Abstract

This article analyzes the ways in which panorama and panopticon, two visual and disciplinary techniques, invented in the late eighteenth century become discursive strategies in the writing of José Zorrilla’s México y los mexicanos, the first history of Mexican lyric poetry, published in the mid nineteenth century. The book, written in the form of letters to the Duque de Rivas, is the result of historical, aesthetic and personal circumstances that are put forward by the author of Don Juan Tenorio in an attempt to render visible and audible the poetic accent of an independent nation to a Spanish audience. The aspects of the Romantic poet, the expatriate, and the resentful son, shape Zorrilla’s position with respect to the geographical, political, and intellectual landscape of Mexico. Such multifaceted perspective makes possible an awareness that the Spanish writer uses to warn about the limitations of the European eye and ear in order to capture the vastness of the valley of Mexico, the turbulence of its political processes, and the value of its poetic accomplishments. Nevertheless, Zorrilla proves unable to overcome these same constraints. The effort of a panoramic sight and the demand of a panoptical vigilance convert his text to a patent example that, ironically, illustrates all the caveats put forward at the beginning of the book. Progressively, Zorrilla seems to become aware of his own inadequacy. As a result, the Spanish author abandons the discursive foreground, and the original Mexican texts resonate beyond his endorsement.

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