Abstract

BALLON AGUIRRE, José. “The Poor of the Earth” by Martí and “The Reforming Man” by Emerson. Latinoamérica [online]. 2026, n.82, pp.15-47.  Epub Mar 23, 2026. ISSN 2448-6914.  https://doi.org/10.22201/cialc.24486914e.2026.82.57814.

ABSTRACT: This article describes the Emersonian textual source of Martí's famous verses: “Con los pobres de la tierra / Quiero yo mi suerte echar” (Versos sencillos, 1891). Martí poetically rendered in Spanish “the whole interest of history lies in the fortunes of the poor” from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay Man the Reformer (1841). The bilingual intertextuality proposed by Martí is better understood through his friendship with Charles A. Dana, a New York journalist, disciple of Emerson, and founding member of the utopian agricultural experiment “The Brook Farm.” The English source that inspired Martí is analyzed directly, and representative paragraphs from Man the Reformer are translated. As Modernity established itself in the United States in the first half of the 19th century, Emerson advocated an agricultural institution opposed to the slaveholding South, valued manual labor, and denounced the corruption and slave trade in Cuba.

Keywords : Martí; Emerson; Hemispheric Studies; Intertextuality; Cultural bilingualism; Slavery; Modernity.

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