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A Brief Inquiry into Octavio Paz' Laberinto of Mexicanidad
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
One Of The salient characteristics of 20th century Mexican art and intellectual history has been preoccupation with the problem of national identity, or, put in another fashion, with the problem of defining lo mexicano. Most commonly, concern for lo mexicano and mexicanidad has been associated with the Mexican Revolution. The generally accepted assumption is that inasmuch as the Mexican Revolution was a revolution without ideology, it was not until Mexicans began questioning the meaning of their revolution that they asked—what are we? who are we? Yet, the volume and importance of the intellectual and artistic production of the post-revolutionary period notwithstanding, it is certainly true that Mexicans were concerned with the problem of national identity even before 1910.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1971
References
1 On the question of ideology and the Mexican Revolution see Blaster’s, Cole discussion in “Studies of Social Revolution: Origins in Mexico, Bolivia, and Cuba,” Latin American Research Review, 2 (Summer, 1967), p. 39.Google Scholar Professor John L. Phelan has argued that the literature on lo mexicano owes its origins to the influence of José Ortega y Gasset as disseminated by Ramos, Samuel in the late 1920’s. See “Mexico y lo mexicano,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 36 (August, 1956), 310.Google Scholar
2 Luna, Juan Hernández, “Primeros estudios sobre el mexicano en nuestro siglo,” Filosofía y Letras, No. 40 (Oct.-Dec. 1950).Google Scholar See also Stabb’s, Martin S. excellent study In Quest of Identity (Chapel Hill, 1967).Google Scholar Stabb places the issue in perspective by pointing out that while national identity studies preceded the revolution, it took the revolution to give such studies “a new urgency and greater intensity.” p. 189.
3 Romanell, Patrick, Making of the Mexican Mind (Lincoln, 1952).Google Scholar Ramos’, El perfil is available in English as Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico (New York, 1963).Google Scholar
4 Luna, Juan Hernández, “Reseña: Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la soledad ,” Filosofía y Letras, no.’s 49–50 (January-June, 1953), 271.Google Scholar
5 See Rodman, Selden, Mexican Journal (Carbondale, 1965), p. 194.Google Scholar For an excellent study of Paz, see Wing, George Gordon, “Octavio Paz: Poetry, Politics, and the Myth of the Mexican,” Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California (Berkeley, 1961).Google Scholar
6 In an interview by Couffon, Claude, “Carlos Fuentes y la novela mexicana,” Cuadernos, no. 42 (May-June, 1960), 69.Google Scholar
7 Cf., for example, Hernández Luna’s review in which he ascribes to El laberinto a phenomenolpgical methodology, op. cit. See also Mermall’s, Thomas “Octavio Paz, El laberinto de la soledad y el sicoanálisis de la historia,” Cuadernos Americanos, CLVI (January-February, 1968),Google Scholar for a stimulating discussion of the work in terms of Freud’s theory of culture.
8 Cf.Xirau, Ramón, “La poesía de Octavio Paz,” Cuadernos Americanos, 58 (July-August, 1951).Google Scholar
9 I have used Kemp’s, Lysander translation of The Labyrinth … (New York, 1961).Google Scholar Paz was in Los Angeles, California in the early 1940’s, and the enigmatic figure of the pachuco—also known as “zoot-suiters,” youthful social type—was apparently the spark which induced him to examine lo mexicano. Earlier, he admits, he had considered such studies idle musing and even dangerous. He had dealt, of course, with Mexican problems, but he had not considered them to be specifically, Mexican, problems. El laberinto originally appeared in Cuadernos Americanos (1950).
10 Ibid., p. 14.
11 Ibid., p. 9.
12 Ibid., p. 11.
13 El perfil …, Tercera edición (México, 1965), p. 33.
14 The Labyrinth …, p. 14.
15 Thomas Mermall argues that Paz’ discontent is with civilization in general inasmuch as like Freud he relates civilization to repression. See op. cit., p. 99 ff.
16 Pachuco dress was a suit characterized by extremely padded shoulders, extremely narrow waist, extremely baggy pants with extremely narrow cuffs.
17 The Labyrinth, p. 16.
18 Ibid., pp. 16–17.
19 Ibid., p. 17.
20 Ibid., p. 20.
21 Ibid., p. 25.
22 Ibid., p. 27.
23 Selden Rodman, op. cit., p. 203.