| This work analyzes the way in which Degeneration Theory and its rhetorical mechanisms triggered a textual productivity in the field of late 19 th century Latin-American novel. It shows that this theory allowed the writer to explore the tensions inherent in his experience of Modernity and to express his problematic positioning in regard to culture. In chapter one I study the theoretical implications of the Theory of Degeneration, its scope as an organizing narrative of reality. In the second chapter I study 15 novels, which I approach from three different perspectives. The first has to do with the introduction of scientific-like conceptions to explain the predicament of culture; conceptions that nevertheless cannot veil the anxiety toward change that the writer experiences. The second perspective resorts to an idea of nature as a sort of exceptional instance, thanks to which the writer shelters himself—and his culture—from the threat of Modernity. The third perspective presents the character of the “trasplantado,” a character that emphasizes the experimental nature of this novel in showing his appropriation of foreign aesthetical codes.; In general this study undertakes the exploration of the metaphorical process that Degeneration produced: a “contaminating” process that pervades the texts of the 19th century Latin-American novel in a way that resonates with the biological contamination that this theory postulates. |
