Emir Rodríguez Monegal (28 July 1921 – 14 November 1985), born in
Uruguay, was a scholar,
literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
, and editor of
Latin American literature. From 1969 to 1985, Rodríguez Monegal was professor of
Latin American contemporary literature at
Yale University. He is usually called by his second surname Emir R. Monegal or Monegal (or erroneously Emir Rodríguez-Monegal).
Described as "one of the most influential Latin American literary critics of the 20th century" by the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica'',
Monegal wrote key books about
Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
and
Jorge Luis Borges, and the Britannica
Macropædia notice of the later. He was a part in "
The Boom" of 1960s Latin American literature as founder and 1966–1968 editor of his influential magazine ''
Mundo Nuevo
''Mundo Nuevo'' (1966–1971, Spanish for "the New World") was an influential Spanish-language periodical, being a monthly ''revista de cultura'' ( literary magazine) dedicated to new Latin American literature. Sponsored by the Ford Foundation, ...
''.
Umberto Eco was quoted in saying that Jorge Luis Borges had read almost everything but no one knew ''that indiscernable totallity'' better than Emir.
He is remembered as a member of the ''
Generation of 45'', a Uruguayan intellectual and literary movement:
Carlos Maggi,
Manuel Flores Mora
Manuel Flores Mora (1923–1984) was a Uruguayan journalist and politician representing the Colorado Party.
Background and early career
A direct descendant of 19th century President Venancio Flores, Flores worked in his youth for a range of news ...
,
Ángel Rama
Ángel A. Rama (; April 30, 1926November 27, 1983) was a Uruguayan writer, academic, and literary critic, known for his work on ''modernismo'' and for his theorization of the concept of "transculturation."
Biography
Born in Montevideo to Galici ...
,
Idea Vilariño,
Carlos Real de Azúa,
Carlos Martínez Moreno
Carlos may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Carlos, Alberta, a locality
;United States
* Carlos, Indiana, an unincorporated community
* Carlos, Maryland, a place in Allegany County
* Carlos, Minnesota, a small city
* Carlos, West Virginia
;Elsewhere ...
,
Mario Arregui,
Mauricio Muller
Mauricio Waldemar Muller (born 20 October 1981 in Doblas) is an Argentinian cyclist, who last rode for UCI Continental team .
In 2012, he participated in the road race at the 2012 UCI Road World Championships. In 2017, he won the Argentine N ...
,
José Pedro Díaz,
Amanda Berenguer
Amanda Berenguer (1921 – July 13, 2010) was a Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwe ...
,
Tola Invernizzi,
Mario Benedetti,
Ida Vitale,
Líber Falco,
Juan Cunha
''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...
,
Juan Carlos Onetti, among others.
Biography
Early career (1921–1965)
In 1921, Emir Rodríguez Monegal was born on 28 July in
Melo,
Cerro Largo, Uruguay.
[Monegal 1984, primary sources.] He had the
double-barrelled name Rodríguez Monegal (erroneously "Rodríguez-Monegal" in some texts) but was often referred to as R. Monegal or Monegal only, a
Spanish naming custom when the first surname is extremely common.
From 1945 to 1957 (age 24 to 36), he edited the literary section of the
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...
weekl
Marcha He was one of the first to recognize early on the importance of
Borges,
[EB, tertiary sources.] seeing him and his family frequently after 1945, and taking him for model to the point of pastiche.
[González Echevarría 1974, primary sources.] Conversely, he got a cameo in a pseudo-autobiographical Borges short story:
In 1949 (age 28), he won a scholarship from the
British Council for a year's study at the
University of Cambridge; he went to study under
F. R. Leavis and complete a project on
Andrés Bello.
During 1949 to 1955 (age 28 to 34), he was also editor of ''Número'', a Montevideo literary magazine.
In 1952, he became friend with
Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
, who would later lend him his intimate papers for Monegal's biography of Neruda.
In 1956 (age 35), Monegal obtained the equivalent of a PhD at the
Facultad de Humanidades (Faculty of Letters), Montevideo, for his research on .
''Mundo Nuevo'' (1966–1968)
In 1966 (age 45), Monegal directed the literary monthly ''
Mundo Nuevo
''Mundo Nuevo'' (1966–1971, Spanish for "the New World") was an influential Spanish-language periodical, being a monthly ''revista de cultura'' ( literary magazine) dedicated to new Latin American literature. Sponsored by the Ford Foundation, ...
,'' published in Spanish in Paris.
Monegal directed it until July 1968, after the ''New York Times'' uncovered CIA connections with
the Congress for Cultural Freedom
The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was an anti-communist advocacy group founded in 1950. At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the CIA was instrumental in the establishment and funding of th ...
, the Cold War mega-organization under which auspicies ''Mundo Nuevo'' was born.
