Developing a theoretical model for historical consciousness and its vicissitudes, this study argues for the emergence of modernity in Spanish America long before the advent of modernismo, while also focusing on obstacles specific to the literature of the region. The investigation pursues the routes of modernity through a set of interlocking readings of texts spanning the breadth of the late colonial world and its heirs over a century and a half. Long scholarly neglect of the literary period in general and its poetry in particular make this discussion into an effort of recuperation, in addition to its primary task of interpretation. Thus, looking beyond the figures central to the incipient print culture, the reading also engages popular poetry, reports of scientific expeditions and belated missionaries and includes attention to the poetry of indigenous cultures.