El origenismo, en bárbaro lenguaje

Abstract

This paper explores both the resonances and the incommensurabilities between the literary discourse developed by the Cuban writers known as the origenistas, on the one hand, and the recent formulations of Franco Moretti and Pascale Casanova on the problem of «world literature», on the other. A conscious effort is made to avoid thinking of origenista discourse as fodder for recent theories issuing from the metropolitan centers, and to think instead of the ways in which recent theoretical developments might contribute to –or fall short of– the poetic imaginary elaborated by the writers associated with the magazine Orígenes (1944-1956). The place of Orígenes in the «world system» of literature, then, is grounded in the poetic imaginary of the origenistas themselves, and the source of theoretical model of world literature thus located in the periphery.