Rafael Barrett
Encyclopedia
Rafael Barrett, complete name Rafael Ángel Jorge Julián Barrett y Álvarez de Toledo, (Torrelavega
, Spain
, January 7, 1876 – Arcachon
, France
, December 17, 1910) was a Spanish
writer, narrator, essayist and journalist, who developed most of his literary production in Paraguay
, becoming an important figure of the Paraguay
an literature during the twentieth century. He is particularly known for his stories and essays with profound philosophical content that exposed a vitalism that in some way anticipated existentialism. His philosophical and political statements in favor of anarchism
are also well known.
, to study engineering, there he became friends with Valle-Inclán, Ramiro de Maeztu and other members of the generation of ’98. In Madrid, he lived rebel boy, going from casino to casino and from woman to woman, alternating with visits to important literary gatherings in Paris
and Madrid.
His constants attacks of rage lead him to confront with a member of the nobility, the duke of Arión, who agreed to a fight in middle of a function of the Circo de Pari. The duke of Arión was president of the Court of Honor that had disqualified him to duel with the attorney José María Azopardo, who had slandered him. All this made a big scandal in just six months.
This situation led him, in 1903, with his honor seriously damaged, to travel first to Argentina
– where he started to write for different newspapers – and later to Paraguay, where he settled at the age of 29. In 1904 in October, he arrived to Villeta
as a correspondent for the Argentine newspaper “El Tiempo” to report about the liberal revolution that was occurring at the moment, he immediately contacted the young intellectual that had adhered to the revolution. In Paraguay he formed a family and is where, according to his own words, he became “good”. Years later, he moved to Brazil
as a result of a forced exile and then to Uruguay
.
in December and started to work in the Statistic Office. In 1905 he married Francisca López Maíz, participated in the creation of the literary group “La Colmena” and manifests the first symptoms of tuberculosis.
In 1906, because of an argument originated by the presence of Ricardo Fuente in Buenos Aires
, a duel between Barrett and Juan de Urquía was arranged. But Juan de Urquía eluded the duel with Barrett alleging his disqualification in Madrid. Days Later, Barrett beat a man called Pomés because he confused him with Juan de Urquía in a hotel in Buenos Aires.
In 1907, in Areguá
is born his only son, Alejandro Rafael. In July 1908, Albino Jara
organized a military insurrection. Barrett organized the attention to the wounded in the streets of Asunción. On October 3 of the same year, Barrett was arrested because of denounces about tortures and abuse that he published in Germinal (an anarchist newspaper that he owned) and on October 13, thanks to the help of the English Consul, he was released. He was exiled to Corumbá
in the Brazilian Mato Grosso do Sul
.
In February 1909 the political situation got better. Barret received warranties of his safety and established in San Bernardino
, near Asunción. The Paraguayan journals open again their pages for him. In September he traveled to France. He had been maintaining correspondence with the doctor Quinton and decided to continue the treatment against the tuberculosis.
and particularly Paraguay defined him as a literate while developing his journalistic work. Ruined as he was, he never doubted in embracing the cause of the weaker holding his plume against the social injustice. In a certain manner, his time living in the misery made that he could liberate from a false life and to start living for the others.
The incidence of the miserable life conditions in a great part of South America
reflected on his writings that were insistently turning into complaining journalism. His turn to a definitively anarchic not only carried problems with the more upper classes and the Paraguayan government (being imprisoned many times), but also many Paraguayan intellectuals gave him the back.
Some of his central literary ideas are framed and defined in the regenerationist style. Is evident that, in this short examples, the coincidence of Barret with the characteristic tone of the regenerationist wave that flooded the Spanish thoughts because of the “disaster” of the ’98 and that have its main exponents in Costa, Picavea, Isern, and others, and its algid points in the press with the famous article published in “El tiempo”, a journal of the conservationist opposition, August 16 of 1898. The constant medical metaphors, the perception of Spain as a gravely injured country, the conviction that the military defeat was just a symptom of more deeper problems, the diagnosis of a progressive fall and the need of its “salvation”.
