El mundo andino en la obra de Csar Vallejo

Texas Tech University, José F. Olascoaga, August 2009
ABSTRACT
This study considers the important presence of the Andean world in the literary
works of the Peruvian writer, César Vallejo. Though his works are numerous, various,
and complex, the appearance of his home town, the Andean landscape, the Inca heritage,
and the human and social conflicts of the Peruvian inhabitant can be extensively found in
them. This occurrence can be explained by the different tendencies of Peruvian
indigenismo at his time, but also by Vallejo’s lively experience of the Peruvian sierra, and
his particular thought and sensibility to the indigenous people and their land, history, and
social issues.
Based on Vallejo’s journalist chronicles and articles, this study identifies which
indigenist and regionalist authors he admired the most and influenced his literary
production. It also reveals Vallejo’s complex opinion about indigenismo which involves
an ethnical identification with the native people, a profound sense of authenticity and
autochthonism, and a responsible insertion in the creative spirit of the nation, as
suggested by the positivist view of race.
Vallejo’s complete works of poetry, narrative and theater have been analyzed
under a thematic inquiry in order to establish which components of the Andean world are
present. This study finds that remembrances of his home town, family, the Andean
landscape, and bucolic life are mostly related to poetry. Evocations of the Inca
civilization happen in his modernist poetry, especially in Los heraldos negros [The black
heralds], the novel Hacia el reino de los Sciris [Towards the kingdom of the Sciris], and
the drama La piedra cansada [The exhausted stone]. The social vindication of the Indians
is induced by the novel El tungsteno [The tungsten] and the short story “Paco Yunque.”
In Cuatro cuentos [Four short stories], other social issues arrive, manifesting a
multiplicity of feelings. The overall appreciation of these findings shows that Vallejo’s
indigenismo is mostly caused by his attachment and sensitivity to the Andean people and
homeland, and that every tendency he endorses and genre he uses gives him the
opportunity to emphasize some aspects of the indigenous world.
vi