SOURCE: "Poetry and Society in Spanish America," in Reflections on Spanish American Poetry, State University of New York Press, 1973, pp. 21-38.

Carrera Andrade was an Ecuadoran poet, essayist, and diplomat. In the following essay, he discusses the relationship between poetry and society in Latin America.

"We are passing through calamitous times, during which it is not possible to speak or to keep silent without danger": these words which seem to allude to our epoch were written by the great Valencian thinker Juan Luis Vives in the sixteenth century. From then on, the two tendencies, toward acquiescence or toward dissent, were already emerging in the terrain of ideas, which means in today's vocabulary that men of letters took positions either in the ranks of conformity or of nonconformity. The most debated questions were the Counter Reformation, the right of Spain to conquer the New World, the crusade to redeem...