A (Neo) Baroque Wrinkle: Modernity, Post-Modernity and the ideological inversion of the Baroque

Abstract

The invention of the esthetic-cultural category of the Baroque is indebted to a constellation conceptual that the modern thought helps to codify in the extent of the European and South American cultures. The modern «returns of Baroque» consist, first, in the theoretical rediscovery of the seventeenth century (forgotten or denied by historiographical canon or even “seized” in a post-colonial context) and in its manifestations in art and, secondly, the incorporates formal and stylistic (but also certain themes and figures) by some poets and writers since the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century. The concept of Neobaroque will be analyzed either in its modern version and in the critical proposals that the post-modern theory went building along the last two decades.