Mundo Nuevocontributed to the 1960s publishing phenomenon dubbed "
The Boom" in Latin American literature that led to many Latin American writers being published outside of their home countries and gaining critical recognition.
[Mac Adam 1984, primary sources.]
Yale University (1969–1985)
In 1969 (age 48), Monegal was appointed professor of
Latin American contemporary literature at
Yale University.
From 1970 to 1973 (age 49 to 52), he was chairman of the
Latin American Studies program and associate chairman of the Department of
Romance Languages. From 1973 to 1976 (age 49 to 55), he was chairman of the
Spanish and Portuguese Department.
From 1969 to 1977 (age 48 to 56), he was a member of the editorial board of ''Revista Iberoamericana'' (
University of Pittsburgh) and from 1972 to 1977 (age 51 to 56) he was
consulting editor A literary editor is an editor in a newspaper, magazine or similar publication who deals with aspects concerning literature and books, especially reviews. of ''Review'', a tri-quarterly published by the
Center for Inter-American Relations
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
* Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...
in New York.
Also, from 1975 to 1982 (age 54 to 61), he was a
visiting lecturer in seven universities in Brazil, and a visiting professor at the
University of Southern California and the
University of Pittsburgh.
In 1985 (aged 64), Monegal died on Thursday 14 November at Yale's infirmary in
New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He was survived by his wife: Selma Calasans Rodrigues de Rodríguez; and three children: Georgina Rodríguez Nebot, Joaquín Rodríguez Nebot, and Alejandro Rodríguez Gerona.
[NYT 1985, tertiary sources.]
Legacy
* His 1966–1968 work with ''
Mundo Nuevo
''Mundo Nuevo'' (1966–1971, Spanish for "the New World") was an influential Spanish-language periodical, being a monthly ''revista de cultura'' ( literary magazine) dedicated to new Latin American literature. Sponsored by the Ford Foundation, ...
'', as well as his books and lectures, was influential for the spread of Latin American literature, launching the career of such as
Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Guillermo Cabrera Infante (; Gibara, 22 April 1929 – 21 February 2005) was a Cuban novelist, essayist, translator, screenwriter, and critic; in the 1950s he used the pseudonym G. Caín, and used Guillermo Cain for the screenplay of th ...
,
Severo Sarduy
Severo Sarduy (February 25, 1937 – June 8, 1993) was a Cubans, Cuban poet, author, playwright, and critic of Cuban literature and art. Some of his works deal explicitly with male homosexuality and transvestism.
Biography
Born in a working-class ...
, and
Manuel Puig, and contributing to the internationalization of writers such as
Gabriel García Márquez,
Carlos Fuentes, and
Mario Vargas Llosa.
* His April 1968 article (reused in a chapter of his 1970 ''Borgès'') introduced the concept of "Biorges". According to him, when
Adolfo Bioy Casares and
Jorge Luis Borges collaborated under the pseudonyms
H. Bustos Domecq H. Bustos Domecq (Honorio Bustos Domecq) is a pseudonym used for several collaborative works by the Argentina, Argentine writers Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares.
Origin
Bustos Domecq made his first appearance as F. (Francisco) Bustos, th ...
or B. Suárez Lynch, the results seemed written by a new personality, more than the sum of its parts, which he dubbed "Biorges" and considered in his own right as "one of the most important Argentine prose writers of his time", for having influenced writers such as
Leopoldo Marechal
Leopoldo Marechal (June 11, 1900 – June 26, 1970) was one of the most important Argentine writers of the twentieth century.
Biographical notes
Born in Buenos Aires into a family of French and Spanish descent, Marechal became a primary sch ...
(an otherwise anti-Borgesian), or
Julio Cortázar
Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an ent ...
's use of fictional language and slang in his masterpiece ''
Hopscotch''.
* His 1966 biography of his friend
Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
, who accepted to lend him his personal papers, remains a key book on the topic. Similarly, his 1970 study and 1978 biography of his friend
Borges remain key books.
* In June 1985, Monegal published an article exploring the "kinship" between Derrida's themes in "Plato's Pharmacy" and the work of
Borges, from essays and tales Derrida had read such as "
Pierre Menard" (1939) and "
Tlön" (1940). He wrote that "I had experienced
econstructionin Borges ''avant la lettre'', though also writing that "the intent here is not to produce another exercise of the 'Borges, presursor of Derrida' variety."
Bibliography
The bulk of Monegal's works exists only in Spanish.
[ADP 2007, tertiary sources.] For untranslated texts, an English equivalent of the title is provided in parentheses.
