Between decadentism and criollismo: The case of “Los ojos de Judas” by Abraham Valdelomar

Abstract

In this article we study the complex relations between certain decadent components, typical of the modernist heritage, and those of the criollista poetics, both present in Abraham Valdelomar’s “Los ojos de Judas” (“The eyes of Judas”). We postulate that, in the case of this tale, it is possible to identify a heterogeneous narrative that claims to be national on the basis of the recovery of what is local, but which in turn does not abandon the features of decadent modernism such as exploration of evil, disease, and the questioning of the values of Christianity. We perform the analysis of the story from the comparison of decadent and criollista poetics, to which we add an approach to the text that is based on the analysis of the narrative perspective, actantial roles and intertextual relations established by the story.