In the Early Stages of Hispanic American Novel: Fernández de Lizardi’s Don Catrín de la Fachenda

Abstract

In this article we lay the focus on the best novel, from the narrative standpoint, by the Mexican writer José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, Vida y hechos del famoso caballero don Catrín de la Fachenda. In order to assess his literary values, we attempt first to situate the work in the context of its production and in the framework of the author’s trajectory; then we proceed to describe the text from a narrative viewpoint and discuss it with reference to interrelations of inter-textual and intra-textual influences. Moreover, a special stress is laid on the contrastive subspaces that are dialogically in conflict within the artistic space. Finally, we underline the exemplary narrative proposal of this enlightened reformist, as well as sense effects derived from it, in the initial stage of the Mexican novel and by extension Hispanic-American.