SOURCE: "The Contemporary Cultural Revolution in Latin America as Reflected in the Theater of Xavier Villaurrutia," in Topic, Vol. II, No. 4, Fall, 1962, pp. 30-38.

In the following essay, Moreno posits the coming of a social and cultural revolution in Latin America, and notes evidence of this shift in Villaurrutia's work.

The political and economic development of the Latin American republics from their independence to the twentieth century had been so gradual as to be scarcely discernible. The masses had been contained in a strait jacket of paternalism and had not been permitted to plan or direct their own lives, to participate in the affairs of their villages, or even to think for themselves. The precedent for such a wretched lot had been established during the wars of independence in which their role had been as inactive as it has been in the political upheavals since. The leitmotif or...