Guatemalan Literature After Independence: The Nineteenth Century
Guatemala gained independence from Spain in 1821, in its desire to establish political and commercial relations with other countries. The literature during this period is marked by political strife, which dominated the essay and treatise genres. This era also saw the birth of journalism in Guatemala, with figures like Antonio José de Irisarri
During the 19th century Guatemalan literature began to develop independently from Spanish literature, though it continued to incorporate European influences. Important writers of this era include María Josefa García Granados and José Batres Montúfar (known simply as "Pepe Batres"), who co-wrote the "Sermón para José María Castilla", a work that was scandalous at the time. Batres is also the author of the poem "Yo pienso en ti", one of the best known of Guatemalan literature.
In the second half of the 19th century, the novel dominated Guatemalan literature, thanks especially to José Milla y Vidaurre, considered the father of the Guatemalan novel. He signed some of his works with the pseudonym "Salomé Jil", an anagram of his name. Major works by Milla y Vidaurre include La hija del Adelantado (1866), Los Nazarenos (1867), El visitador (1867), and El libro sin nombre.
Guatemalan writers also participated in Latin American modernism, heir to French symbolism and Parnassianism and driven by the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío. In poetry, important writers included Domingo Estrada, Máximo Soto Hall, and María Cruz. The versatile writer Enrique Gómez Carrillo represented modernism in prose.
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“The taste for freedom, the fashion and cult of happiness of the majority, that the nineteenth century is infatuated with was only a heresy in his eyes that would pass like others.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“As a man has no right to kill one of his children if it is diseased or insane, so a man who has made the gradual and conscious expression of his personality in literature the aim of his life, has no right to suppress himself any carefully considered work which seemed good enough when it was written. Suppression, if it is deserved, will come rapidly enough from the same causes that suppress the unworthy members of a man’s family.”
—J.M. (John Millington)
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—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)