Puerto Rican literature
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Puerto Rican literature evolved from the art of
oral story telling to its present
day status.
Written works by the native islanders of
Puerto Rico were prohibited and
repressed by the Spanish
colonial
government. Only those who were commissioned by the Spanish
Crown to document the chronological history of the island were
allowed to write.
It wasn't until the late 19th century with the arrival of the first
printing press and the founding of the Royal Academy of Belles
Letters that Puerto Rican literature began to flourish. The first
writers to express their political views in regard to Spanish
colonial rule of the island were journalists. After the United
States invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War and the
island was ceded to the Americans as a condition of the Treaty of
Paris of 1898, writers and poets began to express their opposition
of the new colonial rule by writing about patriotic themes.
With the Puerto Rican diaspora of the 1940s, Puerto Rican
literature was greatly influenced by a phenomenon known as the
Nuyorican Movement. Puerto Rican
literature continued to flourish and many Puerto Ricans have
distinguished themselves as authors, poets, novelists, playwrights,
essayists and in all the fields of literature. The influence of
Puerto Rican literature has transcended the boundaries of the
island to the United States and the rest of the world.
Early history
Puerto Rican literature got off to a late start. This was because
the Spanish colonial government, which ruled over Puerto Rico at
that time, feared that Puerto Rico would develop its own social and
cultural identity and eventually seek its independence. Therefore,
written works by the native islanders were prohibited and were
punishable by prison terms or banishment. The island, which
depended on an agricultural economy, had an illiteracy rate of over
80% in the beginning of the 19th century. The only people who had
access to the libraries and who could afford books were either
appointed Spanish government officials or wealthy land owners. The
poor had to resort to oral story-telling in what are traditionally
known in Puerto Rico as Coplas and Decimas.
Father Diego de Torres Vargas
The island's first writers were commissioned by the Spanish Crown
to document only the chronological history of the island.
Among
these writers were Father Diego
de Torres Vargas who wrote about the history of Puerto Rico,
Father Francisco
Ayerra de Santa María who wrote poems about religious and
historical themes and Juan
Ponce de León II who was commissioned to write a general
description of the West
Indies
. The first native-born Puerto Rican
governor, Ponce de León II included information on
Taíno culture, particularly their religious
ceremonies and language. He also covered the early exploits of the
conquistadors. These documents were
then sent to the National Archives in Sevilla, Spain, where they
were kept.
Puerto
Rican history, however, was to change forever with the arrival of
the first printing press from
Mexico
in 1806. That same year Juan Rodríguez
Calderón (a Spaniard) wrote and published the first book in the
island, titled
Ocios de la Juventud. In 1851, the Spanish
appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Juan de la Pezuela Cevallo,
founded the Royal Academy of Belles Letters. This institution
contributed greatly to the intellectual and literary progress of
the island. The school licensed primary school teachers, formulated
school methods, and held literary contests. However, only those
with government positions and the wealthy benefited from the
formation of the institution. It was ironic that the first Puerto
Rican writers came from some of the island's wealthiest families,
who were fed up with the injustices of the Spanish Crown.
19th Century
Lt.
The first written works in Puerto Rico were influenced by the
Romanticism of the time. Journalists
were the first writers to express their political views in the
newspapers of the day and later in the books which they authored.
Through their books and novels, they expressed what they believed
were the social injustices, which included slavery and poverty,
brought upon the common Puerto Rican by the Spanish Crown. Many of
these writers were considered to be dangerous liberals by the
colonial government and were banished from the island. An example
of this treatment was poet and journalist
Francisco Gonzalo Marín, who
wrote against the Spanish Crown.
Some went to the Dominican
Republic
, Cuba
or New York
where they
continued to write about patriotic themes while in exile.
The literature of these writers helped fuel the desire of some to
revolt against the Spanish government in Puerto Rico, resulting in
the failed attempt known as the
Grito de
Lares in 1868.
When the Americans invaded Puerto Rico during the
Spanish-American War in 1898, many
members of the Puerto Rican literary class welcomed them believing
that eventually Puerto Rico would be granted its independence.
Instead,
Puerto Rico was declared a territory of the United States
. The new government failed to realize that
Puerto Rico was already a nation with its own culture and proceeded
to Americanize the island. Many writers and poets expressed their
opposition by writing about patriotic themes through their work.
Puerto Rican literature continued to flourish.
Twentieth Century Migration to the U.S.
During the early part of the 20th century, many Puerto Ricans moved
to the eastern coast and Mid-western parts of the United States in
search of a better way of life.
Most settled in cities such as New York and
Chicago
. There they faced racial discrimination and
other hardships.
