Che Guevara: the rhetoric of the partisan

Abstract

In the first part of this text I describe the tributes that were paid to Ernesto Che Guevara at the beginning of October 1987, during the XX Anniversary of his death. I explaine the general reasons for these tributes, focusing especially on the Rectification Process. In the second part I analyze the poetry about Guevara that was published at this time and I maintain that the central element of the texts is prosopopeia, which in this case consists of giving a voice and face to a dead person. In the third part I show that this form of poiesis invades all the speeches of October 1987. In the last section I return to the previous developments and argue that at this time Guevara embodies the figure of the partisan, which explains the political and cultural importance that he possesses within Cuba.