Valparaíso: The new Babel of the Pacific : la nueva Babel del Pacífico

Abstract

In this article, we study the literature of Valparaiso from the 1906 earthquake to 2020. We propose that the trajectory of the city can be interpreted through the representations of the Tower of Babel in Brueghel's painting and Anthonisz’s engraving, that is, from the tower under construction and the tower in ruins, which allow us to interpret the texts of a series of writers who portray the collapse of the cosmopolitan and thriving city of the nineteenth century. Drawing on geocriticism, philosophy, literary theory, and historiography, we analyze the progressive economic, social, and urban decadence of Valparaíso, a space that ends up becoming a city in ruins in the second part of the 20th century.

In this article, we study the literature of Valparaiso from the 1906 earthquake to 2020. We propose that the trajectory of the city can be interpreted through the representations of the Tower of Babel in Brueghel's painting and Anthonisz’s engraving, that is, from the tower under construction and the tower in ruins, which allow us to interpret the texts of a series of writers who portray the collapse of the cosmopolitan and thriving city of the nineteenth century. Drawing on geocriticism, philosophy, literary theory, and historiography, we analyze the progressive economic, social, and urban decadence of Valparaíso, a space that ends up becoming a city in ruins in the second part of the 20th century.