Jesús Colón,
known as the Father of the
Nuyorican
Movement, was discriminated against because of the color of his
skin (he was
Black) and because of
his difficulty speaking the
English
language. He wrote about his experiences, as well as the
experiences of other immigrants, becoming among the first Puerto
Ricans to do so in English. His best known work,
A Puerto Rican
in New York, set the stage for the literary movement known as
the "Nuyorican Movement". The aim of the Nuyorican Movement is to
maintain the cultural identity in a foreign land of the Puerto
Rican people.
This movement is composed by a group of
intellectuals which includes writers and poets who express their
experiences as Nuyoricans living in the U.S.. Some
of these writers and poets founded the
Nuyorican Poets Café. Colón
inspired notable authors and playwrights such as
Nicholasa Mohr (Whose
El Bronx
collection of stories earned her a finalist position for the
National Book Award),
Nelson Antonio Denis,
Piri Thomas,
Pedro
Pietri,
Esmeralda Santiago,
Giannina Braschi and others.
Books and Novels
Dr. Manuel Zeno Gandía
Some of Puerto Rico's earliest writers were influenced by the
teachings of
Rafael
Cordero. Among these was Dr.
Manuel
A. Alonso, the first Puerto
Rican writer of notable importance. In 1845 he published
El
Gíbaro, a collection of verses whose main themes were the poor
Puerto Rican country farmer.
Eugenio María de Hostos who
wrote
La peregrinación de Bayoán in 1863, which used
Bartolomé de las Casas as a spring board to reflect on Caribbean
identity. After this first novel, Hostos abandoned fiction in favor
of the essay which he saw as offering greater possibilities for
inspiring social change.
Alejandro Tapia y Rivera also known
as the Father of Puerto Rican Literature, ushered in a new age of
historiography with the publication
of
The Historical Library of Puerto Rico.
Cayetano Coll y Toste was a renowned
Puerto Rican historian and writer. His work
The Indo-Antillano
Vocabulary is valuable in understanding the way the
Taínos lived. Dr.
Manuel Zeno Gandía in 1899 wrote
La Charca and told about the harsh life in the remote and
mountainous coffee regions in Puerto Rico. Dr.
Antonio S. Pedreira, described in his work
Insularismo the cultural survival of the Puerto Rican
identity after the American
invasion. Prominent Puerto Rican novelists and short story
writers whose works recount the hardships experienced by Puerto
Rican immigrants to New York City include
Giannina Braschi, author of "Yo-Yo Boing!",
Manuel Ramos Otero, and
Pedro Juan Soto author of
Spiks .
Poetry
Lola Rodríguez de Tió
María Bibiana
Benítez was Puerto Rico's first poetess and playwright. In 1832
she published her first poem "La Ninfa de Puerto Rico". Her niece
was
Alejandrina
Benítez de Gautier, whose "Aguinaldo Puertorriqueño", published
in 1843, gave her the recognition of being one of the island's
great poets. Alejandrina's son
José Gautier Benítez is
considered by many to be Puerto Rico's greatest Romantic-era poet.
Poets
José de Diego,
Virgilio Dávila,
Luis Llorens Torres,
Nemesio Canales,
Francisco Matos Paoli and
Juan Antonio Corretjer were
independence advocates who wrote poems with patriotic themes.
Lola Rodríguez de
Tió was the poetess who wrote the lyrics to the revolutionary
"
La Borinqueña" used by the
revolutionists in the
Grito de Lares.
Mercedes Negrón
Muñoz wrote under the name "Clara Lair" and published "Arras de
Cristal" in 1937. In her poem she describes the everyday struggles
of the common Puerto Rican. However, it was
Julia de Burgos who was to be considered by
many as the greatest poet to be born in Puerto Rico. The
inspiration spurred by her love of Puerto Rico is reflected in her
poem "Río Grande de Loíza". Of the four great poets of Puerto Rico,
Julia de Burgos,
Luis Palés
Matos,
Luis Llorens Torres
and
Evaristo Ribera
Chevremont, the latter is considered by some the most universal
and lyrical. In her scholarly book
Evaristo Ribera Chevremont:
Voz de Vanguardia, Carmen Irene Marxuach has argued that while
several of Ribera Chevremont's dozens of published books do treat
the subjects of Puerto Rican nationality and regionalism, the
majority of his verses move away from folkloric subject matter and
excel in a more universal lyricism. Robert Márquez's anthology
Puerto Rican Poetry: A Selection from Aboriginal to
Contemporary Times offers a useful overview and translation
into English of many of the most important Puerto Rican
poets.
Playwrights and Essayists
René Marqués
One of Puerto Rico's greatest essayists and playwrights was
Francisco Arriví (1915 - 2007)
known as "The Father of the Puerto Rican Theater". Arriví who used
a style known as "Areyto" presented in 1955, what is considered by
many as one of greatest works, "Bolero y plena" at the University
Theater and in 1958, he presented "Vejigantes" in the First
Festival of Puerto Rican Theater. These were followed by "Sirena"
(Mermaid) and "Medusa en la Bahía" (Medusa in the Bay). Arriví
gained international recognition and his plays were presented
abroad.
