Bello and Bolvar : Poetry and Politics in the Spanish American Revolution

As Andrs Bello predicted in 1823, the glory of Simn Bolvar has continued to grow since the Spanish American Revolution. The Revolution is still viewed as an almost mythical quest, and the name of the Libertador has become synonymous with the region's hopes for integration. In this 1992 book, the official history of the Revolution - the heroic history of Bolvar - is replaced by the account of Bello, who was first Bolvar's teacher and later his critic. Through a detailed study of the manuscripts of Bello's unfinished poem Amrica, Antonio Cussen reconstructs Bello's version of the Revolution and seeks to understand its political and cultural consequences. The author argues that Bello recorded the disintegration of the Augustan model of power and intimated the inevitable approach of liberalism with a certain longing for the classical culture of his youth.