Abraham Valdelomar

Abraham Valdelomar

Abraham Valdelomar (born April 27, 1888 in Ica , Peru , † 1919 in Ayacucho ) was a Peruvian writer and journalist.

Life

Abraham Valdelomar was born on April 27, 1888 in Ica in southern Peru and died in 1919 in Ayacucho , the capital of the Ayacucho region in southern Peru . He was a poet, poet, chronicler, journalist, storyteller and playwright. Valdelomar is considered one of the most important authors of Peruvian literature of the 20th century. He surpassed important authors such as Ricardo Palma or Gonzáles Prada with his unique individual writing style.

Valdelomar spent his childhood in Pisco , a port city on the Pacific, whose way of life and surroundings influenced him noticeably, which is reflected in his poems as well as in his fictional prose.

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Valdelomar as "escritor provinciano"

Valdelomar discovered for himself the modernism prevailing in America , a literary movement founded by Rubén Darío . In the course of the development of modernism, however, incompatibilities in the way of life and the writing of the first modernists became apparent: on the one hand, they had a clear awareness of their Hispanic American origins, on the other hand, they wanted to write about landscapes and lifestyles that they imagined and not about those they wanted already knew. Valdelomar was a member of an association of “postmodernist” authors who gave modernismo a provincial touch.

He dealt with the works of the Uruguayan Herrera y Lessing , the Argentine Lugones and the Peruvian César Vallejo without ever having any direct contact with them.

Valdelomar's theme was family life. His famous story "El caballero Carmelo" was written, which appeared in 1918 in his book "El caballero Carmelo y otros cuentos". In this story he describes a rooster who is a champion in a fight with his fellow species. This superficial act conceals intertwined family relationships and the image of a Peruvian society that is developing only slowly, but which upholds values ​​such as solidarity, cohesion among family members and the spread of these values ​​among one another.

Valdelomar as "escritor cosmopolita"

Valdelomar's horizon extends beyond the horizon of the small-town, Costumbrist author who is far removed from the front line of literature. He is considered a pioneer of cosmopolitanism . He studied at various universities and schools in Guadalupe de Lima and San Marcos . Although he did not graduate with a degree, he developed exceptional expertise through university crusades and work in various newspaper offices.

He got involved in politics, committed himself to President Guillermo Billinghurst and in 1912 became director of the official daily newspaper " El Peruano ". In 1913 he became secretary of the Peruvian legation in Italy. The stay in Italy and the European influences were reflected both in his thinking and in his literature.

After his return he planned to found his own cultural magazine, but from 1915 initially worked as a journalist in the editorial office of the newspaper “ La Prensa ” and wrote mainly parliamentary chronicles of a high literary level. During his work at “La Prensa”, well-known intellectuals gathered around him. During this time he often published the pseudonym "El conde de Lemos". His work “La Mariscala” and El Caballero Carmelo, dedicated to José de la Riva Agüero , also appeared at that time .

In 1916 Valdelomar founded the literary magazine “Colónida”, in which primarily postmodernists found a platform for resistance against Riva-Agüero, who advocated unrestricted elitist and ideological Hispanism while rejecting all indigenous elements.

From 1918 Valdelomar made numerous tours and attended conferences in the north and south of the country. In 1919 he was appointed representative of the Ica region at the Congreso Regional del Centro and went to Ayacucho, the seat of his new office. As a guest at a gala there, he suffered a fractured spinal column due to a fall and died the following day.

"El Conde de Lemos"

In addition to the pseudonym "El Conde de Lemos", he also used the name "Val del Omar" to remember an old Arab. Why Valdelomar used such pseudonyms is not clear from the literature. Spirited, agile and extroverted, he lived a public cult of snobbery and scandal. As the master of an excellent literary inspiration, he immersed his works in a wide variety of literary genres.

genre

Valdelomar developed almost all genres of literature and in his works he valued the importance of everyday things, such as home, the province and the peculiarities of the coast. Most of his works are characterized by a soulful, nostalgic to intimate tone. This is particularly noticeable in the story and in the poem of Valdelomar. In these he regularly describes family events from his rural-village childhood tied to the sea and the landscape of Pisco. The contents are rural and provincial and convey a loving, familiar impression. From a formal point of view, he cultivates an elegant, modern writing style with a cosmopolitan influence. This is mainly shaped by the Italian Gabriele D'Annunzio , the English Oscar Wilde and the Spaniard Ramón María del Valle Inclán .

The importance of his post-modernist work is rooted in the representation of provincial innovation. This developed into the companion of poetry on the coast of Peru. He is also known as the initiator of the “cuento criollo” and the revealing biographies by incorporating local themes into the narrative.