He
was instrumental in the establishemnt of various theater festivals
and in the establishment of the Centro de
Bellas Artes Luis A.
Ferré (Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center) in
Puerto Rico.
Among the other great playwrights of Puerto
Rico are René Marqués, whose
"Oxcart" (La carreta) follows the hardships of a Puerto Rican
family that moves from the island to New York City
and whose El puertorriqueño dócil y otros
ensayos describes the psychological and political realities of
the island, José
Luis González, whose País de cuatro pisos y otros
ensayos describes the rigid structures of island society, and
Luis Rafael Sánchez, whose
plays, short stories, essays, and novels, especially La guaracha del Macho Camacho
(Translated by Gregory Rabassa as
Macho Camacho's Beat) have
rendered him one of Puerto Rico's greatest contemporary
writers.
Modern and Contemporary Puerto Rican literature
After a vibrant nationalist tradition of Puerto Rican writers from
the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, the island has maintained a solid
production of outstanding authors. Oftentimes, these writers are
cataloged by decade into "generations" (for example, writers who
got their start in the 1950s are identified as "the Generation of
1950"). Some highly representative writers from the early and
mid-twentieth century are: Juan Antonio Corretjer, Luis Lloréns
Torres, Luis Palés Matos, Enrique Laguerre, and Francisco Matos
Paoli. These Puerto Rican writers write in Spanish and reflect a
literary Latin American tradition, and offer a variety of universal
and social themes. Some of the most important writers who got their
start in the 1950s are José Luis González, René Marqués, Pedro Juan
Soto, and Emilio Díaz Valcárcel. Writers who started in the 1960s
and 1970s include Carmen Lugo Filippi, Lourdes Vázquez,
Rosario Ferré, Luis Rafael Sánchez,
Manuel Ramos Otero, Ángel
Encarnación, Edgardo Sanabria Santaliz,
Olga
Nolla,
Edgardo
Rodríguez Juliá, and
Luis
López Nieves. Writers whose careers took off in the 1980s and
1990s include
Ana Lydia Vega,
Giannina Braschi,
Mayra Santos-Febres, and
Luz María Umpierre. Today new and
emerging voices on the island include Rafael Acevedo, Moisés
Agosto, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Ana María Fuster Lavín,
Zoé Jiménez Corretjer,
Alberto Martínez Márquez, Maribel Ortiz, Max Resto, and José E.
Santos, while Spanish-language writers such as
Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes,
Angel Lozada, and Alfredo Villanueva
Collado write and publish in the U.S. Puerto Rican literature in
English continues to flourish with the important contributions of
authors such as
Erika Lopez,
Ernesto Quiñonez, and
Abraham Rodríguez, Jr..
Numerous anthologies focus on the work of Puerto Rican writers.
Some of these are
Literatura y narrativa puertorriqueña: La
escritura entre siglos edited by Mario Cancel;
Literatura
puertorriqueña del siglo XX: Antología edited by Mercedes
López Baralt; and
Los otros cuerpos: Antología de temática gay,
lésbica y queer desde Puerto Rico y su diáspora, edited by
David Caleb Acevedo, Moisés Agosto, and Luis Negrón, which focuses
on
LGBT Puerto Rican literature.
Most recently, the more than 300 editorials published by
Nelson Antonio Denis,
Esq. in
El Diario La
Prensa, all of them on the cutting edge of the New York/Puerto
Rican diaspora, were recognized with repeated "Best Editorial
Writing" Awards from the
National
Association of Hispanic Journalists.
See also
References
- Father of Nuyorican movement
- Marxuach, Carmen Irene. Evaristo Ribera Chevremont: Voz De
Vanguardia. San Juan: Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto
Rico y el Caribe y la Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico,
1987. OCLC 19267286
- Márquez, Robert, ed. Puerto Rican Poetry: A Selection from
Aboriginal to Contemporary Times. Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 2007. ISBN 1558495614
- El Nuevo Dia
- Cancel, Mario R. Literatura y narrativa puertorriqueña: la
escritura entre siglos. Puerto Rico: Editorial Pasadizo, 2007.
ISBN 0979165008
- López Baralt, Mercedes. Literatura puertorriqueña del siglo
XX: Antología. San Juan: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto
Rico, 2004. ISBN 0847701565
- Acevedo, David Caleb, Moisés Agosto, and Luis Negrón, eds.
Los otros cuerpos: Antología de temática gay, lésbica y queer
desde Puerto Rico y su diáspora. San Juan: Editorial Tiempo
Nuevo, 2007. ISBN 0977361284
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