Roberto Fernández Retamar: A humanist source between poetry and dogma

Abstract

Roberto Fernández Retamar (1930-2019) was one of the most relevant Cuban and Latin American essayists and poets of the second half of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st. This paper outlines the essential results of his professional work, specifically those related to literary theory and criticism in the continent. The technique used is the bibliographic and documentary review and the general objective of the text is to systematize in a critical -although necessarily brief- way some of the fundamental areas of work and nodes of thought of this outstanding professor. Several analysts point out unevenness or some dogmatic ideological approach in his work, associated with the political militancy and bureaucratic exercise he maintained for decades as a defender of the Cuban regime derived from the 1959 revolution. Without ignoring this shortcoming, the article concludes that the humanist vocation and the constant research on poetry, with special emphasis on the continuity of José Martí's universal ideology, give Fernandez Retamar's work a transcendental relevance. The refined intellectual production that he achieved installs him, with ample authority, in the “autonomous kingdom” of the best literature.