Spanish American Modernismo and English Decadence: Beardsley, Pater, and Wells in the Revista Moderna de México (1903–1911)

Abstract

This essay examines the Spanish American reception of English (British) writers on the pages of the Revista Moderna de México (1903–1911), arguably the most significant publication venue for modernismo, the period during which Spanish American writers engaged significantly with European, and particularly French, decadent trends. Analyzing Pedro Henríquez Ureña’s translations of Walter Pater and José Juan Tablada’s rendering of The Food of the Gods, and How It Came to Earth (1904) by H. G. Wells, as well as Tablada’s retrospective look at Aubrey Beardsley’s oeuvre, I argue that the incorporation of Spanish American modernismo into the folds of an international history of decadence enables fresh insights into the latter’s indebtedness to wide-ranging intercultural networks and transactions. Translation brings Beardsley, Pater, and Wells closer to Hispanic audiences, facilitating readerly intimacies with distinct cultural and speculative optics, along with modes of intellectual interpretation that move well beyond the bounds of national or regional peculiarities.