De la filología hispánica a la teoría literaria latinoamericana. Amado Alonso y José Sazbón, prologuistas de Saussure en América

Abstract

The Spanish critic Amado Alonso published in 1945, in Buenos Aires, the first translation into Spanish of Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale, preceded by a polemic prologue. Thirty-two years later, the Argentinian philosopher José Sazbón published Saussure y los fundamentos de la lingüística, a selection and new translation of texts by the Genevan, accompanied by an introduction. While Alonso framed his introduction of the Cours to the Hispanic world in Stylistic tradition, Sazbón did the same during the rise of poststructuralism. In this essay, I propose that these two contrasting receptions of Saussure’s work are coincidental in exemplifying the transatlantic circulation of knowledge and illustrate two essential poles of the same intellectual tradition: the emergence and consolidation of Latin American literary theory. 

Keywords: Ferdinand de Saussure, Amado Alonso, José Sazbón, linguistics, Latin American intellectual history.