Los usos de la historia en Ernesto Cardenal

grantor: University of TorontoErnesto Cardenal, poet and priest from Nicaragua, is the most important social poet in Latin America today. His life and work participate in the social struggle for a better system and society on that continent. Cardenal uses history with the intention of denouncing the society in which he lives. Following Cardenal's works we see that on unjust society started with the arrival of the European conquerors who introduced and unposed their own culture and thought throughout the new continent. They cast into oblivion the culture and thought of the original peoples who inhabited the continent, creating therefore a repressive society, and a politically and economically unjust system. But also we see that Cardenal employs history with the intention of remembering specific historical moments, in which it was possible to change the current society in which we live. Cardenal thinks that the only possibility of altering the unjust world is through a revolutionary struggle. Finally, Cardenal utilizes history to show us that it is possible to create a new society and system where freedom and justice exist for all people. Cardenal, in his writing, seeks for to reinterpret official history, the history written by the people who hold political and economical power. He thus seeks to reconstruct history, a new history, from the point of view of the oppressed people of Latin America. Cardenal shows in his poems a problematic world that is given to the reader through a direct, austere language. The poetic language used by Cardenal in his works is formed by the outside world. So we see that his poetic discourse is made up of multiple discourses that come from different sources and whose purpose is to show the outside world objectively, a world that is outside the subjectivity of the author. The poet uses history to guide us to a new form of thinking about the past of Latin America. From this new perspective on the past and present, Cardenal invites we the readers to engage in the construction of a new society, and with him, to recover the history of the conquered and forgotten people.Ph.D