In many senses, Alfonso Reyes epitomizes the peculiarly Latin American phenomenon of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century
pensadoror “thinker”, a title that overlaps with the European or American critical intellectual but is more likely to be associated with aesthetic production, often in combination with a diplomatic role. It is in this sense or, perhaps sometimes, foremost as a poet, that Reyes is most commonly known in his native Mexico. To sum up his vast and varied body of work, aside from a poet and diplomat, Reyes was a journalist, a writer of short fiction, a translator and, above all else, a gifted essayist who covered an array of topics including – but not limited to – the classics, philology, aesthetics, modern Latin American and European literature, philosophy and…
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Citation: Penn, Sheldon. "Alfonso Reyes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 September 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13908, accessed 23 November 2024.]
