To the origins
To say that we know everything about the first inhabitants of Puerto Rico would be a lie, at the most we estimate that the archipelago was successively populated by the Ortoiroides, the Igneris and then by the Tainos who became the majority, without being able to date their arrival nor to specify their origin (some people, however, bring these last arrivals closer to the Mayas, counting on the proximity of myths such as those appearing in the Popol Vuh) If some of their legends and shamanic practices have survived, especially thanks to the oral tradition, to say that the Indian culture was preserved by the Spaniards would be to deny the brutality of colonization and then slavery, to which Africans were later also forced to replace the Tainos who had succumbed to disease and punishment. This explains why the first writings were composed entirely by descendants of colonists, such as Juan Ponce de León II (1524-1591), governor of Puerto Rico, who wrote a presentation of the Antilles (Memorias de Melgarejo
) at the request of the King of Spain, in which he nevertheless included elements on the beliefs and language of the Tainos, or the priest Diego de Torres Vargas (1590-1649), also born in San Juan, who drew up a detailed description of his native city. In literature, Father Francisco Ayerra de Santa María is generally considered the first Puerto Rican poet, although he left the archipelago at the end of his youth to settle in Mexico where he remained until his death in 1708. His verses, of religious and historical inspiration, were celebrated to the point of being included in numerous anthologies. At the very end of the century, a Spaniard who had been in trouble with the army and had no choice in where he would go landed in Puerto Rico. However, he ended up liking it and even ended his life there. Although it is said that Juan Jacinto Rodriguez Calderón (1770-env.1840) was involved in other shady stories, he was no less a writer and was above all the initiator of a real breakthrough for Puerto Rican literature and journalism, since he had a press imported from the American continent. His collection Ocios de la juventud, poesías varias, en diferentes metros castellanos, became, in 1806, the first printed book in the archipelago. In the image of his equivocal personality, his poetic language was expressed in forty texts, from facetious jokes to the strictest moral lessons. In that same year, the colonial government created the first "Gaceta" (gazette) of Puerto Rico in order to promulgate his ideas... but this was not enough to stem the tide of protests that would soon spread, and which would cost many writers and journalists exile.A committed 19th century
It was in the columns of the Gaceta de Puerto Rico that María Bibiana Benítez Batista (1783-env.1875) published in 1832 La Ninfa de Puerto Rico, which was not only the first poem published by a woman, but also foreshadowed the Romantic trend that was to come and, in the same vein, a patriotism that would soon permeate the literary world. Indeed, she uses a metaphor to represent her native island in the guise of the lamb that appears on the Puerto Rican coat of arms, insisting on its gentleness and passivity, which can only be understood in terms of the domination of the Spanish crown. A national identity was indeed emerging, combining pride as in the works of his niece, Alejandrina Benítez de Gautier (1819-1879), also a renowned poet, who in La Patria del Genio (The Nation of the Genius) paid a heartfelt tribute to the artist José Campeche, and societal considerations as in El Gibaro by Manuel A. Alonso Pacheco (1822-1889). This seminal text, published in 1845, portrays in verse the "Jíbaro" (as it is spelled today), the farmer who cultivates the land in the traditional way and earns his living from the fruits of his labor. From recognition to demand, from patriotism to militancy, there is only one step that Alonso Pacheco takes, who, in parallel to his poetic work dedicated to his country, will commit himself to the liberal reformist movement and will direct its publication, El Agente
.Like him, Alejandro Tapia y Rivera (1826-1886) led his own battles, especially against slavery (which was not "officially" abolished until 1873, a little later in fact) and above all in favor of historical heritage. His works and biographies, which take tutelary figures as a source of inspiration - from the Taino cacique Guarionex to the explorer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa - and the foundations of what would become Puerto Rico's oldest municipal library in Ponce, have remained. His near-contemporary Ramón Emeterio Betances, born in 1827, earned his nickname of "Padre de la Patria" with his works, which included both theater and essays (he wrote "proclamas", manifestos), and above all with his political commitment. Nourished by the French revolution of 1848, in which he had taken part, and by the Cuban independence movement, of which he felt like a brother, he created the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee from New York, where he lived in total clandestinity following his forced exile for mutiny. Although this revolt was quickly suppressed, it forced Spain to grant the archipelago greater autonomy... until 30 years later, when the Spanish-American War was declared and Puerto Rico was sold to the United States. His friend Eugenio María de Hostos (1839-1903) earned a reputation as a sociologist while working to build a more egalitarian school system. He also produced several texts, the most famous of which is La Peregrinación de Bayoán
