El arte y la sombra. A propósito de Por los tiempos de Clemente Colling de Felisberto Hernández

Abstract

Por los tiempos de Clemente Colling (1942) is the first narrative in “the memoir trilogy” by Uruguayan writer Felisberto Hernández (1902-1964). Although some critics have read it sometimes as an autobiography, we understand that consideration of biographical material in this work can only be pertinent free form any generic typecasting, just like any other element serving fiction, and never the other way round. By contrast and paradox, and a frequently poetic language, the figure of the music master inverts religious liturgy to become a prophet from the shadows, opposed to the luminous established “truths”: his blindness will induce the “art of seeing” in his disciple, an other valuation and a new meaning of life.