¿De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de barroco?

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century, and specially in the last thirty years, the relatively modern notion of the Baroque has been a most studied and discussed theoretical and critical issue, almost mandatory when thinking about Latin American literary and critical history. Two issues have centrally but unequally guided the interest in the Baroque: one, referred to its concept, and the other related to its corpus. Therefore, the relation between concept and corpus remains unattended or implicit, being considered as understood or selfevident. In this regard, this essay tries not only to visualize this notion and some of its theoretical and critical problems, but also -in methodological terms- to answer the following question: ¿what is the relation between the idea of the “Baroque” and its corpus, or some of its corpus? Finally, ¿what makes the “Baroque” idea and corpus something so exquisite and extended through literary critique?