The temple of the Sagrada Familia, by Gaudí, is nowadays one of the most emblematic buildings of Barcelona, and the most visited monument in Spain. Despite the high popularity surrounding the name of the architect, his great work, still unfinished, has divided public opinion in the city for decades and has starred since its inception in a complex and paradoxical cultural phenomenon. My object of study consists of four major novels of modern Spanish narrative (Antagonía [1973-81], by Luis Goytisolo, La ciudad de los prodigios [1986], by Eduardo Mendoza, Campo cerrado [1943], by Max Aub and El amante bilingüe [1990], by Juan Marsé): all of them stand out because of the interartistic dialogue they establish with the famous building, which is referred to more or less extensively in their plots. The study will prove that the textual references to the Sagrada Familia in each particular case contain important interpretive keys that illuminate the discursive characterization of the texts while at the same time opening a new avenue for reading them.

To this end, I start by situating my object of interest within the studies on the literary city, a field where Barcelona has a unique tradition of reflecting on its novel. Then I trace the cultural reception of the Sagrada Familia as evidenced in literary testimonies of the early twentieth century, and continue by documenting the presence of the building in modern, post-Civil War narrative. After that, I explain the conceptual notions and terms on the phenomenon of the intersection between architecture and literature, which will guide the analysis of the texts.

Finally, I carry out the literary analysis of the four aforementioned novels.

The Sagrada Familia, as well as showing itself to be a versatile metafictional emblem at four different times in modern Spanish narrative, illustrates the possibilities of a literary analysis that takes into account the architectural component of the texts in order to illuminate their comprehension and their characterization.

This thesis makes a comparison between the internal dialogue of the Empress Carlota of Mexico in Noticias del Imperio (1987), by Fernando del Paso, and the internal dialogue developed in the original written letters by Carlota during her insanity in 1869. These letters were published in the book Una emperatriz en la noche (2010) by Laurence van Ypersele. Del Paso uses the New Historical Novel genre to write about the French Invasion in Mexico and to bring back to life Carlota, Maximilian, and Benito Juarez amongst others. In the case of Carlota, del Paso uses fiction to recreate the thoughts of a clinically-declared insane woman. The author of Noticias del Imperio can only imagine how the mind of an insane person works based on historical texts describing the behavior of the Empress during her sick years. Overall, when comparing both Carlotas, del Paso captures with great magistry the way of thinking of a mentally ill person, and there are a lot of similarities between both worlds. However, as time goes on and the Empress continues writing her letters, her insanity worsens and one can appreciate a reality that del Paso could have never imagined to recreate in his novel. The written correspondence during Carlota’s insanity becomes more confusing and one can notice a complete transformation of her world, which is perfectly logical to her. In these letters it can be appreciated that the reality of insanity, surpasses the fiction written by del Paso.

This research aims to develop a narration theory based on Argentinian writer Juan José Saer’s (1937-2005) four collections of essays: El río sin orillas (The River Without Banks) (1991) —which is thought by critics to be the Facundo of the 20th century—, El concepto de ficción (The Concept of Fiction) (1995), La narración-objeto (The Narrative Object) (1999) and Trabajos (Works) (2005). His essays examine the Latin American novel from 1960 to 2000, in other words, from the founding of the modern novel during the Latin American boom to its establishment as the most commercial genre upon the arrival of neoliberalism in Latin America in the 1990’s. Saer not only questions the novel in literary terms, but also contextually: from its relationship to politics and the Cuban Revolution and the years of literary compromise à la Sarte and the historical novel’s insurgency as the favored genre that settled the region’s past and present in the 1980’s to the conception of the genre as a commodity as large transnational entertainment consortia purchased all publishers. Within this context, Saer simultaneously critiques and formulates a theory on narration to oppose the novel. He presents narration as a continuation of a wasted and formulaic genre such as the historical novel. He juxtaposes the “real” to realism, ponders the impossibility of the historical novel, defends and rehabilitates the French noveau roman, which was much vilified by authors of the boom, demystifies Borges’ reading of the Argentinian tradition and at the same time confronts it with Witold Gombrowicz. He removes literature from the bonds of nationalism and Latin Americanism and contrasts Sartre’s ideas with German philosopher Theodore W. Adorno’s proposals about the novel during the cultural industry era.

