Rafael Estrada y la distinción en el campo literario costarricense de la década de 1920

Abstract

A partir de los postulados teóricos de Pierre Bourdieu acerca de los campos culturales, se analiza la polémica que en la década de 1920 sostuvo Rafael Estrada Carvajal, el poeta introductor de la literatura vanguardista en Costa Rica, con los agentes poseedores de mayor capital cultural del campo literario costarricense de la época. Se argumenta que en tal lucha por el poder de distinción, la obra del joven autor, por estar conformada por una heterogeneidad que dialogaba tanto con la tradición modernista como con las vanguardias, y consecuente era distante del canon tradicional, fue relegada a una zona periférica del campo literario, desplazamiento que se mantiene hasta la actualidad.

Based on the theoretical statements by Pierre Bourdieu regarding cultural fields, I analyze the problem argued by Rafael Estrada Carvajal in the 1920s with those agents whom possessed the greatest cultural knowledge in regards to literature in those times; he was the first poet to introduce the state-of-the-art (Vanguard) literature in Costa Rica. It is argued that in the fight for power of distinction, the literary works by the young writer, given that it was characterized by a heterogeneity which dialogued with the modernist tradition as well as with the Vanguard ones, hence stayed detached from the traditional canon; it was given to a peripheral realm in the literary world, a displacement which is true to this day.