In “the Paraguayan pain” of Barret we see reflected the deep love that he felt to the Paraguayan people.
The writings of Barret are from a notable intrinsic quality. In the opinion of José María Fernández Vázquez, if he would had more time to develop his work, literary style and ideological strength, together would have formed one of the most interesting textual corpus of America.
With the publishing a series of articles What the Paraguayan yerba fields are, in which he reveals the almost slavish oppression of the mensús by the companies, Barret is faced to many powerful economic and politic interests. The pages of the journals where he used to publish were now closing and also he begins to feel the rejection of the local intellectuals, driving him to the isolation. As he bitterly confesses, "the custom of thinking at every single moment has some of shameful vice to the eyes of the common people and has made me a useful, even noxious, and hated being".
Because of his anarchic political ideas and his complaining about the social injustice he is imprisoned and banished first to the Brazilian Mato Grosso do Sul
and finally to Montevideo
. Being there he got in touch with the Uruguayan intellectual vanguards. But, the tuberculosis oppresses him and returns to the Paraguay as soon as the authorities allow it, and the local journals open their pages again to him.
He traveled to France
in 1910 to try a new treatment for the tuberculosis. He died December 17 of 1910 at the age of 34 in the Regina Forèt Hotel in Arcachon
, assisted by his aunt Susana Barret. He died away from his family and away from the only place that he considered as his fatherland, Paraguay, and without a single mention in the country from where he escaped: Spain
.
During his life only saw published one book: "Actual Moralities", that was successful in Uruguay, a place where the intellectuals always connected with Barret. The luminous star of Rafael Barrett dimly reappears over the sky of Madrid
when the America Editorial edits some of his work.
In Paraguay, Augusto Roa Bastos
said:
In Argentina, Jorge Luis Borges
says in a letter of 1917 to his friend, Roberto Godel:
In Uruguay, José Enrique Rodó
was amazed by his press articles. He wrote:
The work from barret, besides of the singular commitment with his time and circumstance, contains a beauty and an exceptional aesthetic value. In Paraguay is thought that Barret begins from the conception of the critic realism in the vision of the narrative matter, and his short stories reveal great part of his notable aesthetic gift for the construction of the tale. The author that, through his work, with skill, sensitivity and beauty, gives exuberance to his work doesn’t forget the irony and the paradox, essentially intellectual resources.
The inflection point in that evolution is produced between the end of 1906 and beginnings of 1907. On those dates, his concern about social subjects is becoming bigger and his critic position becoming more radical. Possibly it was the time required to assimilate the tough American reality ("the Paraguayan pain"), after of contact it, Barret enriches his spirit. The exuberant and conflictive American vitality filled the hole that the European intellectual ambient could have left on him.
Is from 1908 that Barret begins to self-define as anarchist in his famous pamphlet My Anarchism.
Torrelavega
Torrelavega is a municipality and important industrial and commercial hub in the single province Autonomous Community of Cantabria in northern Spain....
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, January 7, 1876 – Arcachon
Arcachon
Arcachon is a commune in the Gironde department in southwestern France.It is a popular bathing location on the Atlantic coast southwest of Bordeaux in the Landes forest...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, December 17, 1910) was a Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
writer, narrator, essayist and journalist, who developed most of his literary production in Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, becoming an important figure of the Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
an literature during the twentieth century. He is particularly known for his stories and essays with profound philosophical content that exposed a vitalism that in some way anticipated existentialism. His philosophical and political statements in favor of anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
are also well known.
Youth
Barrett was born in Torrelavega in the year 1876, with the name of Rafael Ángel Jorge Julián Barrett y Álvarez de Toledo, in the bosom of a wealthy Spanish-English family, with his parents George Barret Clarke, natural from Coventry (England) and María del Carmen Álvarez de Toledo y Toraño, natural from Villafranca del Bierzo, province of León. At the age of twenty he moved to MadridMadrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, to study engineering, there he became friends with Valle-Inclán, Ramiro de Maeztu and other members of the generation of ’98. In Madrid, he lived rebel boy, going from casino to casino and from woman to woman, alternating with visits to important literary gatherings in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Madrid.