After the implementation of the racial laws sanctioned by Mussolini in 1938, many Italians Jews looked for safe haven in Argentina and Uruguay. This research study aims to investigate the transnational cultural space that emerges as result of the Italian Jewish diaspora to the La Plata River during fascism. This phenomenon has not been fully addressed by contemporary Jewish Latin American Studies conducted in the US and in Latin America. This study attempts to illustrate how this particular diaspora is closely linked to the specific nature of the host countries, in particular, to the fact that these are countries with a strong immigration tradition and with a significant representation of Italians. This research emphasizes the transnational dimension of the experience, the phenomenon is approached from a regional perspective, encompassing two countries that share common cultural and historical roots, Argentina and Uruguay. The study is also rooted in a global perspective, linking the region with Italy in the context of the Europe of the time. On this basis, the study is guided by the following main assumption: The specific Italian diaspora generated original spaces of transnational cultural production that had an impact in the River Plate region and in Italy. This is done by studying some of the cultural manifestations of this multifaceted experience. This work is theoretically guided by an integration of perspectives emerging from cosmopolitanism, diasporic criticism and Bakhtinian dialogism. More specifically, when studying autobiographical texts, the research focused on critical essays on life narratives in general and on studies linking this discursive typology to the narratives of the Shoah, including the human capacity for resilience and adaptation in the face of adversity and trauma. The diaspora has created a prolific and unique body of transnational cultural expressions and, moreover, this particular diaspora has proved to be closely linked to the specific nature of the host countries. The findings make contributions to the field of Jewish Latin American Studies and Transatlantic Studies.

In this work we review certain biographical and historical data concerning Sor Juana and María Luisa, Condesa de Paredes. In addition, we have chosen Ovillejos 214, Romance 61, Redondillas 90 and 91 as poems that provides important insight into their relationship of patronage and friendship. In order to delineate theoretically both aspects of this relationship --the public and the personal-- we make use of the concept of ekphrasis proposed by Frederick de Armas. This concept is applied to the analysis of Romance 61, which is in the tradition of the lyrical Petrarchan portrait. Redondillas 90 and 91 are examined from the theoretical perspective of Cicero's amicitia, which serves to define an alternative model of feminine amicitia. In constructing this model, we review the written criticism surrounding María de Zayas' comedy, La traición en la amistad (1635). This criticism insists on a certain configuration of feminine friendship necessary for understanding the relationship between the two women. As is demonstrated in the analysis of the poems, the two women developed a mutual and permanent affection for one another until the death of Sor Juana in 1695. The Condesa de Paredes also provided practical support to Sor Juana for the publication of her first book, Inundación castálida (1689), which launched her to literary fame. To date there have been no critical studies that apply the concepts of ekphrasis and feminine friendship to the study of anecdotal clues found in the poems of Sor Juana for analyzing the nature of her relationship with the Condesa. This is the contribution of the present work.

ABSTRACT



The analytical sensitivity of Nellie Campobello allows her to perceive and draw several contexts into her fiction. Her work offers the reader a glimpse of the subtle connections between the individual experience and the social milieu that make up history. In the two editions of Cartucho (1931 and 1940) the reader encounters the Mexican Revolution as a plausible setting. By transferring this context into fiction, the author deals with core social matters that fostered the disfunctionality of Mexican society, at the time the novel was written. Furthermore, her intuition allows her to depict in her literary work many aspects of dehumanization that are timeless and universal. This depth of social cognition is expressed freely, producing a literary style that communicates a modern worldview.

Therefore, a critical analysis of the book should supersede historical facts to discern the expression of an object of ethical appreciation. The active reading of Cartucho forces us to appreciate the precise aesthetic form that communicates, through a plurality of voices, history to reconfigure -through discourse- diverse social contexts that are accessible, identifiable and pertinent to readers from different epochs. This is perhaps the value of the book for the social sciences. However, our study seeks to understand the social and historic minutiae of the text to better equip the reader to achieve an ethical catharsis through the reading of fiction. We believe that it is only when the reader surpasses the historic level of discourse that he or she can fully identify himself or herself with the characters, thus restoring their humanity and at the same time becoming more fully human.

