The intellectual before reality: Essay and language of dissent in Mario Benedetti

Abstract

This article broaches the relationship between the role of intellectuals in the Latin American sixties, the so-called "language of dissent" and the preponderant place that the essay had as a privileged discursive practice of these subjects. Through this genre in particular, the debates on commitment, militancy and the social and political role of literature acquire new dimensions by highlighting the interpretation that these intellectuals make of contemporaneity. The analysis of the dimensions that the language of dissent addresses in Mario Benedetti's essays offers us an excellent opportunity to reflect on the debates that they starred in the symbolic and intellectual field of those years. We will carry out, then, an analysis of those considerations that the role acquires and the redefinition that intellectual commitment acquires in the continental conjuncture. As we will be able to observe, a critical attitude, of situated commitment will be what leads him to be skeptical of phenomena such as the publishing boom. It then returns, once again, to the debate on the functionality of literature as an instrument of social change and cultural resistance.