The name is absent

Its Culture and Its Ideals 177
territorial integrity, and the principle of arbitration for
the settlement of disputes between the American peoples,
and it laid the foundation of an amphictyony or league of
nations. They were the same ideas as those that gave rise
to the Spanish-American Congress that was held in Lima
in 1847 and in 1866. They constituted precedents for the
undertakings of the various Pan American conferences that
have taken place. Scholars that wish to study the origin
of the movement toward the juridical organization of the
world may not set aside these facts and ideas that have
appeared in Spanish America.

It is proper now to consider intellectual culture along its
general lines. The intellectual life of Spanish America had
to be an imitation of that of Spain; but, even in colonial
times, Spanish America made important contributions to
the literature of the race. The greatest epic poems of the
language, La Cristiada and La Araucana, were written by
Spaniards who lived in America. Juan Ruiz de Alarcon,
one of the greatest Spanish dramatists, and Juana Ines de la
Cruz, the first of our mystic poets, were born in Mexico.
Subsequent to the establishment of independence, political
freedom coincided, to a certain extent, with intellectual
emancipation. Although we have continued to profit by the
literary currents of Spain, we have had intellectual move-
ments of our own of such importance and vitality that they
have exerted an influence upon the nations of to-day.

The originality of Spanish-American literature consisted
in the following three movements to which I ought to de-
vote some attention. These movements were: first, hu-
manism, in what was formerly Greater Colombia—com-
posed of Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador; second, the social-
ism and political realism of the Rio de la Plata and, third,
the revival of poetry, to which many people contributed.

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