SÍNTESIS

El temperamento analítico y sensible de Nellie Campobello le permite abordar aspectos sociológicos de múltiples contextos; derivando además los puntos de contacto entre el desarrollo social y la experiencia individual. Cartucho nos presenta, en sus dos versiones (1931 y 1940), la Revolución Mexicana como un contexto verosímil que permite expresar los temas que preocupan a la autora. A partir de esta ambientación ficcional, ella expone las causas del estado en el que se encuentra la nación en el momento en el que escribe la obra. Además, su intuición la lleva a trazar procesos de deshumanización inherentemente humanos con los que se puede identificar un lector universal. Esta profundidad de pensamiento se formula libremente dando lugar a un estilo propio que comunica una cosmovisión moderna.

Una lectura crítica de la obra debe partir del contexto de la Revolución Mexicana. Pero debe también rebasarlo para observar que Cartucho no es un receptáculo de voces rescatadas del pasado, sino la expresión de un objeto de apreciación ética formulado mediante una estética precisa que complementa y enuncia el discurso de la autora con la pluralidad de voces que reconstituyen, discursivamente, contextos sociales con los que el lector de cualquier época se puede identificar. En esta observación recae el valor de la obra camposiana para las ciencias sociales. Sin embargo, nuestro trabajo busca alcanzar una mejor apreciación del discurso histórico y sociológico para que el mensaje de la obra surta un efecto ético. Consideramos que es mediante este tipo de análisis que el lector logra identificarse con los personajes de Cartucho humanizándolos y humanizándose mediante la lectura de un texto de ficción.

Este trabajo examina la producción literaria y cultural chicana/méxicosudoesteña de las distintas épocas coloniales del sudoeste: la época colonial española (1521-1821), la época colonial angloamericana (1848-1965) y la época poscolonial (1965-presente) para ver hasta qué punto siguen vigentes los legados coloniales dentro de un contexto contemporáneo. Avanzamos la hipótesis que, de la larga residencia histórica y geográfica de las personas hispanomexicanas en el sudoeste, se han producidos textos simbólicos donde se registran dos o más discursos residuos cuyo origen es una ideología dominante. El capítulo 1 plantea y detalla la hipótesis, reseña los numerosos estudios existentes, describe el marco teórico y da la división en capítulos. En el capítulo 2, se da de manera detallada el método crítico: la definición del colonialismo clásico según la teoría de Mario Barrera, la relación colonizador/colonizado aportada por Albert Memmi y los conceptos del tercer espacio híbrido, el mestizaje y el imaginario decolonial asociados con la época poscolonial como ofrecidos respectivamente por Homi Bhabha, Rafael Pérez-Torres y Emma Pérez. El capítulo 3 ofrece un análisis de la época colonial española vía dos obras nuevomexicanas: el poema épico Historia de la Nueva México (1610) de Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá y el drama Los comanches (c.1779) de anónimo. El capítulo 4 trata la colonización angloamericana en las obras The Squatter and the Don (1885) de María Amparo Ruiz de Burton y Dew on the Thorn (escrita en los 1940; publicada en 1997) de Jovita González de Mireles. El capítulo 5 examina la época poscolonial vía la obra Los muertos también cuentan (1995) de Miguel Méndez. Una lectura de la literatura chicana/méxicosudoesteña revela la presencia de varios personajes típicos asociados cada uno a una diferente época histórica desde el conquistador español hasta un mexicano recién inmigrado, quienes no han podido evadir la correspondiente presencia de un grupo dominante u colonizador. Con base en una investigación de las cinco obras seleccionadas, se muestra cómo las relaciones coloniales se forman y se transforman y luego se manifiestan en un contexto contemporáneo, desplazando por ende nuestro entendimiento de las relaciones coloniales como un simple proyecto binario de dominación y subordinación.

