First published in 1900 Uruguay, Ariel is Latin America's most famous essay on esthetic and philosophical sensibility, as well as its most discussed treatise on hemispheric relations. Though Rodo protested the interpretation, his allegorical conflict between Ariel, the lover of beauty and truth, and Caliban, the evil spirit of materialism and positivism, has come to be regarded as a metaphor for the conflicts and cultural differences between Latin America and the United States. Generations of statesmen, intellectuals, and literary figures have been formed by this book, either...