ABSTRACT
The innovations in style and technique that Rodriguez Monegal perceives in the cosmopolitan trend largely coincide with those most often associated with Anglo-American modernism. This chapter analyses the use of allusion, myth and parody in a select group of novels and short stories frequently termed 'Joycean'. It aims to challenge the belief that experimental prose written in Spanish America dissolves the links between art and place, between literary expression and specific historical and geographical settings. Narrative fragmentation, structural complexity and linguistic self-reflexivity, common features that define both literary modernism and contemporary Spanish American fiction, generally convey a feeling of repudiation and aloofness toward history and society. Geomodernisms signal 'a locational approach to modernisms' engagement with cultural and political discourses of global modernity', providing a suggestive frame to rethink the dialogue between Joyce and Spanish American fiction beyond the confines of Eurocentric literary history. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