His constants attacks of rage lead him to confront with a member of the nobility, the duke of Arión, who agreed to a fight in middle of a function of the Circo de Pari. The duke of Arión was president of the Court of Honor that had disqualified him to duel with the attorney José María Azopardo, who had slandered him. All this made a big scandal in just six months.
This situation led him, in 1903, with his honor seriously damaged, to travel first to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
– where he started to write for different newspapers – and later to Paraguay, where he settled at the age of 29. In 1904 in October, he arrived to Villeta
Villeta
Villeta is a city of Paraguay, in the Central Department, on the banks of Paraguay River. It is an important industrial center and port.-Toponymy:...
as a correspondent for the Argentine newspaper “El Tiempo” to report about the liberal revolution that was occurring at the moment, he immediately contacted the young intellectual that had adhered to the revolution. In Paraguay he formed a family and is where, according to his own words, he became “good”. Years later, he moved to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
as a result of a forced exile and then to Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
.
Life in Paraguay
Barrett settled in AsunciónAsunción
Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay.The "Ciudad de Asunción" is an autonomous capital district not part of any department. The metropolitan area, called Gran Asunción, includes the cities of San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Ñemby, San...
in December and started to work in the Statistic Office. In 1905 he married Francisca López Maíz, participated in the creation of the literary group “La Colmena” and manifests the first symptoms of tuberculosis.
In 1906, because of an argument originated by the presence of Ricardo Fuente in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, a duel between Barrett and Juan de Urquía was arranged. But Juan de Urquía eluded the duel with Barrett alleging his disqualification in Madrid. Days Later, Barrett beat a man called Pomés because he confused him with Juan de Urquía in a hotel in Buenos Aires.
In 1907, in Areguá
Areguá
Areguá is a city in Paraguay; located 28 km away from the capital city Asunción. It is the capital of Central. Probably the best feature of this Paraguayan town is its geographical location; it lays between a group of rolling hills with a distinctive rock formation and a beautiful blue lake,...
is born his only son, Alejandro Rafael. In July 1908, Albino Jara
Albino Jara
Albino Jara Benegas was provisional President of Paraguay from 19 January 1911 to 5 July 1911. He was a member of the Liberal Party.-External links:*...
organized a military insurrection. Barrett organized the attention to the wounded in the streets of Asunción. On October 3 of the same year, Barrett was arrested because of denounces about tortures and abuse that he published in Germinal (an anarchist newspaper that he owned) and on October 13, thanks to the help of the English Consul, he was released. He was exiled to Corumbá
Corumbá
Corumbá is a municipality in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, 425 km northwest of Campo Grande, the state's capital. It has a population of approximately 96,000 inhabitants, and its economy is based mainly on agriculture, animal husbandry, mineral extraction, and tourism, being the...
in the Brazilian Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...
.
In February 1909 the political situation got better. Barret received warranties of his safety and established in San Bernardino
San Bernardino, Paraguay
San Bernardino is a town and distrito in Paraguay, located on the shores of Ypacarai Lake in the Cordillera Department...
, near Asunción. The Paraguayan journals open again their pages for him. In September he traveled to France. He had been maintaining correspondence with the doctor Quinton and decided to continue the treatment against the tuberculosis.
Career
His journeys through Argentina, UruguayUruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and particularly Paraguay defined him as a literate while developing his journalistic work. Ruined as he was, he never doubted in embracing the cause of the weaker holding his plume against the social injustice. In a certain manner, his time living in the misery made that he could liberate from a false life and to start living for the others.
The incidence of the miserable life conditions in a great part of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
reflected on his writings that were insistently turning into complaining journalism. His turn to a definitively anarchic not only carried problems with the more upper classes and the Paraguayan government (being imprisoned many times), but also many Paraguayan intellectuals gave him the back.
