Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons^™

El Año De Gracia And The Displacement Of The Word, Catherine G. Bellver

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The power of the established, self-sufficient written word is considerable. Written texts not only furnish material, incentive, or direction for new texts, they also inspire, orient, and mold those who read them. El año de Gracia, a novel by Cristina Fernández Cubas (1985), vividly illustrates the imprint novels can leave on a young mind. The protagonist learns, however, that the concept of the world he formed on the basis of literary models is erroneous. In El año de Gracia literature fails to sustain meaning, and meaning itself becomes irrelevant. Both oral and written discourse are in some way restricted, …

Reviews Of Recent Publications, Various Authors

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Brown, Frieda S., Compitello, Malcolm Alan, etc., Editors. Rewriting the Good Fight Critical Essays on the Literature ofthe Spanish Civil War by John Crispin

Connor, Steven. Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text by Maria Minich Brewer

Jordan, Barry. Writers and Politics in Franco's Spain by Salvador J. Fajardo

Lindenberger, Herbert. The History in Literature: On Value, Genre, Institutions by Raylene O'Callaghan

Snares: Pere Gimferrer's Los Espejos/ Els Miralls, Margaret Persin

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

With the publication of Els miralls, Pere Gimferrer effected a major shift in philosophical and linguistic perspective. It is the first collection to be published in Catalan, and thus represents for the well-known writer a change in direction for him as a poet and spokesperson of his culture and his generation. But the change is more than one of mere language coding. For in this collection, the Catalan poet confronts all the snares of language which he views as limiting of creativity and originality. He adopts a variety of poetic strategies and voices in an attempt to come to …

Fifty Years Of Contemporary Spanish Poetry (1939-1989), José Olivio Jiménez

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Fifty Years of Contemporary Spanish Poetry (1939-1989)

Culturalism And The "New" Poetry. A Poem By Pedro Gimferrer: "Cascabeles" From Arde El Mar (1966), Guillermo Carnero

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The study deals with the group of Spanish poets commonly called the "novisimos" or "promocion de 1970," using as a base a poem by Pedro Gimferrer published in 1966. It studies the aesthetic break-through achieved by this generation, highlighting the concept of "culturalism" that critics used to define it twenty years ago. It examines the equivocal uses to which this concept can be put, and describes its correct meaning in the light of the aesthetic to which it refers. It then studies the mechanisms implicit in the writing of this non-confessional lyric poetry, centering it on two complementary procedures: the …

Introduction: Critical Perspectives On Contemporary Spanish Poetry, Andrew P. Debicki

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Introduction to the special issue

Language And Consciousness In The Poetry Of The "Novisimos": Guillermo Carnero's Latest Poetry, Ignacio-Javier López

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Guillermo Carnero's latest book of poetry, Divisibilidad indefinida, has recently appeared in Spain. In it, the reader witnesses, on the one hand, the reaffirmation of the poetic of the "novisimos": a self-conscious use of language, the presence of "culturalism," a distancing of language, a doubling of the poetic persona. On the other hand, the book reveals an effort to encompass a more complete perspective of poetic reality. The combative attitude of the first decade of the "novisimos" having been left behind, Carnero now develops his poetry in Divisibilidad indefinida by bringing it nearer to human life, although without renouncing …

The Quest(Ioning) Of Epistemological Ground: The Spanish Generation Of 1956, Judith Nantell

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Much of the critical literature written about the poetry of the Generation of 1956 asserts that for Claudio Rodriguez, José Angel Valente and Francisco Brines, among other members of this group, writing poetry is a means to knowledge. Knowledge, however, exists in tension with its apparent opposite, ignorance. Because the supplement ruptures the tidy arrangement of the knowledge/ignorance polarity, it is no longer possible to focus on either entity in isolation. If knowledge and ignorance continually imply one another, then Valente's famous dictum, "todo poema es un conocimiento haciéndose" ('every poem is knowledge becoming') which has long served as the …

Recent Poetry And The Essential Word, Biruté Ciplijauskaité

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Postmodern poetry resists classification in tight compartments. After the last artificially-named group of the novisimos in the 60s, the evolution of poetry in Spain has followed different and at times divergent paths. The novisimos had reacted against "social" poetry, denouncing its lack of attention to artistry, almost prosaic quality, subservience to theme, and produced elaborate creations with an emphasis on form and the exquisite and more hermetic word and subject. Obeying the law of corsi e ricorsi, there was a certain return in the 80s to simpler expression which, however, does not pretend to be that of the "man …

A Reconsideration Of Two Spanish Women Poets: Angela Figuera And Francisca Aguirre, John C. Wilcox

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In the last decade, poetry written by women in Spain experienced a "boom," as one close observer of the scene has noted, with the result that young women poets on the Peninsula have begun to receive the attention they merit. It is therefore an opportune moment to turn our critical attention toward the poetry written by women earlier in the twentieth century.

Angela Figuera (1902-1984) and Francisca Aguirre (b. 1930), two "uncanonized" mid-twentieth century Spanish poets, are presented here as challenging the androcentric culture of their time. Figuera critiques the male-dominated poetic canon as she develops a gynocentric poetics; poems …

The Feminization Of Female Figures In Spanish Women's Poetry Of The 1980s, Sharon Keefe Ugalde

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The paper examines how women poets appropriate and transform man-made biblical and literary figures—Eve, Lot's wife, and Ophelia—in order to express female meaning. Poetry by women published since the democratization of Spain in the late 1970s serves as the basis of the study. Three strategies of feminization stand out. Enhancement reflects the predicament of poets living roles imposed by male denomination, but sensing the presence of a silenced, imprisoned self. Subversion is aimed at dismantling patriarchally defined reality, and revision corresponds to the constructive task of self-discovery. Poets, for example, embrace Ophelia, recognizing that their desperation (like hers) is rooted …