The 1920s have played a key role in the formation of the Latin American consciousness of its own cultural identity. In approaching the selected three heterogeneous regions of Latin America, the Southern Cone, the Andean Zone and the Afroantillan Caribbean, this research focuses on Latin American identity issues as a literary avant-garde construct found in the poetics and in the programmatic texts of the leading avant-garde journals of each corresponding region: Martín Fierro (1924-1927) in Argentina; revista de avance (1927-1930) in Cuba, and Amauta (1926-1930) in Perú. To carry out this kind of analysis and to fully understand the historic implications characteristics of each region, one of the initial tasks of the study has been to contextualize the period in each country in which the journals were published. After that, an analysis of each region's avant-garde production has been performed in order to categorize and situate the underlying questions of identity expressed in corresponding journals. Each region has been studied separately, yet all in view of contributing to a comprehensive and comparative study of the regions selected. The final result has been an organization of diverse principal semantic and ideological fields overlapping in and cross-crossing different regions as represented by the selected literary journals. Starting from the very same literature, which was inspired by the spirit of its time, this research has aimed at reconstructing the notions of identity that were common within the intellectual circles of the avant-garde times as expressed in the journals Martín Fierro, revista de avance, and Amauta, and, in the end, played a signal role in the development of national and continental cultural identity consciousness throughout Latin America from the beginning of the 20th century until today.

With the establishment of "the special period in times of peace" in the nineties, there was in Cuba a series of transformations that affected its artistic and literary production. Therefore, gradually, a thematic opening emerged focused on deconstructing the idealized sociopolitical reality of the island allowing for the reformulation of the ways in which women were depicted. The main objective of this study is to initiate a dialogue with the short fiction produced during this period in order to shed light on the fragmentary representation of female characters. In regards to said objective, the approach selected centers on the observation and analysis of violence, humor and national memory as recurring thematic elements in the texts. With that finality, the aesthetic proposals present in the work of Aida Bahr, Ena Lucía Portela, and Marilyn Bobes, will be analyzed using current literary and cultural theory. Among these the most noteworthy are Josephine Gattuso Hendin's theory of violence and the representations of women, Henri Bergson's theory of humor, and the critical works of numerous scholars specializing in Cuban fiction produced in the last two decades. As has been concluded, through the protagonists and their discourse, thematic and stylistic components contribute to creating new representations of women allowing for new responses and ways of coexisting that cast doubt on the stereotype of the revolutionary woman. These components, likewise, question the relationship between the characters in the stories and the concept of nation, which in the words of Nara Araújo, will allow us to reveal the different ways of reading the world of the present generation. Therefore, through the analysis of the configuration of these reactionary representations, a contribution is made to the study of the current narrative produced by women in Cuba.

RESUMEN Las diferentes manifestaciones del folclore, canciones, leyendas, mitos, creencias y supersticiones, siempre han sido una fuente o parte de la literatura global. Hoy día muchos autores, inclusive los chicanos, regresan a los temas folclóricos a través de sus obras literarias o coleccionan simplemente las tradiciones orales con el propósito de mantener la cultura folclórica de la región. Estudiando a diferentes autores que utilizan el folclore en la literatura de Nuevo México, se puede observar cierto reconocimiento de las tradiciones españolas, las mexicanas y las méxicoamericanas. El escritor nuevomexicano Jim Sagel y el folclorista también nuevomexicano Nasario García han contribuido al desarrollo literario chicano vía llamar la atención al público con sus obras llenas de la historia antigua, las tradiciones y el folclore los cuales han mantenido la gente en la región de Río Grande. Para el estudio del folclore nuevomexicano, el método utilizado tiene un carácter multidisciplinario donde se aplican como base los principios críticos de la que llamamos la Escuela Folclórica Méxicosudoesteña. Es decir, varias teorías folclóricas que se han desarrollado a lo largo del siglo XX, así como varios principios de la semiótica y la teoría de la oralidad, constituyen este armazón teórico para verificar el significado folclórico de los textos analizados y establecer las contribuciones de los folcloristas escogidos. Respecto al género literario, este estudio comparativo se dedica al análisis de unos cuentos literarios, originalmente escritos, y unos cuentos transcritos desde el modo oral. Se analizan los cuentos de Sagel así como algunos poemas suyos arraigados en el folclore y tres colecciones de cuentos orales recopilados por García en la región Río Puerco. Durante el análisis e interpretación con base en las teorías de la Escuela Folclórica Méxicosudoesteña y unas adicionales, se confirmó el origen español de la mayoría de las tradiciones y las raíces del lenguaje nuevomexicano, y se sacaron las conclusiones sobre la función del folclore en la literatura chicana. Como resultado de este estudio del folclore nuevomexicano, los folcloristas contemporáneos (autores y coleccionistas) retoman las tradiciones todavía existentes (españolas, mexicanas, indígenas) para mantener la memoria y validar el folclore de las regiones bajo estudio, creando una literatura con base en las historias orales.