Translated from Spanish by Javier Taboada
Spanish Language & Government share the same position…
asking for a reform &
being able to admit it 
& on the other
search in many ways,
Reformers 
Societies tend to have a way to exist, very unlike the one they have had, & from which they are intended to have.
Men of these last eras —
reprimanded by the labor endured in useless attempts —
dissatisfied with the apparent convenience of the known Systems —
tired of hearing & reading pretentious praises to irrelevant things, & sometimes to what has not happened yet —
fed up with being abused in the name of god! the king or the nation —
they want to live
W/O KINGS & W/O CONGRESS,
they don’t ask for
masters or tutors
they want to possess
their own persons, assets & will
& that doesn’t mean they yearn
to live like wild animals,
(which is what the defenders of manifest or palliated absolutism suppose)
They want to govern themselves by REASON
which is Nature’s authority
reason, abstract figure of the thinking faculty
Nature doesn’t Society does
breed by neglect not by convenience
in the 19th century
demands MUCH PHILOSOPHY
the
general interest
is crying out for
a REFORM
&
AMERICA is called on
because of the circumstances, to undertake it
this may seem a daring paradox …
… it doesn’t matter …
the events will prove
what’s a very obvious truth
America must not servilely imitate
but be ORIGINAL
Where will we look for patterns? …
– Hispanic America is original = original must be their Institutions & Government = & original the ways to establish one & another.
we either Invent or we Err.
COMMENTARY
America is called (if those who govern it understand) to be a model of good society, with no other work than to adapt. Everything has been done (mainly in Europe). Seize the good — strand the bad — imitate with judgment — and for what is lacking invent. — Simón Rodríguez
(1) Educator, essayist, and philosopher, Simón Rodríguez was mainly known for being the tutor of Simón Bolívar (see above) and of the humanist and poet Andrés Bello. However, Rodríguez’s innovative thoughts and reflections towards the intellectual, idiomatic, and creative independence of the Americas were gathered in a monumental work-in-progress, American Societies, which was published in successive editions from 1828 to 1842.
(2) Scholar Rafael Mondragón explains the nature of the work: “It was a philosophical book which would be published in installments. [The book left] blank spaces for the readers to scratch out and modify the text. [Rodríguez] would gather his reader’s letters to integrate their reactions in the writing of each new chapter. The book would be distributed throughout the Americas via a continental subscriber’s system. To conclude his work, Rodríguez invented a new way of writing, playing with typography to paint the page, and imagined ways to convey gestures and emotion on paper.” (in Periódico de Poesía, UNAM, October 22, 2018). For all of which, here it is — in his own words (translated from the Spanish by Javier Taboada) — a key to Rodríguez’s system (1840):
in written speech
Size &
Variety of the typeface indicates tone
separation &
isolation of phrases indicates pauses
Separation is painted
by placing words or phrases among dots
isolation is painted
by placing words or
phrases in the center of the page
Ellipses are painted by putting a dot
under the omitted word
Hyphens indicate relation
Diagrams . connection
to perform all these is necessary to feel
nobody learns how to Feel &
nevertheless we all express our feelings
but we must learn to express others’ feelings
which produce our own
This is the aim of the reading’s principles
The Writer must dispose the page to achieve the same result as the orator
thus the art of Writing requires
the art of Paint.
(3) Rodríguez’s typography and spatial use of the page precedes Mallarmé's groundbreaking Coup de Dés by almost fifty-five years. American Societies is in that sense an early avant-garde work as we now conceive it.
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