Summary This article seeks to interpret the modernisation movement in Latin America, the poetry of Rubén Darío and other writers of the time with the categories expressed by Ángel Rama in his trial The legal city. Branch rarely refers to this group of writers who follow an art aesthetic by art that clearly separates itself from political and social issues. However, a reinterpretation of Rama’s thesis makes it feasible to integrate its texts into the advocate city of the Uruguayan critic.