Neoclassicism, Romanticism and the notion of National Literature in Nueva Granada. Study based on literary press from 1836 to 1860

Abstract

The literary press in New Granada is a sample of the considerations that were made on beaux arts and the programmatical discourse that depict truly national literature’s ways. These are interwoven with esthetical neoclassic and romantic conceptions that support the different views on the value and purpose of literary manifestations in the context of a Republic still on the process of being established. The present study revises the neoclassic and romantic elements lying under national and South American literature discourses to be found in the literary press from 1836 to 1860. We also attempt to demonstrate the importance that is given to narrative genres because of their vernacular contents that educate the reader by giving him a discourse of identity.