Work
The work of Rafael Barret is not too known. Short and not systematic, it was published almost entirely in journals of Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. However, his thoughts notably influenced in Latin America and especially at the zone of De la Plata River. Although this influence wasn’t so deep, it was enough to be mentioned by Ramiro de Maeztu as a “figure in the history of America”.Some of his central literary ideas are framed and defined in the regenerationist style. Is evident that, in this short examples, the coincidence of Barret with the characteristic tone of the regenerationist wave that flooded the Spanish thoughts because of the “disaster” of the ’98 and that have its main exponents in Costa, Picavea, Isern, and others, and its algid points in the press with the famous article published in “El tiempo”, a journal of the conservationist opposition, August 16 of 1898. The constant medical metaphors, the perception of Spain as a gravely injured country, the conviction that the military defeat was just a symptom of more deeper problems, the diagnosis of a progressive fall and the need of its “salvation”.
In “the Paraguayan pain” of Barret we see reflected the deep love that he felt to the Paraguayan people.
The writings of Barret are from a notable intrinsic quality. In the opinion of José María Fernández Vázquez, if he would had more time to develop his work, literary style and ideological strength, together would have formed one of the most interesting textual corpus of America.
Last years
It was in the new continent, more specifically in the Paraguay, where he made himself as a writer, discovered the true love and the paternity. However, one reached these goals, he fell gravely ill. The historical circumstances of the Paraguay wasn’t good for receiving positively neither his radically critic ideas nor his questioning thoughts.With the publishing a series of articles What the Paraguayan yerba fields are, in which he reveals the almost slavish oppression of the mensús by the companies, Barret is faced to many powerful economic and politic interests. The pages of the journals where he used to publish were now closing and also he begins to feel the rejection of the local intellectuals, driving him to the isolation. As he bitterly confesses, "the custom of thinking at every single moment has some of shameful vice to the eyes of the common people and has made me a useful, even noxious, and hated being".
Because of his anarchic political ideas and his complaining about the social injustice he is imprisoned and banished first to the Brazilian Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...
and finally to Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
. Being there he got in touch with the Uruguayan intellectual vanguards. But, the tuberculosis oppresses him and returns to the Paraguay as soon as the authorities allow it, and the local journals open their pages again to him.
He traveled to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in 1910 to try a new treatment for the tuberculosis. He died December 17 of 1910 at the age of 34 in the Regina Forèt Hotel in Arcachon
Arcachon
Arcachon is a commune in the Gironde department in southwestern France.It is a popular bathing location on the Atlantic coast southwest of Bordeaux in the Landes forest...
, assisted by his aunt Susana Barret. He died away from his family and away from the only place that he considered as his fatherland, Paraguay, and without a single mention in the country from where he escaped: Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
During his life only saw published one book: "Actual Moralities", that was successful in Uruguay, a place where the intellectuals always connected with Barret. The luminous star of Rafael Barrett dimly reappears over the sky of Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
when the America Editorial edits some of his work.
The relevance of Barret
Three of the greatest writers from South America have expressed their deep admiration for the work of Barret and his influence on them.In Paraguay, Augusto Roa Bastos
Augusto Roa Bastos
Augusto Roa Bastos, was a noted Paraguayan novelist and short story writer, and one of the most important Latin American writers of the 20th century. As a teenager he fought in the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, and he later worked as a journalist, screenwriter and professor...
said:
Barret taught to us, the Paraguayan writers, to write. He introduced us in the grazing light and in the almost phantasmagoric nebulous of the reality that is delirious of its historical, social and cultural myths and counter-myths.
In Argentina, Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
says in a letter of 1917 to his friend, Roberto Godel:
Now that we are talking about literary subjects I ask you if you know a great writer, Rafael Barret, with a free and bold spirit. With tears in my eyes and on my knees I beg you that when you have a national or two to spend, go straight to Mendesky's, or any other library- and ask for a copy of "Looking the life" of this author. I think that it was published in Montevideo. Is a great book, and reading it soothed me from the foolishness of Giusti, Soiza, O'Reilly and my cousin Alvarito Melián Lafinur.
