Pro(bl)em: The paradox of genre in the literary renovation of the Spanish American poema en prosa

The poema en prosa originates in the Romantic subversion of discursive boundaries, as a problematic genre that foregrounds its theoretical self-questioning. Through its confrontation of prose and poetry, and the paradoxical affirmation of a form that results from the dialogic struggle between them, the poema en prosa is able to create an alternative space for Spanish American writers conditioned by a colonial history of literary borrowings from other traditions. This counter-discursive entity attracted turn-of-the-century modernistas such as Julian del Casal and Ruben Dario, as did the prose experiments of Jose Marti Delineating an autochthonous discursive identity for Spanish America through Romantic ideology, Marti anticipates the renovating social and aesthetic ideals of the poema en prosa. His search for a paradoxically original Spanish American expression helps establish the theoretical parameters for later modernistas and postmodernistas, who resort to the poema en prosa as an ambiguous means of creative autonomy.