What can I say?

I passed. It doesn't feel real, but I passed. And I passed. And now, what?
Wow, it doesn't feel like I passed yet, seriously, I think I still need to study.

Tomorrow is the day

So it's about time for me to stop learning new stuff, read over my notes quickly, and watch an episode of Chapelle Chow before going to sleep.

Cuando me paro a contemplar m'estado (mi estado)

Garcilaso de la Vega
SONETO I

Cuando me paro a contemplar mi’stado
y a ver los pasos por dó me han traído,
hallo, según por do anduve perdido,
que a mayor mal pudiera haber llegado;

mas cuando del camino’stó olvidado,
a tanto mal no sé por dó he venido;
sé que me acabo, y más he yo sentido
ver acabar comigo mi cuidado.

Yo acabaré, que me entregué sin arte
a quien sabrá perderme y acabarme
si quisiere, y aún sabrá querello;

que pues mi voluntad puede matarme,
la suya, que no es tanto de mi parte,
pudiendo, ¿qué hará sino hacello?



Lope de Vega
Rimas Sacras, Soneto I

Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado
y a ver los pasos por donde he venido,
me espanto de que un hombre tan perdido
a conocer su error haya llegado.

Cuando miro los años que he pasado,
la divina razón puesta en olvido,
conozco que piedad del cielo ha sido
no haberme en tanto mal precipitado.

Entré por laberinto tan extraño,
fiando al débil hilo de la vida
el tarde conocido desengaño;

mas de tu luz mi escuridad vencida,
el monstruo muerto de mi ciego engaño,
vuelve a la patria la razón perdida.

Psychological Torture

At Guantanamo, they used Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Eminem, Mr. Dre, Britney Spears as torture, after tying up prisoners for days and not letting them sleep. Metallica's first response was that we'd tortured our parents for many years with the music, why'd it be any different for a prisoner in Guantanamo...which takes me back to suburban days of heavy metal Marshall half-stacks in the garage that could be heard 15 houses down the street and left all the pictures on the wall hanging crooked.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/agenda/tortura/silencio/elpepugen/20081215elpepiage_2/Tes

Columpio - Gerardo Diego

God, forever I couldn't figure out this poem, playing yes and no, and then I got it, suddenly, when I realized it was included in love poems...pulling off the petals of flowers, shes loves me, she loves me not...duH!
-and I just got that last image, harlequin birds, the petals of the flowers are like clownish fluttering birds (I think)

A caballo en el quicio del mundo
un soñador jugaba al sí y al no

Las lluvias de colores
emigraban al país de los amores



Bandadas de flores


Flores de sí


Flores de no

Cuchillos en el aire
que le rasgan las carnes
forman un puente


Sí


No

Cabalgaba el soñador
Pájaros arlequines


cantan el sí


cantan el no

Realism

-Focus on daily life rather than the large adventures
-Characters usually typical of specific social class, social and personal contemporary problems
-Appear to be objective (really? wit al dese crazy ass naratos n shi?)
-Present all sides, positive and negative, of characters
-Reproduce exterior and interior reality in order to show the life of the individual in relation to society and the environment
-Focus on psychological forces that shape person

Gen 1898
Critical of Spanish decay, acknowledgment of need for modernization and liberalization of Spain, and crisis of identity (what does it mean to be Spanish?)

I'm bored

Don Juan Tenorio

In contrast, an example of a romantic Spanish text would be this play by Zorrilla, in which Don Juan is saved by the love of Dona Ines after repenting for his actions, and also, the final scene/act is outside of logic and reason, as the statues to commemorate dead figures come to life (el comandador sp?) and they have a grotesque last dinner. As for the form, this is also reflected in the verse used in the play and the passage of time; in Si de las ninas, very little time passes. In DJ, 5 years pass as DJ is exiled and then returns home.
---However, it is questionable if he is really saved, it is an open ending. His repentance seems to be so last minute as to be only to save his own ass, a death-bed confession that seems to lack any sense of real apology. His acts throughout the play do not fit with his final words; is he just playing us and Dona Ines?


Romanticism: Imagination over reason, emotion over logic, intuition over science. Focus on individual

Enlightenment

In one sentence, according to me and my friend (encarta): Arguments sustained by Science and Reason (rational thought). Also during this time (1700s) neoclassicism was in style, 3 act plays Greek/Roman style, Moratin example of una obra ilustrada (AND DEFINITELY NOT ROMANTIC!!!). Literature that teaches as it entertains.
El no de las ninas...viejo verde who was to marry much younger woman, who is the emblem of the perfect woman (modest, quiet, virgin), but is in love with his younger nephew. Using reason, the viejo verde deduces that it is better to remove himself from the marriage contract and allow the two lovers to get married.

Golden Age poets

and their titles:
Lope de Vega -- "No se atreve a pintar su dama muy hermosa por no mentir que es mucho para poeta"

Spanish Transition Dates

1955 Readmitted into the United Nations
1970 Economic accord with EC
1973 Spanish Prime Minister Carrero Blanco assassinated in a car bomb attack; concurrently, a trial was set to start only 15 minutes earlier for 10 anti-Francoists
1975 Franco dies; successor Juan Carlos takes over government
1976 Adolfo Suarez takes over as PM, many dismayed by his Francoist links, first partial amnesties for political prisoners
1977 Amnesty Laws passed; PCE is legalized; Pactos de la Moncloa (PM’s palace)
1978 Constitution passed
1981 Failed Gen. Tejero Coup
1982 Joins NATO
1986 (Jan 1st) Joins EC

Garrote

This is one form of execution. Looks like a really bad way to go...
http://www.usmilitaryknives.com/Garrote.JPG

Collective Memory

Collective Memory: “consists of the memory that a community possesses of its own history, as well as the lessons and learning which it more or less consciously extracts from that memory. This variable includes both the substance of that memory (recall of specific historical events) as well as values associated with their evocation (historical lessons and learning), which are modified, very often, by the vicissitudes of the present.”

