Andrew Reynolds

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Decimonónica

Volume

12

Issue

1

Publisher

Decimonónica

Publication Date

2015

First Page

53

Last Page

65

Abstract

Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío once posed the following question concerning the effects of U.S. domination of Cuba 15 years following the Spanish American War: “¿Qué espectáculo ofrece hoy día ese pueblo al espectador imparcial? El de una colonia disimulada donde a las aspiraciones de veinte años de lucha ha sucedido un oscuro servilismo al oro yanqui” (“Refutación” 111). Darío suggests that readers visually perceive the situation, that they trust “impartial spectators” in order to truly comprehend the U.S. domination in the region. Spectacles are events based on the optics of the consuming observers; viewers who, at their own leisure, decipher visual productions and performances. Unsurprisingly, Darío himself is the informed spectator and enlightens readers to the colonialist and financial burdens imposed on Cuba. The poet continually implemented this didactic maneuver to uncover the “spectacles” of U.S. domination following el desastre of 1898. The spectacle of the “lucha” of U.S.-Latin American relations, as construed by Darío, is no more evident than in the first printing of his seminal poem “A Roosevelt” in Madrid magazine Helios in 1904.1

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