Parallel 12 South: satire against social appearances in the Lima of Juan del Valle y Caviedes and in the Bay of Gregório de Matos

Abstract

Juan del Valle y Caviedes and Gregório de Matos are two seventeenth-century poets who carry out their work in parallel in Lima (Peru) and Bahia (Brazil). This article proposes a comparative analysis of their satirical corpus, focusing on the critique of social appearances. This criticism is reflected in the satires of trades, in the attacks against mulattoes and in the descriptions of the respective cities. We found that Caviedes and Matos develop the peninsular satirical tradition with variations due to the Latin American context: the frequent criticism of pretence, the appearance of new referents and social types (mulattos and mestizos) and some features that characterize traditional types (the supposed Creole inferiority). These variations represent points of convergence that promote the dialogue of the colonial literatures of Spanish America and Brazil, as a complement to the traditional metropolis / colony study axis.