Abstract

GASPAR, Martín. Before the "new man": dandyism and monstrosity in Manuel Mujica Lainez's Bomarzo . CELEHIS [online]. 2019, n.37, pp.1-9. ISSN 2313-9463.

Set in the Italian Renaissance, with a sadic nobleman as protagonist, and bedizened with obscure references to high culture, Bomarzo (1962) seems incompatible with the urgent Latin American political matters that haunt the boom novels of the time. Read through the lens of gender and disability studies, however, Manuel Mujica Lainez's ostensibly remote and conservative fiction addresses preoccupations that are not dissimilar to the ones that preoccupied contemporary fictions. This article explores how Bomarzo delves into a series of topics that characterized the literature of the sixties-"consciousness raising," imperialist power structures and, especially, the renewal of models of masculinity. Paradoxically, the queer dandy, physically "monstruous" protagonist of the novel enables an effective critique of the cruelty of the imperialist system that it seems to celebrate.

Keywords : Bomarzo; monstrosity;  the new man; boom novels; dandyism..