Flores del mal en la prosa modernista latinoamericana. “Viola acherontia” de Leopoldo Lugones

Sarah Burnautzki

doi:10.14198/pangeas.29720

Authors

Sarah Burnautzki University of Heidelberg, Germany https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8223-4251

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14198/pangeas.29720

Keywords:

critical plant studies, Modern, capitalism, argentine narrative, Supernatural, Latin American Literature, leopoldo lugones, flower, plant studies, modernity, coloniality, latin america, Charles baudelaire, argentine literature

Abstract

This article aims to examine the confluence of modernity, rationality, and dehumanization in Leopoldo Lugones’ short story “Viola acherontia” (1906), using a (malevolent) floral element as the allegorical and structural axis of the narrative. By uncovering the underlying meaning, the analysis reveals that the flower in fact encapsulates a profound reflection on the exploitation and instrumentalization of nature, sustained by hegemonic scientific knowledge and capitalist interests within a Latin American colonial context marked by epistemological domination. In this light, the study explores the construction and design of the fictional flower species in order to ultimately expose the underlying unease toward an ominous and unmanageable process of modernization, in which the scientist becomes both fundamentally and irrationally entangled. As the Argentine writer shifts the narrative focus from the flower to the subject who manipulates it, a gradual deterioration of humanity emerges in the name of supposed modern progress. In his effort to dominate and contain the dynamism of nature, the scientist ends up being overtaken by its force. This narrative development underscores an intrinsic connection between aesthetics and morality, revealing the impossibility of constructing an amoral aesthetics. Through this lens, the article seeks to address the Latin American experience within a crisis-ridden modernity through the symbolic figure of the "Viola acherontia”.

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