Between copies and simulacrums: transgression of the poetic norm and the Cuban revolutionary narrative in Fuera del juego and Otras Cartas a Milena

Abstract

After the triumph of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, aesthetic forms were established in Cuban poetry that exalted the achievements and key figures of the revolutionary process. This "poetic norm", which became hegemonic, was characterized by the use of a historical and social “self” and was underpinned by an exalted nationalism, an ascending and progressive vision of history and an epic tone that glorified the values and achievements of the revolution. In this sense, and in dialogue with Deleuze’s and Foucault’s theoretical proposals on simulacrum and similitude, we propose to study the books Fuera del juego by Heberto Padilla and Otras cartas a Milena by Reina María Rodríguez as aesthetic projects that transgress the characteristics of this norm and, therefore, the hegemonic narrative of the Cuban revolution.

Keywords:
Cuban poetry; Cuban revolution; poetic norm; transgression; simulacrum