Ariel in the First World War: Notes about the European Chronicles of José Enrique Rodó

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the travel chronicles written by José Enrique Rodó and published in the magazine Caras y caretas in 1916 and 1917. Some features of these chronicles are derived from Rodó’s vision of Europe in the years of the First World War. Our analysis focuses on these questions: the magisterial function of the chronicles published in the magazine Caras y caretas, devoted to a massive public, specially when signed by a prestigious intellectual such as Rodó; the relationship between the literary chronicles and the news included in the magazine; the European civilization disenchantment caused by the War and, as a result of this, the construction of an utopian future for the latin race in Hispanic America, construction based on allegorical procedures.