Tag Archives: hispanic history

Mario Raul de Morais Andrade

Posted on October 13, 2018 | Leave a comment

“(1893-1945) Brazilian poet and novelist. Andrade’s first book of poetry, Ha uma gota de sangue em cada poema (1917), was self-consciously lyrical and elegant. Then, with the sharp images and hard-edged diction of his second volume, Pauliceia desvairada (1922; tr Hallucinated City, 1968), he all but launched Brazilian modernism and was thereafter one of its most dedicated proponents. His novel Macunaima (1928) was a grandly successful exploration of what Andrade saw as the interwoven native and imported myths of the Brazilian people, which he wrote in an amalgam of arbitrarily combined Brazilian dialects. His O moviemento modernisto (1942), a milestone in modern criticism, is essential to an understanding of the literary history of Brazil. Andrade’s verse is collected in Poesias completas (1955).”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Macedonio Fernandez on Origins

Posted on October 13, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Everything had been written, everything has been said; that’s what God heard before creating the world, when there was nothing yet. I have also heard that one, he may have answered from the old, split Nothingness. And then he began.”

Macedonio Fernandez, Museo de la Novela de la Eterna (The Museum of Eternity’s Novel) prologue (1967)

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Diamela Eltit

Posted on October 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

“(1949-) Chilean novelist, performance artist, and teacher. Eltit has written some of the most brilliant and difficult books to emerge from Latin America since the so-called Boom. A literature of transgression, it uses multiple linguistic and narrative sources, displaces plot as a central concern, and shows uncertain characters in an equally uncertain interior terrain, yet still makes reference to the social crises of the external world. Sexuality and its deviations, social inequality, the shame of convention, and the overwhelming and exclusionary nature of power are recurrent concerns. The writing carries off such heavy themes through fractured diction and syntax. Works like Lumperica (1983) and El cuarto mundo (1988) defy the rational conventions of the novel to present writing which is, like the human body, mutable, ungainly, and often as ugly as it is beautiful.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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The Weekly Text, October 12, 2018, Hispanic Heritage Month 2018 Week IV: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Tupac Amaru II

Posted on October 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

Today is the final Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2018. This week’s Text is this reading on the Inca rebel Tupac Amaru II and the comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. If you recognize this anti-colonialist hero’s name, it’s very likely because the late rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur was named for him.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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John Leguizamo on Miami

Posted on October 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

“God’s waiting room.”

John Leguizamo

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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El Cristo de espaldas

Posted on October 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

“(1952) A novel by Eduardo Caballero Calderon (1910-1993). Written in a realistic, documentary style, this is the story of a young man suspected of political parricide during Colombia’s civil wars (1948-1958). In a parallel development, a young priest, who has remained neutral in the war, learns the identity of the real murderer in confession. His vow of silence renders him an outcast of the town and of the church. The bishop deprives him of his parish in the belief that ‘Christ has turned his back’ on the priest, but the priest understands that it is men who have turned on Christ.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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Word Root Exercise: Ante

Posted on October 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root ante. It means before and shows up in the Spanish conjunction, preposition and adverb antes de (again, before).

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Helder Camara (1909-1999)

Posted on October 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.”

Helder Camara, Quoted in The Guardian, 21 Jan. 1985

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Francisco de Goya

Posted on October 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

Somewhere in the shuffle of documents for posts in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month 2018 (and those for 2016 and 2017 as well) l misplaced this reading on Francisco de Goya and the comprehension worksheet that complements it. He’s a key late-Enlightenment figure, and this reading has some key points on art history.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Ciro Alegria

Posted on October 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

“(1909-1966) Peruvian novelist. Frequently at odds with the repressive regimes of his government, Alegria lived in exile in Chile from the age of twenty-five. All his major works deal with the lives of Peruvian Indians, although, rather than drawing individual heroes, he deals with entire Indian communities, creating a kind of aggregate protagonist. In his first two novels, La serpiente de oro (1935; tr The Golden Serpent, 1963) and Los perros hambrientos (1936), set on the river Maranon and in the high Andes, respectively, he describes the hard-fought struggle for survival against the massive forces of nature. In his best-known novel, El mundo es ancho y areno (1941; tr Broad and Alien Is the World, 1941), the white man, not nature, is the adversary, as an entire Indian community in northern Peru is displaced by the scheming of a greedy landowner. His other novels include Duelo de caballeros (1963) and Lazaro (1973). An edition of his Novelas completas was published in 1964.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

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