Vicente Huidobro’s <i>Altazor</i>: the political act in one of the twentiethcentury epic poems

Abstract

This article aims at presenting a reading of Vicente Huidobrofs poem Altazor (1931,) assuming the epic genre postulations and the conditions of its development in the fi rst half of the twentieth century. Important works were produced in that period, setting in motion a deployment of the epic genre as refashioned by the avant-garde movements and contesting the metaphysical formulations that had considered it impossible as a discursive space in modern times. Altazor is situated in this movement as a self-conscience of issues of language and its objective capacities. Th e work deals with the possible modes of enunciation of a great poet, Altazor, who lacks his former serenity of old and looks for a language able to transcend his mother tongue, because he does not accept its origin. His political revolution is performed on language, the artifi ce through which history is told.

Keywords: Epic genre. Modern times. Language and history.