The Histmic Territory between Heterogenous Literary-Experiences

Abstract

The aim of the following study is to discuss the concept of bridge of contact as the one conceived among the Anglophone, Francophone, Latin American realities. In particular it will enquire the mode in which it is exercised in the entire histimic zone ‒ and by extension in all central American states, including the islands, located between North America and South America. In the aesthetic acquisition of nature in open dialogue with the individual and with society, literature becomes a focal point for the understanding of the outer world and the inner microcosm, while at the same time it indicates the voyage within the physical space as a mere necessity for all those who intend the act of writing as a mission towards knowledge. The contact between cultures af fects all identity issues and establishes new points of reference, transforming culture into richness and even individual awareness. For this reason, stemming from the very context, it is interesting to verify whether in literary texts, be they in English, French or Spanish, the impetus towards a relentless globalization is affirmed or whether the choice to cultivate one’s own cultural roots, albeit modified or “contaminated”, prevails within a multicultural territory. It is no coincidence that literature treads the paths of tradition, opening up to experimentation, the discovery of linguistic relationships, new fields of expression and to a mixture of genres. On the one hand, poetry, novels, drama and essays draw onto a real symbolic of bewilderment, while on the other hand the fantastic element develops into an attempt to recover or evade the breaking of the order of the polis, transformed into an uncoordinated, fragmented and incompressible space. From a methodological point of view, exegesis is based on the process of transculturation Fernando Ortiz alludes to, reinforced by Ángel Rama, Derek Walcott and Édouard Glissant who extends the concept to one of globalization. And again it is based on the hybridization of cultural interrelations that change in the evolution of historical-social processes, and reflects glimpses of multiple cultures that put into play any fixed concept of a defined identity and of the construction of a national identity, as studied by Néstor García Canclini.