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ARTICLES

Avant-Garde Aesthetics in Felisberto Hernández's Menos Julia

 

Abstract

Felisberto Hernández has often been described as a unique writer who developed an intensely personal style of writing unlike that of any of his Latin-American or European counterparts. This article seeks to counter this view by setting Hernández within the context of the historical Avant-Garde. Menos Julia is read in the context of previous studies of El caballo perdido and Las dos historias which see them as metafictional commentaries on the act of writing. The central motif of the tunnel in Menos Julia is interpreted as a metaphor for the creative act; and the story as a whole is read as an exploration of the transformation of lived experience and memories into art and, as such, as a metafictional commentary on the relationship between art and reality.

Notes

1 Maria Chiara D’Argenio, ‘El estatuto de lo fantástico en Felisberto Hernández’, Revista Iberoamericana, 215–216 (2006), 395–414 (p. 395).

2 Italo Calvino, ‘Felisberto no se parece a nadie’, in Felisberto Hernández: valoración crítica, ed. Walter Rela (Montevideo: Ciencias, 1982), 2–3 (pp. 2–3).

3 Frank Graziano, The Lust of Seeing: Themes of the Gaze and Sexual Rituals in the Fiction of Felisberto Hernández (Lewisburg/London: Associated University Presses, 1997), 20.

4 Norah Giraldi de Cas, Felisberto Hernández: del creador al hombre (Montevideo: Ediciones de Banda Oriental, 1975), 45.

5 Kim D. Yúnez, La obra de Felisberto Hernández: nomadismo y creación liminar (Madrid: Editorial Pliegos, 2000), 21.

6 Alicia Martínez, ‘La singular vanguardia de Felisberto Hernández’, Arrabal, 5–6 (2007), 131–37.

7 Yúnez, La obra de Felisberto Hernández, 22.

8 Yúnez, La obra de Felisberto Hernández, 107, 22–23.

9 Álvaro Contreras, ‘Pasajes de la vanguardia narrativa latinoamericana’, Estudios, 15:29 (2007), 215–32; Joaquín Lameiro Tenreiro, ‘Lenguaje, abstracción y símbolo en la narrativa de Felisberto Hernández’, Alpha, 27 (2008), 63–76; Gustavo Lespada, ‘Felisberto Hernández: el nacimiento de una estética’, Temas, 75 (2013), 113–20.

10 Federico López-Terra, ‘El vacío fundante en la estética de Felisberto Hernández’, BHS, 90:1 (2013), 65–77.

11 López-Terra, ‘El vacío fundante en la estética de Felisberto Hernández’, 69.

12 Rita Mazzatti Gardiol, Ramón Gómez de la Serna (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974), 15–16.

13 Felisberto Hernández, Por los tiempos de Clemente Colling, in Obras completas, 3 vols (México D.F.: Siglo XXI Editores, 1983; reprinted Vols I & II [2000], Vol. III [1999]); I, 135–98 (p. 195).

14 Yúnez, La obra de Felisberto Hernández, 36.

15 Menos Julia was originally published in Buenos Aires in 1946 in the journal Sur before being published in the collection Nadie encendía las lámparas (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1947).

16 Graziano, The Lust of Seeing, 180–81.

17 Gustavo San Román, ‘Los hombres-perro de Felisberto Hernández’, in La metamorfosis en las literaturas en lengua española, ed. Gabriella Menczel & László Scholz (Budapest: Eötvös József Könyvkiadó, 2006), 311–19.

18 Andrea Simonovics, ‘La ficción de los recuerdos de Felisberto Hernández’, Lejana: Revista Crítica de Narrativa Breve, 2 (2010), 1–7 (p. 2); available online at <http://lejana.elte.hu/PDF_2/Simonovics_Andrea.pdf> (accessed 12 May 2016).

19 San Román, ‘Los hombres-perro de Felisberto Hernández’, 311.

20 Menos Julia, in Hernández, Obras completas, II, 92–110 (p. 92). All subsequent references are to this edition.

21 Lameiro Tenreiro, ‘Lenguaje, abstracción y símbolo’, 71.

22 Francis Lough, ‘La escritura como compromiso: en busca de la identidad en El caballo perdido’, Fragmentos: Revista de Língua e Literatura Estrangeiras, 6:1 (1996), 69–80 (p. 79); page reference is to Hernández, El caballo perdido, Obras completas, II, 11–49 (p. 48).

23 Hernández, Las dos historias, in Obras completas, II, 160–71 (p. 171).

24 Francis Lough, ‘La función de la escritura en “Las dos historias” de Felisberto Hernández’, Río de la Plata, 19 (1998), 265–74 (p. 273).

25 Simonovics, ‘La ficción de los recuerdos de Felisberto Hernández’, 5.

26 Simonovics, ‘La ficción de los recuerdos de Felisberto Hernández’, 5.

27 Frédéric Parra, ‘Tiempo perdido, tiempo recobrado en “Menos Julia” ’, Río de la Plata, 19 (1998), 285–92 (p. 287).

28 Simonovics, ‘La ficción de los recuerdos de Felisberto Hernández’, 5.

29 Simonovics, ‘La ficción de los recuerdos de Felisberto Hernández’, 3.

30 San Román, ‘Los hombres-perro de Felisberto Hernández’, 318–19.

31 Graziano, The Lust of Seeing, 180–81.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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