Blanco Fombona, Rufino

Blanco Fombona, Rufino

(ro͞ofē`nō bläng`kō fōmbō`nä), 1874–1944, Venezuelan poet, essayist, and novelist, one of the leaders of modernismomodernismo
, movement in Spanish literature that had its beginning in Latin America. It was paramount in the last decade of the 19th cent. and the first decade of the 20th cent.

Modernismo derived from French symbolism and the Parnassian school.
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. Active in Venezuelan political affairs, he was several times imprisoned. He lived in exile in France and Spain for a quarter of a century and contributed much toward spreading the knowledge of Spanish-American literature abroad. A prolific writer, Blanco Fombona satirized politicians, the clergy, and Yankee imperialism. His poems, such as the collection Cantos de la prisión y del destierro [songs of prison and exile] (1911), are superior to his novels. The novels include El hombre de hierro [the man of iron] (1905) and El hombre de oro (1916, tr., Man of Gold, 1920). Blanco Fombona was most distinguished in the field of the essay. Well known are "La evolución política y social de Hispanomérica" (1911) and "El modernismo y los poetas modernistas" (1929).