The Harp and the Shadow in the Framework of the “New Historical Novel” of Latin America

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the narrative strategies present in Alejo Carpentier’s The Harp and the Shadow (El arpa y la sombra, 1979) that comprise what current literary theory has identified as the Latin American ‘new historical novel’. First, a brief description of the traditional historical novel and its context of appearance during the European romanticism of the 19th century is provided, based on Georg Luckács’s (1966) contributions, to differentiate its model from that of the subsequent production in this genre. The following is a general characterization of the historical novel written in Latin America from the last decades of the 20th century, to recognize the historical-social circumstances that led to its renewal and the features that determine it, together with the proposals of Menton (1993) and Aínsa (1991) on the fundamental role of Carpentier in its constitution. Finally, the study of each indicated feature—conscious distortion of historical events, the fictionalization of significant historical figures, use of the first person in the narration, dialogism, and polyphony—is carried out to demonstrate the belonging of The Harp and the Shadow to this recent type of texts.