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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Waldo Frank, who is now forgotten in Latin America, was once the most frequently read and admired North American author there. Though his work is largely neglected in the U.S., he was at one time the leading North American expert on Latin American writing. His name looms large in tracing the careers of Latin American writers in this country before 1940. Long before Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the Good Neighbor policy, Frank brought back to his countrymen news of Latin American culture.
Frank went to South America when he was almost forty. The youthful dreams of Frank and his fellow pre-World War I writers and artists to make their country a fit place for cultural renaissance that would change society had waned with the onset of the twenties.1 But they had not completely vanished. Disgruntled by the climate of "normalcy" prevailing in America after World War I, he turned to Latin America. He started out in the Southwest. The remnants of Mexican culture he found in Arizona and New Mexico enticed him to venture further into the Hispanic world. In 1921 he traveled extensively in Spain and in 1929 spent six months exploring Latin America.
1 For a study of the culture and intelectual debates of the early decades of this century, see Abrahams, Edward The Lyrical Left (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1986)Google Scholar; and Conn, Peter The Divided Mind: Ideology and Imagination in America, 1898–1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).Google Scholar
2 For a discussion of Waldo Frank’s interest in the Hispanic mind, see Ogorzaly, Michael “Waldo Frank: Prophet of Hispanic Regeneration” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1982).Google Scholar
3 Probing coverage of American intellectuals’ fascination and rejection of Europe before and after World War I can be found in Hoffman’s, Frederick The 20’s (London: Collier Macmillan, 1965)Google Scholar; Cowley’s, Malcolm Exile’s Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920’s (New York: The Viking Press, 1951)Google Scholar; and Bradbury, Malcolm and Palmer’s, David The American Novel and the 1920’s (London: Edward Arnold, 1971).Google Scholar
4 Abrahams, Edward The Lyrical Left, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar
5 Quoted in Kazin’s, Alfred On Native grounds (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1970), p. 172.Google Scholar
6 Rolland, Romain “America and the Arts,” The Seven Arts,” 1 (November 1916), pp. 47–48.Google Scholar
7 Frank, Waldo “Vicarious Fiction,” The Seven Arts, 1 (January, 1917), p. 294.Google Scholar
8 Frank, Waldo “Emerging Greatness,” The Seven Arts, 1 (November, 1916), p. 73.Google Scholar
9 See Abrahams, , Lyrical Left, pp. 85–91.Google Scholar
10 Conn, Peter The Divided Mind, p. 316.Google Scholar
11 Frank, Waldo Our America (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1919), p. 96.Google ScholarPubMed
12 Tablada, Juan José “México en Norteamérica: cómo se Juzga nuestra Cultura,” Repertorio Americano, 3 (March 13, 1922), pp. 404–406.Google Scholar
13 Quoted in Chapman’s, Arnold “Waldo Frank in Spanish America: Between Journeys, 1924–1929,” Hispania, 47 (September, 1964) p. 513.Google Scholar
14 lbid., p. 14.
15 See Kloucek, Jerome W. “Waldo Frank: The Ground of his Mind and Art” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1958), p. 417.Google Scholar
16 See Aaron, Daniel Writers on the Left (New York: Hartcourt, Brace and World, 1961), p. 79.Google Scholar
17 Josephson, Matthew Life Among the Surrealists (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), p. 232.Google Scholar
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19 Geismar, Maxwell “Books and Things,” The New York Herald Tribune, May 29, 1948, p. 7.Google Scholar
20 Reyes, Alfonso “Introducción,” España Virgen, escenas del drama espiritual de un gran pueblo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1947), p. 13.Google Scholar
21 Frank, Waldo Memoirs of Waldo Frank, ed. Alan Trachtenberg (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1973), pp. 132–133.Google Scholar
22 Frank, Waldo Virgin Spain, (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926), p. 249.Google Scholar
23 Waldo Frank to Evelyn Scott, 5 September 1930, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin (hereafter, HRHRC, UT, Austin).
