The unmasking of bourgeois ideology in César Vallejo’s Los heraldos negros

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to question the exclusive role played by modernism as a source of inspiration for the creation of César Vallejo’s first collection of poems, Los heraldos ne­gros (The black heralds), and it also raises the fundamental and preponderant role played by Romanticism, represented above all by the Spanish author, José de Espronceda, and the English author, Lord Byron. It is suggested that the impact of Romanticism can be traced mostly in 14 poems of this essential work, which, in terms of their structuring, echo the po­etic journey of love traced by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer in his Rimas (Rhymes), consisting of several such as the act of falling in love, anguished love, separation, disappointment and reconciliation beyond the grave. This article argues that the artistic taxonomy of vitalism versus anti-vitalism that Vallejo presented in his 1915 thesis was later expanded during his Parisian years in order to include a new political taxonomy. Finally, the poem “Mayo” is analyzed to suggest that Vallejo was quite ambivalent with respect to the legacy of modern­ism in Latin American poetry.