(1863). Thus, the 19th century was marked by the commitment of writers, in a time when the most dazzling hopes gave way to some advances... and sad disillusionments. We could also mention Lola Rodríguez de Tió (1843-1924), a feminist activist who wrote revolutionary words to the tune of the Boriqueña during one of the exiles she suffered, the romantic author José Gautier Benitez (son of Alejandrina, born in 1848 and died in 1880), who was also highly regarded for his patriotic poetry, or Dr. Cayetano Coll y Toste (1850-1930) who was interested in history and collected Leyendas y tradiciones puertorriqueñas.Richness and modernity
In 1855, Manuel Zeno Gandía was born and became a doctor, an independence fighter and a writer. La Charca (The Pond), which he published in 1894, after having first tried his hand at poetry, is considered the first Puerto Rican novel. Here again, the writing is obvious, as the author describes the sad condition of poor peasants subjected to the wishes of rich landowners. He repeated this with Garduña, El Negocio and Redentores, which also became classics. If Zeno Gandía is the father of the novel, José de Diego y Martinez (1866-1918) is the father of modern poetry thanks to Pomarrosas, Jovillos or Cantos de Rebeldía. At the same time, the press was expanding and innovating. Virgiol Dávila directed a weekly magazine co-founded with the musician Braulio Dueño Colón, and they worked to make the "Canciones Escolares" popular, while Nemesio Canales created La Revista de las Antillas
with Luis Lloréns Torres. Finally, the anarchist Luisa Capetillo (1879-1922) and Isabel Andreu de Aguilar (1887-1948) continued the fight for women's rights.The twentieth century was synonymous with the entry into modernity, while literature turned to modernism and postmodernism, two currents in which Francisco Matos Paoli (1915-2000) was involved. His abundant work - from Canto a Puerto Rico in 1952 to Decimario de la Virgen in 1990 - will even earn him a Nobel Prize. Julia de Burgos was awarded the Ataneo Puertorroqueño Prize for Canción de la verdad sencilla and applauded by the Institute of Puerto Rican Literature for her essay Ser o no ser es la divisa
(1946), in which she preached for independence. She lost her life at the age of 39 in 1953 in New York, a city that a few years later would become the nerve center of the "Nuyorican Movement", a word composed of New York and Puerto Rican, which was initially an insult but which Miguel Algarín, one of the three founding members along with Miguel Piñero and Pedro Pietri, would take hold of. This broad cultural movement, which also included artists and musicians, was housed in an old school, PS 64, which was renamed the Charas/El Bohio Community Center. It will be the emblem of the exile to which Puerto Ricans fleeing the misery caused by the monoculture of sugar cane imposed by the United States will be subjected. Many writers and playwrights are associated with it: Edwin Torres, Edgardo Vega Yunqué, Luz Maria Umpierre, Tato Laviera... New York is also the setting for most of the novels of Manuel Ramos Otero (1948-1990), the first Puerto Rican writer to come out as gay. His books(El Cuento de la Mujer del Mar, Página en blanco y staccati...) were sometimes crude and always committed, but they also provoked some controversy. The work of her friend Giannina Braschi, born in 1953, can also be clearly linked to the avant-garde, especially since, by focusing on the fate of Puerto Rican migrants, she plays with the clash of cultures and languages, especially in Spanglish Yo-Yo Boing! They will pave the way for authors such as Larry La Fountain, who was born in San Juan but lives in the United States, whose work focuses on queer culture and whose poetic, theatrical and fictional work features gay characters(Mi nombre, masa multidinaria, Uñas pintadas de azul, etc.), or Yolanda Arroyo Puzarro, who was brought up in Cataño and whose play ¿A dónde va el amor? was staged there. Contemporary literature is not well represented in French translation at the moment, but some of its authors are beginning to be exported, such as Marya Santos-Febres, published by Zulma(Sirena Selena, La Maîtresse de Carlos Gardel).
