Poetic discourse and discourses of power in <i>Salmos</i> of Ernesto Cardenal

Abstract

This article demonstrates how Salmos (1964) by Ernesto Cardenal (1925) contains an inexorable critique of five decades of the twentieth century where despite scientific progress society embarked on the barbarism of world wars and the Cold War. This historical period has an intrinsic relation to the manipulative use of the political, warlike and commercial propaganda of the hegemonic powers which is spread through the modern media of mass communication. According to Salmos, propaganda contains the rhetorical discourses of hegemonic powers that detract from the sense of language, thus demonstrating the degradation and frivolity of modern life. Cardenal opposes propaganda with exteriorist poetry, poetry expressed through clear, objective and meaningful communication. Moreover, he concludes in the transience of power, in the permanence of poetry, and in the need to re-evaluate the language of power and the language that we use to describe reality. This research uses the analysis of the discursive enunciation and the Hispanic American thought of the first half of the twentieth century such as Mariano Picón-Salas and Fausto Reinaga.