24 Frank, , Virgin Spain, p. 72.Google Scholar
25 Sitwell, Sacheverell “Virgin Spain,” The Dial, 82 (January, 1927), p. 65.Google Scholar
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27 Montenegro, Ernesto “Virgin Spain,” Literary Review of the New York Evening Post, March 20, 1926, p. 2.Google Scholar
28 Frank, Waldo America Hispana (New York: Garden City Publishing Company, 1931), p. 265.Google Scholar
29 Crane, Hart to his father, 20 May 1926, Letters of Hart Crane and his Family, ed. Lewis, Thomas S.W. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 493.Google Scholar
30 Lawrence, D.H. “America, Listen to Your Own,” New Republic, December 15, 1920, p. 69.Google Scholar
31 Beals, Carleton The Great Circle (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1940), pp. 199–200.Google Scholar
32 Weston, Edward Daybooks, ed. Newhall, Nancy (Rochester, N.Y.: George Eastman House, 1961), 1:190.Google Scholar
33 Hart Crane to Frank, Waldo The Letters of Hart Crane, 1916–1932, ed. Weber, Brian (New York: Hermitage House, 1952), p. 372.Google Scholar
34 Frank, , Memoirs, p. 157.Google Scholar
35 Ibid., p. 160.
36 Benardete, M.J. Waldo Frank in America Hispana, p. 7.Google Scholar
37 Frank, Waldo Primer Mensaje a la América Hispana (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1930), p. 280.Google Scholar
38 Benardete, M.J. Waldo Frank in America Hispana, pp. 231–232.Google Scholar
39 Victoria Ocampo to Waldo Frank, no date, Waldo Frank Collection. University of Pennsylvania Libraries (hereafter, WFC, UPL).
40 Sebreli, Juan José Martínez Estrada: Una rebelión inútil (Buenos Aires: Editorial Palestra, 1960).Google Scholar
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42 Sam Sloan to Waldo Frank,no date, WFC, UPL.
43 Waldo Frank to Evelyn Scott, 13 October 1932, HRHRC, UT, Austin.
44 Frank, Waldo “Contemporary Spanish America Literature,” Publishers’ Weekly, October 18, 1930, p. 1842.Google Scholar
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47 Frank, Waldo “The Hispano-American’s World,” The Nation, May 24, 1941, p. 617.Google ScholarPubMed
48 José Eustasio Rivera to Waldo Frank, 19 June 1928, WFC, UPL.
49 Frank, Waldo “The Mexican Invasion,” New Republic, October 23, 1929, pp. 275–276.Google Scholar
50 Ibid., p. 276.
51 Frank, Waldo “Foreword,” Marcela: A Mexican Love Story (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1932), p.x.Google Scholar
52 The New York Times, September 25, 1932, p. 5.
53 Baird, Peggy “Marcela,” New Republic, December 14, 1932, p. 143.Google Scholar
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55 Waldo Frank, Typescript, no date, WFC, UPL.
56 Waldo Frank to Luis Alberto Sánchez, 21 February, 1930, WFC, UPL.
57 John Farrar to Waldo Frank, 23 January 1930, WFC, UPL.
58 Samuel Glüsberg to Waldo Frank, 17 October 1928, WFC, UPL.
59 Roberto Payró to Samuel Glüsberg, 31 March 1928, WFC, UPL.
60 Franco, Jean An Introduction to Spanish American Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 222.Google Scholar
61 Frank, Waldo “Foreword,” Tales from the Argentine (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1930), p.x.Google ScholarPubMed
62 Wallace, Margaret “Vigor and Color in Tales from the Argentine Pampas,” The New York Times Book Review, September 7, 1930, p. 5.Google Scholar
63 de Onís, Harriet “Tales from the Argentine,” The New York Evening Post, September 13, 1930, p. 8.Google Scholar
