Caliban has fun:images of emancipation in Reinaldo Arena's El central?

LAURA MACCIONI

Puebla

Congreso; American Comparative Literature Association Conference 2007:Trans/pan/inter culturas en contacto; 2007

American Comparative Literature Association

During the 1960s and ?70s, the pressure of politics over cultural practices had crucial effects on literature. One of them was the re-reading, from a revolutionary perspective, offoundational texts that had, historically, provided the metaphors to interpret the past, and, consequently, the meaning of the present.The colonial allegory displayed by Shakespeare?s The Tempest was one of these texts. In 1972, Roberto Fernández Retamar recovered the opposite pair of Calibán and Próspero inhis essay Calibán. Contra la leyenda negra. However, contrary to Rodo?s Ariel (1900) reading of the drama, Fernández Retamar made Calibán a symbol of the imminent emancipation of the continent.Nonetheless, in this celebrated (in) version of Shakespeare?s story, Calibán also remained a slave, as he was perpetually committed to demonstrate the Truth of an essential entity, the People of Latin America.  I would like to discuss in my paper some other ways of imagining Caliban?s emancipation. Therefore, I will focus in Reinaldo Arena?s re-writing of Latin American history in ?El Central? (1970).