Literatura, historia y mito de una ciudad: el Cuzco como prólogo (Paisajes peruanos, I)

Abstract

The article highlights the importance of considering the first chapter of Peruvian polygraph José de la Riva-Agüero y Osma’s Paisajes peruanos (Peruvian Landscapes) as the prologue of the entire book, as in the disposition of this and not only in its content, one recognizes its great topics: the meeting of nature and history of Peru, the indigenous and the Spanish. Riva-Agüero contrasts two views of Cuzco and discovers in the contemplation of the landscape the essence of the Peruvian nation. In doing so, he not only becomes the historian who he himself missed in La Historia en el Perú (History in Peru), but generates—through literary, imaginative and connotative procedures—a patriotic myth.