The Allegorical Machine: Politics, History, and Memory in Horacio Castellanos Moya’s El sueño del retorno

Abstract

Paul de Man proposes that of all literary modalities it is allegory that best illuminates the temporal nature of existence—and of thought and action in particular. Allegory as de Man understands it also sheds light on disjunction, on separation and finitude, as a constitutive moment or condition for history, politics, and all creative activity. If allegory discloses what de Man calls the “authentically temporal destiny” of existence, it also ruins the humanistic assumptions through which terms such as “existence,” “memory,” “language,” and even “the human” are understood in the modern philosophical tradition. Allegory brings to light an in-human dimension in what we call language, and this is a register that cannot be ignored when it comes to thinking about history, art, or politics.