Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Cuban Literature
- The Cambridge History of Cuban Literature
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Unfinished Histories
- Part I Literature in the Early Colony
- Part II Cuban Literature’s Long Nineteenth Century
- 3 Alexander von Humboldt and the Cultural Invention of Cuba Among Its Nineteenth-Century Intellectual Elite
- 4 Philosophy and Pedagogy in Félix Varela, José de la Luz y Caballero, and Enrique José Varona
- 5 Mercedes Merlin and the Rhetoric of Life Writing, Exile, and Race
- 6 The Lyric Vernacular of Cuban Romanticism
- 7 Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda as Literary Precursor and Transatlantic Intellectual
- 8 Racialized Futures
- 9 Journalism and Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture
- 10 José Martí as Hemispheric Visionary
- 11 Julián del Casal and the Other Faces of Cuban Modernismo
- 12 Performance Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Cuban Theater
- Part III Literary and Intellectual Culture in the Twentieth-Century Republic
- Part IV The Revolution’s Literary-Cultural Initiatives and Their Early Discontents
- Part V Cuba and Its Diasporas into the New Millennium
- Epilogue
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
3 - Alexander von Humboldt and the Cultural Invention of Cuba Among Its Nineteenth-Century Intellectual Elite
from Part II - Cuban Literature’s Long Nineteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2024
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Cuban Literature
- The Cambridge History of Cuban Literature
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Unfinished Histories
- Part I Literature in the Early Colony
- Part II Cuban Literature’s Long Nineteenth Century
- 3 Alexander von Humboldt and the Cultural Invention of Cuba Among Its Nineteenth-Century Intellectual Elite
- 4 Philosophy and Pedagogy in Félix Varela, José de la Luz y Caballero, and Enrique José Varona
- 5 Mercedes Merlin and the Rhetoric of Life Writing, Exile, and Race
- 6 The Lyric Vernacular of Cuban Romanticism
- 7 Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda as Literary Precursor and Transatlantic Intellectual
- 8 Racialized Futures
- 9 Journalism and Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture
- 10 José Martí as Hemispheric Visionary
- 11 Julián del Casal and the Other Faces of Cuban Modernismo
- 12 Performance Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Cuban Theater
- Part III Literary and Intellectual Culture in the Twentieth-Century Republic
- Part IV The Revolution’s Literary-Cultural Initiatives and Their Early Discontents
- Part V Cuba and Its Diasporas into the New Millennium
- Epilogue
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Based on Political Essay on the Island of Cuba by Alexander von Humboldt, this chapter scrutinizes the interactive impact of his ideas about Cuba with those of the island’s criollo intellectual elite, in particular Francisco de Arango y Parreño and José de la Luz y Caballero, also noting the assessment of those collaborations by Vidal Morales y Morales and, in the twentieth century’s first half, by Fernando Ortiz. Central to the analysis is how these writers drew on Humboldt’s antislavery and scientific legacies, while silencing the essay’s predictive advocacy for an African confederation in the future free states of the Antilles. The chapter elucidates an abolitionist turn in Arango’s writing and the role of Luz’s extensive journeys to meet with such international figures as Humboldt for modernizing scientific research and education in Cuba. While noting a canonizing halo later surrounding Humboldt’s role in Cuba, the chapter reinforces his indispensability to imaginings of an antislavery, scientific, and even independentist Cuba.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Cuban Literature , pp. 67 - 81Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
References
Works Cited
Francisco de, Arango y Parreño. “Carta al Secretario del Supremo Consejo de Indias…”. Obras, vol. 2, Howson y Heinen, 1888, pp. 647–648.Google Scholar
Francisco de, Arango y Parreño . “Comisión de Arango en Santo Domingo.” Obras, vol. 1, Howson y Heinen, 1888, pp. 339–370.Google Scholar
Francisco de, Arango y Parreño . “Discurso sobre la agricultura de la Habana y medios de fomentarla.” Obras, vol. 1, Howson y Heinen, 1888, pp. 53–125.Google Scholar
Francisco de, Arango y Parreño . “Memoria sobre la esclavitud.” Obras, vol. 2, Howson y Heinen, 1888, pp. 659–741.Google Scholar
Francisco de, Arango y Parreño . “Representación al Rey sobre la extinción del tráfico de negros y medios de mejorar la suerte de los esclavos coloniales.” Obras, vol. 2, Howson y Heinen, 1888, pp. 649–658.Google Scholar
Arroyo, Jossianna. “Revolution in the Caribbean: Betances, Haiti and the Antillean Confederation.” La Habana Elegante, vol. 49, Spring/Summer 2011, http://www.habanaelegante.com/Spring_Summer_2011/Invitation_Arroyo.html.Google Scholar
Conde Rodríguez, Alicia. “Ensayo introductorio.” Obras, vol. 1, by José de la Luz y Caballero, edited by Conde Rodríguez, Alicia, Imagen Contemporánea, 2001, pp. 1–64.Google Scholar
Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823. Oxford UP, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Domínguez, Daylet. Ficciones etnográficas: Literatura, ciencias sociales y proyectos nacionales en el Caribe hispano del siglo XIX. Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrer, Ada. “Haiti, Free Soil, and Antislavery in the Revolutionary Atlantic.” The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 117, no. 1, Feb. 2012, pp. 40–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Sibylle. Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution. Duke UP, 2004.Google Scholar
Humboldt, Alexander von . Ensayo político sobre la isla de Cuba. Fundación Fernando Ortiz, 1998.Google Scholar
Kutzinski, Vera M., and Ette, Ottmar. “Introduction.” Political Essay on the Island of Cuba, edited by Kutzinski, Vera M. and Ette, Ottmar, U of Chicago P, 2011, pp. vii–xxiii.Google Scholar
Luz y Caballero, José de la. “Informe sobre la Escuela Náutica.” Obras, vol. 2, Linkgua, 2022, pp. 154–191.Google Scholar
Luz y Caballero, José de la . “Magnetismo terrestre.” Obras, vol. 4, Linkgua, 2016, pp. 135–138.Google Scholar
Morales y Morales, Vidal. “El Barón de Humboldt en la isla de Cuba.” El Fígaro, no. 21, June 6, 1897, pp. 257–258; no. 23, June 21, 1897, pp. 285–286; no. 24, June 27, 1897, pp. 299–300.Google Scholar
Ortiz, Fernando. “Introducción.” Ensayo político sobre la isla de Cuba. Fundación Fernando Ortiz, 1998, pp. vii–cxliv.Google Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. Routledge, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramos, Julio. Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Duke UP, 2001.Google Scholar
Rodríguez, José Ignacio. Vida de don José de la Luz y Caballero. El Mundo Nuevo, 1874.Google Scholar
Rojas, Rafael. Isla sin fin: Contribución a la crítica del nacionalismo cubano. Universal, 1998.Google Scholar
Tomich, Dale W. “The Wealth of Empire: Francisco Arango y Parreño, Political Economy, and the Second Slavery in Cuba.” Comparative Studies in Society and History: An International Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 1, January 2003, pp. 4–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walls, Laura Dassow. The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America. U of Chicago P, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeuske, Michael. “Alexander von Humboldt y la comparación de las esclavitudes en las américas.” HiN, vol. 6, no. 11, 2005, pp. 65–89.Google Scholar
Zeuske, Michael . “Arango y Humboldt/Humboldt y Arango: Ensayos científicos sobre la esclavitud.” Francisco Arango y la invención de la Cuba azucarera. Universidad de Salamanca, 2009, pp. 245–260.Google Scholar