The teacher and the Decadent. Two Reactions to Positivism in the Generation of 900 in Uruguay: José Enrique Rodó and Julio Herrera y Reissig

Abstract

As in other countries of the Latin American continent, at the end of the 19th century, the new intellectual generations in Uruguay also were looking for a way out of the previous decades prevailing thinking, marked by the influence of the Positivism. José Enrique Rodó and Julio Herrera y Reissig represent with their masterpieces Ariel and Treaty of the imbecility of the country, respectively, two apparently opposite extremes. The article presents these two reactions to the crisis of the Positivism, highlighting the differences and similarities between the two possibly most prominent Uruguayan intellectuals at the turn of the century. In their works, and despite some stylistic and methodological differences, they propose a civilizing idea differing less than suggested by a first reading.