The politics of irony and allegory in postmodern and postcolonial discourse and in contemporary Colombian literature

This dissertation explores the redefinition of the political role attributed to literary works in the Latin American tradition, a redefinition motivated by a perceived crisis in representation that has been approached from cultural and literary studies particularly since the mid-1980s. In this context, I examine the relationship between the tropes of irony and allegory and the reconfiguration of the public and the private spheres observed in contemporary Colombian literature, focusing on works written in the past 25 years. It is my purpose in this dissertation to analyze how the tropes of irony and allegory have figured in cultural and literary discourses and practices in Latin America, particularly focusing on the postmodern and the postcolonial, as it is within these paradigms that the tropes of irony and allegory have been approached as indicators of political commitment---or lack thereof---in literary and critical works. This study departs from two interrelated hypotheses: that there has been a marked retreat into the private sphere in contemporary Colombian novels, and that this retreat is underscored by the use of irony and allegory, which ultimately points to the redefinition of the political role of literature in Latin America. To contextualize the discussion, I offer an overview of the way in which postmodern and postcolonial discourse has been received in Latin America, and the political potential that each paradigm contemplates. Establishing connections between Jameson, Rorty, Ashcroft, and Hutcheon, I present and problematize the premise that the ironist novel is primarily motivated by aesthetic and self-determination concerns and is circumscribed to the private sphere, whereas the allegorical novel addresses political concerns and is circumscribed to the public sphere. My analysis of several Colombian novels illustrates how the tropes of irony and allegory point to a sense of indeterminacy, even defeat, and in turn to traumatic experiences in the public sphere and a retreat into the private. It is my conclusion that such retreat does not imply an abandonment of politics, but a redefinition of its role in terms of private and everyday life, which in the long run, makes a reconfiguration of the public sphere possible.