Subversion of the historicity marks in the New Latin American Historical Novel: Examples in I the Supreme by Roa Bastos

Alcántara L.E.A.; Garcés J.A.V. · Desde el Sur (2023) · DOI: 10.21142/des-1503-2023-0044

Resumen

The term «marks of historicity» was coined by Krzysztof Pomian to establish the non-fictionality of the historical text. The traditional historical novel appropriates these «marks of historicity» to give its discourse the appearance of being historical. On the other hand, the New Latin American Historical Novel, a term popularized by Seymour Menton, not only appropriates these «marks» by imitating them in form but also subverts them by applying the characteristics assigned by Menton. This is the objective of the present article. To achieve this, the methodology used was the analysis of the literary discourse present in the para-text of I the Supreme by Roa Bastos. It was primarily concluded that the New Latin American Historical Novel differs from the traditional one in that it subverts the «marks of historicity» and that it imitates them, that to subvert them resorts to parody, the carnivalesque and anachrony, and that in I the Supreme they are strategically subverted affecting its paratext.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos