"Antiquifying" America is a central rhetorical strategy in Alexander von Humboldt's Relation historique du voyage aux régions équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent (1814-1831). Over the course of the colonial experience, tension infuses the discourse and problems in the use of classicist motifs as imperial models of appropriation become apparent: metaphoric and metonymic references collide; positive and negative connotations overlap; incompatible modes of temporalization contrast with one another; colonial and dissident identifications coincide. The concept of "antiquity" is de-authorized, deconstructed. Readers witness the dissolution of European classicism as a politico-aesthetic 'dispositif' due to the experience of cultural difference.
Alexander von Humboldt; Hispanoamerica; Classicism; Rhetoric
