SOURCE: "The 'Modernista' Renovation," in Studies in Spanish-American Literature, Brentano's Publishers, 1920, pp. 1-100.

In the excerpt that follows, Goldberg finds a tight bond between the literary and the political in both Martí's style and his views on aesthetics.

The resemblances among the more noted exponents of modernism are many; there is the note of growing cosmopolitanism, the morbid tendency, the pale cast of thought, the resurgence of self. From among these figures, however, that of Martí, "the gallant paladin of Cuban freedom," stands out as an exception. True, Martí shared, and even contributed early vigor to, the dominant characteristics of modernism. In him, however, no morbidity, no preoccupation with metaphysical mysteries; he is the rebel in action,—a volcanic force driven by fate, like a Wandering Jew of liberty, through many lands and to many hearts. Like so many of his fellows, he became early embroiled in...