Osorio, José Jesús

Dr. José Jesús Osorio is Assistant Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Queensborough Community College of The City University of New York (CUNY). He received his doctorate from the Graduate Center of CUNY. He has published Fantasmas muertos (2002), along with a poetry anthology Encuentro: 10 poetas latinoamericanos en USA (2003). Dr. Osorio is co-editor of the anthology Narraciones sin fronteras 27 cuentistas hispanoamericanos (2004). He is editor and founding member of the review journal Hybrido de Nueva York and has edited and compiled a book of essays called Nueva novela colombiana ocho aproximaciones críticas (2004).

JosÉ AsunciÓn Silva Y La Ciudad Letrada

2006 0-7734-5802-6
This book focuses on the cultural and political conditions of Colombia in relationship with their most notorious poet in its history. The relationship between José Asunción Silva, the cultural institutions and the social and political environment at the end of the 19th century in Bogotá is the main interest of this book. The Colombian nation underwent great political and social changes at the end of the century. Silva lived in a narrow-minded society that achieved a short but very important period of peace. Critics from different perspectives, in many cases contradictious, bother Silva because of his novelty characteristics. Nonetheless, they do not take into consideration the sensible intellectual that cares about the social situation, the city and the country. Journal articles and chronics about the city written by Silva denote the conditions of the relationship established by the poet with the politicians, groups of writers and the city as generator of culture.

This book analyzes the poetic works of Silva, which deals with the topic of childhood, the poetry book Intimidades, and his first poem “The first communion”, written when he was ten years old. The reconstruction of Silva’s childhood by some of his friends is also analyzed. This late reconstruction of his infancy just serves to create an impression of a weird, uneasy being that does not fit according to Bogotá’s society of the epoch.

Literary anthologies such as Parnaso colombiano, La lira nueva y the Estudio preliminar written by Jose Maria Rivas Groot are also analyzed. The revolutionary ideas of Silva cause uneasiness and discrimination against him because they are far from the traditional norms imposed by the culture of the time. Silva does not accept that a poet has to be regulated by the catholic preceptors. This book considers that relationship of Silva with the letrados of the Regeneration group was uncomfortable.

Silva was interested in the societal chronic and he thought journalism was an idoneous medium to express his ideas about the society and particularly the literature and culture in general. Silva creates turmoil for the way he carries himself, way of dressing, and gestures, which did not correspond with a man of the time. It is observed that Silva’s isolation did not happen due to the idiosyncrasy of his great talent but because of local circumstances created by critics who did not always carry them with honesty and fairness.