His main works are:

• Stories: "El Caballero Carmelo", "Evaristo, el sauce que murió de amor", "El hipocampo de oro", "Los hijos del sol", "Los ojos de Judas", "Cuentos yanquis", "Cuentos chinos".
• Poems: Valdelomar has several individual poems, such as B. Tristitia, El hermano ausente en la cena pascual, Confiteor y Luna Park. In the volume of poetry "Las voces múltiples (1916)", he himself has put together various poems.
• Novels: "La ciudad muerta", "La ciudad de los tísicos", "Yerba santa".
• Essays: "La sicología del gallinazo", "Belmonte, el trágico", "Con la argelina al viento".
• dramatic literature: "La Mariscala", "Verdolaga".

Epochal classification

Together with Enrique Bustamante y Ballivián and José María Eguren , Abraham Valdelomar represented a postmodernism that was not only to be regarded as an aesthetic movement, but rather as “[...] the revision of certain manneristic stylistic procedures of the modernists in the metrics or in the area of ​​the poetic Photos". From a formal point of view, however, the stylistics are not sufficient to distinguish between modernism and postmodernism, but a much more important aspect is the content, because the goal of modernists, as in every literary movement, is to establish a specific writing culture with recognition value .

Writing style and basic assumptions in Valdelomar's work

Behind the secrets and questions of man there is always the desire for innovation, further development and experience of the real meaning of life. But in the life of every living being there is light and shadow and therefore there are always unanswered questions. Man is born, goes through his psycho-biological existence and dies. This forms a basis that is common to all people. He uses the mind and senses to explore, classify and, above all, understand the world around him. The human senses are limited in their nature, but are sufficient to perceive their own complex reality. And yet people often limit their own reality because they do not know how to use the spectrum of their senses sufficiently.

Valdelomar's writing style appears rural and provincial in his stories. Memories of family and childhood are an important part of his work. They often give the stories a nostalgic character and emphasize the term “ home ”. Abraham Valdelomar prefers to choose exotic and exaggerated topics, which he prefers to create with a rural to pastoral charm in the form of short stories.

Characteristics of the literature of Valdelomar

1. He is the initiator of the "cuento criollo" with the stories "El Caballero Carmelo", "Yerba santa" and others.
2. His poems and prose texts have a familiar style, with pleasant and less pleasant memories of childhood, parental home and the proximity to the sea and the landscape.
3. He describes situations, landscapes and people extremely precisely and traditionally.
4. His language is clear, expressive and short, so he brings the reader into the world of the story.

Work edition

• Abraham Valdelomar: Obras, edited by Luis Alberto Sánchez and Ismael Pinto Vargas. 2 volumes, Fundación del Banco Continental para el Fomento de la Educación, Lima 1988.

literature

• María Elena Martínez-Acacio Alonso: Abraham Valdelomar, narrador del Perú moderno . Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-84-9192-122-6 .
• Michael Rössner : Latin American literary history . Metzler, Stuttgart, 2nd expanded edition 2002.
• Emilia Romero de Valle: Diccionario manual de literatura peruana y materias afines . Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima 1966.

Web links

Commons : Abraham Valdelomar  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Marco Martos: Abraham Valdelomar in the portal Literatura peruana

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. www.educared.org. Luis Monguió also judged Valdelomar's style in a similar way: “Entre los poetas peruanos de esos años, modernistas todavía pero a la busca ya de uno nueva tónica expresiva, puede escogerse a Abraham Valdelomar come ejemplo típico. Valdelomar es, literalmente, un producto del modernismo peruano, es un admirador confeso de dos grandes modernistas, Chocano y Eguren [...]. Valdelomar seguía siendo modernista por la consciencia de su arte y de su voluntad literaria, [...] "(quoted from: Romero de Valle, 1966, p. 326)
2. ↑ cf. www.educared.org
3. ↑ This is what Luis Alberto Sánchez said in his biography about Valdelomar; “El viaje a Italia representó una neuva frontera en la vida y obra de Valdelomar. Culturalmente era un europeo, sentimentalmente un provinciano de Pisco. Esta dualidad caracterizó toda la obra de Valdelomar, tanto la pre-itálica como la posterior, a su regreso de Europa. " (quoted from LA Sanchez, in the prologue of "Obras 1" 1988, p. IX)
4. ↑ cf. www.educared.org
5. ↑ ^{a b} Abraham Valdelomar (1888-1919). Archived from the original on April 10, 2007 ; accessed on February 11, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Literatura Peruana en la Red. In: ENFénix! - Portal Educativo. Archived from the original on February 18, 2007 ; Retrieved on February 11, 2014 (en colabororación con José Carlos Mariátegui). 
7. ↑ Rössner 2002, p. 335.
8. ↑ Cf. Rössner, 2002, pp. 336/337 ( Abraham Valdelomar Narrativa ( Memento of April 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ))