Nationalism and Environmental Justice in the Poetry of Juan Antonio Corretjer

• In Event: Political Landscapes: Ecocritical Perspectives and the Status of Nature

Abstract

Juan Antonio Corretjer is well known as a revolutionary fighter for Puerto Rico’s independence, and as a poet whose works celebrate and affirm Puerto Rico’s national identity and sovereignty. In this paper, I examine Corretjer’s poetry— particularly his masterpiece, the long poem "Alabanza en la torre de Ciales" (1953)—through the lens of contemporary ecocritical concerns. Puerto Rico’s nature and topography are dominant themes in Corretjer’s works, and critics have correctly linked them to his nationalist ideals. However, Corretjer’s emphasis on the materiality of the land and its non-human inhabitants problematizes a view of “nature” as merely a symbol, or even as the stage, for primordially human concerns. By opening itself to a perspective that we might call biocentric (as opposed to exclusively anthropocentric), Corretjer’s poetry poses questions that nationalist discourse cannot fully address, in regard to the rights of non-human natural beings, and an equitable relation between humans and their environment. These questions would retain their urgency even after national independence. This does not invalidate or negate Corretjer’s nationalist agenda, but it does place it in the context of other emancipatory struggles (including those against racist prejudices, class inequalities, and environmental degradation), which are related, but cannot be reduced to, the struggle for national independence. What all of these struggles share in a Caribbean context is that they must challenge a colonial order that commodifies human and non-human agents in the interests of global capitalism.

Author

• Victor J Figueroa Sepulveda, Wayne State University