La metahistoria liberal en Maximiliano, 10a. leyenda histórica de Ireneo Paz

Abstract

Maximilian is the tenth historical legend written and published by Ireneo Paz in 1899. For its author, it is “a little recreational work, aimed rather at making familiarly known some of the most notorious sides of that great farce”. Why does he call it a legend and not a novel? Is it possible that the Mexican writer intends to make the clash between liberals and conservatives legendary? A purpose for this work would be to demonstrate the construction of an historical legend, based on The Simple Forms by André Jolles.

From Hayden White's Metahistory, we’ll try to demonstrate that Paz constructs his legend using procedures similar to those of the nineteenthcentury European Romantic historians: a metaphorical style, a novelesc-romantic narrative and a formistic mode of argumentation; all in order to mythologize an otherwise complex historical process and thus contribute to the support of the victorious triumphant liberalism, at the cost of fictionalizing and uniquely characterizing the main actors of the Second Mexican Empire.