La feria urbana de las mercancías: hiperrealidad, simulacro y simulación en Las flores del mall, de José Antonio Mazzotti

Abstract

This essay explores, through epigraphic intertextualities and the concepts of “Hyperreality,” “Simulacrum,” and “Simulation” as developed by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, the ways in which José Antonio Mazzotti recreates (reconstructs) the notion of “city”—a concept underlying Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal (1857)—and reconfigures the urban experience within the framework
of the postmodernity in his poetry collection Las flores del Mall (2009). From this critical perspective, the poetic voice reflects upon history and interrogates American national memory from an ambiguous locus of enunciation (situated both within and outside hegemonic discourse), articulated through urban markers (monuments, public spaces, institutions, and geographic demarcations). In this manner, the essay examines the urban reconstruction proposed in Las flores del Mall, the dialogical tone of the poetic voice, and the historicist dimension of collective memory, conceived as a mercantile legacy shaped by historical processes of consumption and cultural appropriation.