Poetization of prose, constitution and devaluation of the individual subject: The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes and The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch

Abstract

This analysis demonstrates the productive reception of Hermann Broch's The Death of Virgil by Carlos Fuentes in his novel The Death of Artemio Cruz. The Mexican writer made reference to the work of the Austrian writer on several occasions and both Broch and Fuentes depict the characters Virgilio and Cruz engaged in a constant dialectic between their constitution and dissolution. Fuentes adopted Broch's idea of poeticizing prosaic discourse, primarily to express Carl Gustav Jung's theory of the subject's unconscious as a collective. In both texts, the trinity representing the human spirit is present; in The Death of Artemio Cruz, it is addressed more categorically than in The Death of Virgil. In both works, the protagonists' thoughts about the opposite gender can be interpreted as a significant part of shaping their own (gender) identity.