The present paper proposes a re-reading of some central aspects linked to the cultural and literary periodization of the 19th century - among them, the question of the market, the tension between press and literature, the demands of the new reading public, text formats and their channels of circulation, the processes of reading expansion, the ideologization of linguistic abilities, the impact (and the experience) of literacy policies on the constitution of a literary or reading culture - . By looking at the critical and historiographical production of the last decades, a review of some theoretical and critical assumptions on the process of literary modernization in Latin America is sketched and some hypotheses are suggested for the elaboration of new approaches to the matter.
modernization; lettered culture; market