books of his I so craved.] Indeed, in 1902, Jiménez sent Rodó his Rimas and a letter addressing the Uruguayan intellectual as “Dear Master” (1408).1 Ariel, the programmatic text of Latin Americanism that Rodó had addressed to “the youth of America” warning them against the threat of a growing “nordomanía” [North mania], was likewise eagerly read by the youth of Spain, who also considered Rodó their maestro, their Prospero. In 1892, only a decade earlier, Juan Valera had not quite known what to do with the term “americanismo,” as we have seen. Thinking of Europe, he managed to gain a sense of common history and a common purpose. He went as far as to imagine, only to later dispel the thought, that the future could actually be American . Between September 1891 and March 1892, Valera, who had served as Spanish ambassador to the United States between 1884 and 1886, wrote a series of crónicas under the title Cartas de España for the prestigious Revista Ilustrada de Nueva York (New York Illustrated Magazine). This magazine, which soon became one of the most emblematic of modernismo even if it was not a modernista project per se, was founded on precisely the “americanismo” that had puzzled the Spanish critic.2 La Revista had been conceived as a“publicación de ancha base, de gran espíritu, genuinamente americana, que los sirva a todos por igual en su despertar enérgico a la vida colectiva” (qtd. in Chamberlin 4) [a genuinely American publication with...

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