In Uruguay, José Enrique Rodó
José Enrique Rodo
José Enrique Rodó Piñeyro was a Uruguayan essayist. He called for the youth of Latin America to reject materialism, to revert back to Greco-Roman habits of free thought and self enrichment, and to develop and concentrate on their culture.He cultivated an epistolary relationship with important...
was amazed by his press articles. He wrote:
[...] It’s been a long time since that when I step out with someone I could ask about this kind of things, whether is or not the subject, I ask: Do you read La Razón? Have you noticed some articles signed by Rafael Barret?
The work from barret, besides of the singular commitment with his time and circumstance, contains a beauty and an exceptional aesthetic value. In Paraguay is thought that Barret begins from the conception of the critic realism in the vision of the narrative matter, and his short stories reveal great part of his notable aesthetic gift for the construction of the tale. The author that, through his work, with skill, sensitivity and beauty, gives exuberance to his work doesn’t forget the irony and the paradox, essentially intellectual resources.
My Anarchism
The social and political thoughts of Rafael Barret experiments, in the course of his seven years of expression, a clear transformation that goes from an individualism that converges vitalists Nietzsche-like features, to a fully assumed, mutual anarchism.The inflection point in that evolution is produced between the end of 1906 and beginnings of 1907. On those dates, his concern about social subjects is becoming bigger and his critic position becoming more radical. Possibly it was the time required to assimilate the tough American reality ("the Paraguayan pain"), after of contact it, Barret enriches his spirit. The exuberant and conflictive American vitality filled the hole that the European intellectual ambient could have left on him.
Is from 1908 that Barret begins to self-define as anarchist in his famous pamphlet My Anarchism.
The etymological sense of "absence of government" is enough for me. We have to destroy the spirit of authority and the prestige of the laws. That's it. That would be the work of the free exam. The fools think that anarchy is disorder and that without government the society will always end in chaos. They don't conceive other order that the one imposed from the exterior by the terror of the weapons. The anarchism, as I understand it, is reduced to the free political exam. [...] ¿So what we must do? Educate the others and us. Everything is resumed in the free exam. That our children examine our laws and despise them!
Published work
- "El postulado de Euclides" (The postulate of Euclides). Two articles of scientific divulgation published in the Contemporary Magazine. (5/30/1897)
- "Sobre el espesor y la rigidez de la corteza terrestre" (Of the thickness and rigidness of the Earth's surface). The only two articles of Barret published in Spain. (2/28/1898).
- In 1904 he writes in The Spanish Mail of Buenos Aires and acts as secretary of the Spanish Republican League of the city.
- In 1905 he writes regularly for El Diario of Asunción. He begins to work at the department of engineers and the train.
- In 1906, his journalistic labor is increasing progressively. he write for Los Sucesos, La tarde, Alón, El Paraguay, El Cívico. At the same time, their work becomes closer to the social problems with a deep critic vision.
- In June 1908 he publishes in El Diario What the Paraguayan yerba fields are, complaining about the slavish situation of the mensús (the pawns of the yerba fields) in the Alto Paraná. The pressure of the companies makes that the journals close their doors to him.
- In 1909, his book "Actual Moralities" had a "crazy success".
External links
- "My Anarchism" by Rafael Barrett
- RafaelBarrett.net, obras de Rafael Barrett
- Barrett, estudio, biografía, bibliografía y textos selectos de Barrett
- Rafael Barrett y la condición humana, estudio del pensamiento de Barrett por Francisco Corral
- Obra
- Evocación de Rafael Barrett Álvarez de Toledo
- A partir de ahora el combate será libre, recopilación de artículos de Rafael Barrett prologados por Santiago Alba Rico
- El pensamiento de Rafael Barrett: un "joven del 98" en el Río de la Plata, por Francisco Corral
- Rafael Barrett, textos de y sobre