ABSTRACT
Julio Cortazar's apparent association with modernism breaks down when interpreted in light of his political discourse. Cortazar's transgressive use of myth thrives on the double consciousness afforded by the experience of modernity on the margins. If the modernists envision modernity as myth, Cortazar articulates counter-myths that open up the field of representation to the diverse subjectivities that have 'a perspective of the center from the periphery'. But perhaps the most complete exploration of the symbolic possibilities of the Ulyssean voyage to articulate the discontinuities between Spanish America and Europe is found in Cortazar's most celebrated work, Rayuela. Rayuela constitutes a nodal point that connects Joycean modernist poetics and the Spanish American novel. A historicist analysis of the intersection of Ulysses and Rayuela was first proposed by Roberto Fernandez Retamar. Ulysses as a textual artefact prevents Bloom from fulfilling his righting obsessions just as Rayuela frustrates Horacio Oliveira’s metaphysical aspirations.