Books
* 1950: ("
José Enrique Rodó in the twentieth century")
* 1956: ("The trial of the parricides. The new Argentine generation and their masters.", study of the dismissal of Borges, Mallea, and Martínez Estrada in Argentina)
* 1961: ("The roots of
Horacio Quiroga")
* 1961: ("Storytellers of this America", seventeen essays on prominent fiction writers of contemporary Latin American literature)
** Expanded to thirty-four writers in two volumes (1969 and 1974)
* 1963: ("
Eduardo Acevedo Díaz
Eduardo Acevedo Díaz (20 April 1851 – 18 June 1921#fn a, a), was an Uruguayan writer,#GA, Garzanti p. 3 politician and journalist.
Early life
He was born in Unión, Montevideo, Villa de la Unión, Montevideo, the son of Fátima Díaz and Nor ...
. Two versions of a same theme.")
* 1964: (with Homero Alsina Thevenet, "
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, Film producer, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known ...
. A cinematographic playwright.")
* 1966: ("The immobile traveler: an introduction to
Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
")
** (1973, French)
* 1967: ("Genius and character of
Horacio Quiroga")
* 1968: ("The exile: life and work of
Horacio Quiroga")
* 1969: ("The other
Andrés Bello")
* 1970: (French, "
Borges by himself")
** (1979, Spanish)
** (, 1987, Greek)
* 1976: ("Borges: towards a poetic reading"), erroneous title printed for ("Borges: towards a poetics of reading")
** (1980, Portuguese)
* 1978: ''Jorge Luis Borges: A Literary Biography''
** (1982, Italian)
** (1983, French)
** (1985, Spanish)
Articles
Selected among more than 330 articles and notices:
* 1955: , in: ''Número'' 27
** Expanded, in: (1969)
* 1968: , in: ''
Mundo Nuevo
''Mundo Nuevo'' (1966–1971, Spanish for "the New World") was an influential Spanish-language periodical, being a monthly ''revista de cultura'' ( literary magazine) dedicated to new Latin American literature. Sponsored by the Ford Foundation, ...
'' 22
* 1972: , in: ''
TriQuarterly'' 25
* 1974: "Borges, Jorge Luis", in: ''
Encyclopædia Britannica'',
Macropædia Vol. 3
* 1974: "Borges, a Reader", in: ''
diacritics'' 4
* 1975: , in: Yates, A. Donald, ed. (1975)
* 1976: , in: ''Revista Iberoamericana'' 42
* 1985: , in: ''Maldoror'' 21
** "Borges and Derrida. Apothecaries", in: Aizenberg, Edna, ed. (1990). ''Borges and His Successors. The Borgian Impact on Literature and the Arts''.
Edited
* 1950: ("Uruguayan literature of the twentieth century", compilation of essays and documents)
* 1957: ("
José Enrique Rodó: complete works")
* 1963: ("
José Enrique Rodó: pages", anthology)
* 1966: ("The Uruguyan tale", short-story anthology)
* 1966: ("
Juan Carlos Onetti: the faces of love", erotic texts anthology)
* 1968: ("The art of narration", interviews with leading Hispanic prose fiction writers)
* 1970: ("
Juan Carlos Onetti. Complete novels and tales", anthology)
* 1977: ''The Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature'', 2 volumes (with Thomas Colchie)
* 1979: ("Hispanic masters of the 20th century", with Suzanne Jill Levine)
* 1980: (collection of critical essays on
Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
)
* 1981: ''Borges: A Reader'' (anthology, with
Alastair Reid)
** (1984, Spanish)
See also
*
List of Uruguayan writers
*
List of contemporary writers from northern Uruguay
References
;
Primary sources consulted
* (Archivo de Prensa doesn't mention the original publication. Additional date and magazine retrieved at
from
JSTOR
JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...
via
Google Scholar.)
*
*
*
*
*
;
Tertiary sources consulted
*
*
*
; Endnotes
External links
; Official sites
*
– the Emir Rodríguez Monegal website (a few documents in English): biography, bibliography, interviews, article collection, etc.
; Online works
"A Game of Shifting mirrors: the New Latin American Narrative and the North American Novel"(1973)
(1974, in: ''Britannica
Macropædia'')
"The Metamorphoses of Caliban"(1977)
*
(blue links lead to copies of articles)
; About Monegal
(10 pictures, 1948–1984, with Borges, Paz, Vargas Llosa, Fuentes, Neruda, etc.)
Voice of Monegal: (MP3, 24:50, 24 MB)
*
by
Lisa Block de Behar
Lisa Block de Behar (Montevideo, Uruguay) is an Uruguayan professor of Linguistics and researcher in Literary Theory, Comparative Literature and Communication media.
She holds a PhD from École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris wher ...
Emir Rodriguez Monegal Papers (MS 1750).Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez Monegal, Emir
1921 births
1985 deaths
People from Melo, Uruguay
Uruguayan people of Spanish descent
Latin Americanists
Literary critics of Spanish
Uruguayan academics
Uruguayan expatriates in the United States
Uruguayan male writers
Uruguayan literary critics
Uruguayan essayists
Yale University faculty
20th-century essayists