Variaciones sobre la figura de Calibán en América Latina. La identidad como problema

Abstract

Readings on Caliban as a metaphor for Latin American culture are mandatory to address the problem of Latin American cultural identity; any reader interested in it has come up against such images, either to accept them or to refute them. The figure is approached in Jose Enrique Rodo's Ariel, which synthesizes the Caliban vision, from a utilitarian and materialistic perspective. On the other hand, a second reading on Caliban is suggested, as a figure that symbolically expresses the Latin American subject as a colonized man. In this case, the interpretations of Anibal Ponce (1935) and Roberto Fernandez Retamar (1971/2000) are identified, being the latter the one that best summarizes this perspective. Thus, the article offers an examination of this debate and a critique of this discussion is proposed. To do so, resorting to a new Latin American tradition on this problem, such as the decolonial positions based on Fernandez Retamar's studies will be avoided; instead we will deal with Caliban as a myth of the European savage. From this perspective, the article seeks to rethink the problem of Latin American identity not in a dichotomous way.