The intimacy of humankind : convergences and divergences and of love in Latin American poetry 1950-1990

This dissertation examines the interchange between individual and social love, eros and philadelphos in the writings of four Latin American poets of the Cold War Era: Pablo Neruda, Ernesto Cardenal, Gioconda Belli and Raúl Zurita. Chronologically I frame this work beginning with Neruda’s return to writing love poetry in the early 1950’s up until the breakdown of collectivist movements in the late 1980’s with the expansion of capitalism and the return to democracy in the Southern Cone and in parts of Central America. Geographically, I focus on two countries which have had democratic revolutions in the 20th century in which literature has played a social role: Chile and Nicaragua. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s theories on Romanticism and territorialisation I establish several major points of divergence between eros and philadelphos and then examine the ways each poet manages these differences in their attempt to create a committed poetry oriented towards expressing collective realities and promoting social changeArts, Faculty ofFrench, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department ofGraduat