NOVEL OF DE LAND: ECOCRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT ZURZULITA BY MARIANO LATORRE

Abstract

Mariano Latorre was the main exponent of Chilean “criollismo”. This literary movement was based upon a literature focused on the land with the aim of expressing those qualities that are characteristic of the country and which are represented by means of rural individuals and landscape. Latorre’s narrative masterpiece is his novel entitled Zurzulita (1920). This novel brings to life the landscape of the Maule region as a pictorial dimension which states that man is, in a dramatic fashion, prey of telluric determinism and the dynamics of nature’s economy. The objective of this study is to redecode the criollistic discourse from the viewpoint of ecocriticism with the purpose of offering new hints for reading.