Monday, July 22, 2013

Franco - Chap 5, Modernism (Intro to Spanish-Amer. Lit)



Comps people
-          Rubén Darío (pg. 119-120, 138-149)
-          José Asunción Silva (pg. 126-131)
-          Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (pg. 133-136)
-          Julián del Casal (pg. 136-138)
-          Delmira Agustini (pg. 153-154)

General Notes
Introduction
-          Modernism movement started in 1880’s/1890’s in Latin America – Rubén Darío was the poet who really shaped the movement (119)
-          Basic components of Modernism (119):
o   Rejection of any overt message or teaching in art
o   Stress on beauty as the highest goal
o   Need to free verse from traditional forms
-          Many literary magazines with new poetry style (119-120)
o   Idea of “art for art’s sake”
-          After 1900, modernism split into different strands: religious/meditative, sensual, Americanist (120)
-          Modernism was dominant style of Spanish-American poetry until the avant-garde movements of the 1920’s (120)
-          Modernism revolutionized the Spanish-American poets’ attitude to art and society (120)
o   Rejection of desire of material progress/prosperity in favor of more eternal artistic values

Schopenhauer and Hugo
-          “much Modernist writing on art reflects the view of the German ‘pessimist,’ Arthur Schopenhauer,” of the 19th century (121)
o   Individuals motivated not by rational thought but by unconscious drives which worked for the betterment of the species
-          Idea of the artist as the most enviable member of society (122)
-          Modernism reflects the “poet’s attempt through art to liberate himself from the temporal flux in an act of communion with all that is eternal” (122)
-          Victor Hugo – view of the poet as a seer who could predict the future and who also mediated between the divine and the earthly (122)
-          Modernism and society
o   Modernists put literary creation above political struggle (122)
o   Rejection of society and societal conventions / conformity (122)
o   Deviation of the poets from the accepted moral standards of the day (123)
-          Federico de Onís – Idea of modernism as an aspect of the crisis of Western civilization (123)
o   Desire to restore power of imagination instead of constant focus on scientific explanation
-          Modernist fascination with the unknown (124)
o   Use of spiritualism as a way of exploration
-          Theme of sexual love and sensual tone in Modernist poetry (124)

A New Language
-          Modernists wanted something new; they couldn’t get that from Spain because things were so rooted in tradition there. Instead, the modernists focused on influences from French literary movements of the 19th century (124-125)
-          Use of musical tone and exotic symbols (125)
-          Cosmopolitan outlook (125)
o   Rejection of previous regionalist trends
o   View of poet as an outcast from bourgeois society and as a member of an international brotherhood of the arts
o   Vision of all art as cosmopolitan; art as elite
-          Cult of the exotic (125)
o   Way of differentiating art from the local and common – desire for universal validity (126)

The Modernist Poets (Pg. 126-154)
-          People on list in this section: José Asunción Silva, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Julián del Casal, Rubén Darío, Delmira Agustini

Other Modernists
-          There were innumerable Modernist poets in Latin America (154)
-          Modernism began as a revolt against the literary establishment, occasioned by the fact that the poets’ experience had diverged widely from that of previous generation sand called for a new language and form (154)
-          Theme of exploration and an entrance into an unexplored area of experience (154)
-          Modernism was an experimental movement that transformed into a literary establishment (154)

Modernist Prose
-          Comparison of castizo prose of Montalvo with a short extract of Darío’s “La canción del oro” – neither of these things is on the list (155)
-          Modernist prose writing was an instrument for conveying horror (156-157)
o   Sense of man’s despair in a Godless universe
o   Exploration of horror and fantasy
o   Exploration of the savage side of nature

No comments:

Post a Comment