Melgar and Olmedo

Abstract

The cause of American Emancipation has manifest literary expression in Peru. Of course, she is especially contained by the revolutionary proclamations and by the work of polemic tendency that from the "Letter" of the Arequlpeño Jesuit Vizcardo has to conclude in "The Political Carlas" of José Faustino Sánchez Carrión, where in clear and gallant language the republican ideal is exhibited against the monarchist tendencies that took shape in Peru. Alongside the clandestine propaganda of the rebel creoles and the popular muse that accompanies the liberating action and is present alongside San Martín and Bolívar, singing revolutionary songs with typical lexicon and with indigenous influence, two undoubted poets represent, more than others, two aspects of emancipatory literature: the intimate and telluric voice and the grandiose intonation. One is called Melgar; the other, Olmedo.