Returning Medusa's gaze : Baroque intertext in Alejo Carpentier

This thesis studies the concept of the baroque as applied to the works of the Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980). It revisits the original inspiration that the writer found in baroque architecture and sculpture, as expressed in the articles he wrote from Spain in the early 1930s, and follows his use of baroque culture in each of his novels. It is found that, through his attempt to create a period ambience for his historical fictions by incorporating into his novels descriptions of the art and architecture of the Baroque era, and by imitating the literary style of Spanish Golden Age writers, he ultimately produced a parodic and ironic style that was put to a highly original use even in those works set in the contemporary period. Finally, the mature works produced in the last decade of Carpentier's life are studied, and the continuities and discontinuities between these works and those of previous periods are examined, in order to arrive at a critical assessment of the potential to renovate the Latin American novel created by this writer's use of the baroque.Throughout this thesis the primary focus is placed upon the role played by the visual arts, including architecture, in Carpentier's development of baroque themes and style, a secondary focus being placed upon literary influences. Thus the importance for Carpentier of various writers and artists is examined, such as Cervantes, Quevedo, Piranesi, Vico, Goya, Barrès and d'Ors.It is found that Carpentier's use of baroque themes, motifs and style enabled him to make a unique contribution to literature in a number of ways: by creating an original means of representing the position of the individual with regard to society and the historical process, by reevaluating Latin American culture and environment vis-à -vis is Europe, and by adopting a postcolonial perspective of cultural self-assertiveness that was to pave the way for the 'boom' in the Latin American novel