64 John Farrar to Waldo Frank, 19 July 1930, WFC, UPL.
65 Martín Fierro quoted in Franco, Jean Spanish American Literature, p. 266.Google Scholar
66 Frank, , Tales, p. XV.Google Scholar
67 See Molloy, Sylvia La Diffusion de la Littérature Hispano-Américaine en France au XX’ Siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972).Google Scholar
68 Adelina Güiraldes to Waldo Frank, 15 December 1932, WFC, UPL.
69 Güiraldes, Ricardo Don Segundo Svmhra: Shadows in the Pampas (New York: Farrar and Rine-hart, 1935).Google Scholar
70 John Farrar to Bullrich, 23 January 1930, WFC, UPL.
71 Federico de Onís to Waldo Frank, 1933, WFC, UPL.
72 Waldo Frank to Evelyn Scott, 8 September 1922, HRHRC, UT, Austin.
73 Waldo Frank to John Farrar, no date, WFC, UPL.
74 Waldo Frank to John Farrar, 3 April 1934, WFC, UPL.
75 Adelina Güiraldes to Waldo Frank, 13 July 1934, WFC, UPL.
76 Frank, Waldo “Introduction,” Don Segundo Sombra, p.x.Google ScholarPubMed
77 Modern critics complain that Frank was romantically caught up with the mystique of Spain’s purity and conveniently neglected the indigenous half of Latin America’s origins.
78 Frank, Waldo “Introduction,” Don Segundo Sombra, p. IX.Google ScholarPubMed
79 Brenner, Anita “Man’s Fate in the Pampas,” The Nation, January 30, 1935, p. 133.Google Scholar
80 Marsh, Fred T. “A Tale of the Spanish-American Wild West,” The New York Times Book Review, January 6, 1935, p. 5.Google Scholar
81 “Gauchos of the Pampas,” Saturday Review of Literature, January 19, 1935, p. 433.
82 Molloy, , La Diffusion, p. 145.Google Scholar
83 Frank, Waldo América Hispana, p. 108.Google Scholar
84 Ibid.
85 John Farrar to Waldo Frank, 23 January 1930, WFC, UPL.
86 Hutchison, Percy “An Epic of the Argentine Pampa,” The New York Times Book Review, August 16, 1936, p. 6.Google Scholar
87 Molloy, , La Diffusion, p. 204.Google Scholar
88 Frank, Waldo South American Journey (New York: Duell, Sloane, Pearce, 1943), p. 72.Google Scholar
89 Luis Alberto Sánchez to Waldo Frank, 30 June 1931, WFC, UPL.
90 Frank, Waldo Memoirs, p. 171.Google Scholar
91 See Meyer, Doris Victoria Ocampo: Against the Wind and the Tide (New York: George Braziller, 1979).Google Scholar
92 Victoria Ocampo to Waldo Frank, 22 January 1930.
93 Victoria Ocampo to Waldo Frank, 16 June 1930, WFC, UPL.
94 Ocampo, Victoria “Supremacía del alma y la sangre,” Testimonios, serie 2 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sur, 1941), p. 292.Google Scholar
95 See Adams, Mildred “First Lady,” The New York Times Book Review, October 2, 1966, p. 42.Google Scholar
96 Victoria Ocampo to Waldo Frank, 13 July 1931, WFC, UPL.
97 Luis Alberto Sánchez to Waldo Frank, 30 June 1931, WFC, UPL.
98 Gabriela Mistral to Waldo Frank, no date, WFC, UPL.
99 Samuel Glüsberg to Waldo Frank, 1 December 1930, WFC, UPL.
100 Molloy, , La Diffusion, p. 207.Google Scholar
101 Frank, , Memoirs, pp. 165–166.Google Scholar
102 Waldo Frank, Typescript, December 1, 1957, WFC, UPL.
103 Ibid.
104 Gabriela Mistral to Waldo Frank, no date, WFC, UPL.
105 Gabriela Mistral to Waldo Frank, no date, WFC, UPL.
106 Eduardo Mallea to Waldo Frank, 1 May, no year, WFC, UPL.
107 For a discussion of Frank’s influence on the work of Eduardo Mallea, see Chapman, Arnold The Spanish American Reception of U.S. Fiction 1920–40 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).Google Scholar