-Individual memory and collective memory coexist. Personal experiences cannot diverge from the official history to the extent of an inability to coexist, if political stability is desired. huh? I think I mumbled these words while writing them.

• “Effects of amnesia are necessarily heightened over time.”

A brief synopsis of the two sides and their fears. Victorious fear that a return to party politics, return of exiles, granting of political amnesty would lead to the same chaos, violence, anarchy of before, or that they would have a desire for revenge and demands for justice. On the flip side, Left feared that the Francoists wouldn't cede power so easily, especially with a powerful army at command, and that a coup would be imminent (which they weren't too far off the mark, although it was not a strong coup).

• “Memories, due to the very passing of time, cannot always be maintained by individuals as personal experiences, which is why they end up being stored in social deposits (archives, monuments, museums), in numerous ‘sites of memory’”
-Is this a good reason for taking down Franco and Francoist monuments? As sites of memory, they shape "a tradition prior to the existence of individuals of subsequent historical periods". Which is also why I think Drunk History is such a great show.

Paloma Aguilar, Memory and Amnesia

Sleepy

If I had only one word to describe how I feel constantly this past week, it'd be this. WTF!?!?

?s I'm thinkin' on

-Why was the transition to democracy in Spain successful? How do we know it was successful (by what measurements)? What role did memory politics play?
-If I were to focus on two Golden Age poets and their poetic trajectory during their years, it'd probably be Garcilaso and Quevedo? What is that trajectory?
-Why did the testimonio have such influence and popularity in the 60s and died out by the 80s? Should I even know or guess as to why?
-WTF does the historicity of texts and the textuality of history even mean?
-Does anyone read La ciudad ausente by Piglia, or is his only novel La respiracion artificial?
This, and many more questions, tbc...
Oh yeah, should the Giants/will the Giants sign CC Sabathia?

But I guess I'm really not back to work yet

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/digital-short-j-in-my-pants/866262/

Back to Work

It is now time for me to come back to work, and review, study, read, and focus for another week and a half before my oral. I had a few days off of lazying, eating, drinking, sleeping, and am now forced back into action. Thanks again to Mesro and Dena for the signs, the lunch afterwards with Nati and Chem Mike too, thanks for the good words Voncookie, Selene, Dreadlock Dan, Chang, and others, my parents (are you guys reading the blog yet?), Jgill for sticking by me and everyone else who I've forgotten or can't mention because then my cover is blown (Heavy Metal crew).
This means that once again my blog will be active. Not good, but active.

Phd Exam

Today is the day...

La Regenta

Ana Ozores, La Regenta - beautiful, thoughtful, fear of abandonment, object of sexual desire in the pueblo Vetusta, poet, educated, a wife to be sold to the highest bidder
don Alvaro Mesia, El Tenorio - jefe del partido liberal, politician, smooth-talker, good-looking, wants to seduce Ana Ozores, dresses fashionably like in Paris, speaks foreign languages
Her father - librepensandor, leaves others to raise Ana, example of lazy liberal who doesn't know what he's talking about but relies on the ignorance of others to ignore his unintelligible comments, lives abroad, Romantic (bans Ana from reading modern literature)
El Magistral, De Pas - corrupt, sly, spiritual advisor to Ana, has a telescope that he uses to look over his city, powerful, likes to climb shit
Her Husband, Victor - older, like a father to her
Voyeurism of the confessions; it's a jewel all the priests desire
Digressions galore
The way the canonigos talk, vulgar, sexual, dirty dirty filthy filthy; they hate mass and yawn, clearly anti-clerical portrayal of the lazy unholy ones
Blend of Erotic/Church (Obdulia walking around with that short skirt of hers)

Literature (and History) and GALDóS

Lukacs: “To illustrate moral issues, therefore, the novelist may invent plausible potentialities; this the historian cannot do.”
---Soldados de Salamina a clear example of this

Ribbans: “One should not look in a historical novel for a documentary contribution to historical knowledge.”
---Maybe, but then why do so many histories cite passages of Galdos novels?

Hayden White: If “what was at issue throughout the 19th century, in history as in both art and the social sciences, was the form that a genuinely ‘realistic representation of historical reality’ ought to take’, White claims that, for historians as well as novelists, there is no certain scientific or objective proof of superiority of one response over another.”
---Historical knowledge as a construction as much of the imagination as of thought and that its authority is no greater than the power of the historian to persuade his readers that his account is true.

“Brook Thomas comments ironically, ‘World History confirmed God’s will to have a higher state of civilization progressively emerge in Europe’.”

Menéndez Pelayo on Galdós: “Sin ser historiador de profesión, ha reunido el más copioso archive de documentos sobre la vida moral de España en el siglo XIX.”

In his first historical novel, Galdós sees a continual line between the 1812 Cádiz Constitution to the 1820-1823 ‘trienio constitucional’ and ‘la crisis actual’ of 1868-1870, when Prim was searching for a suitable constitutional monarch. Advocates to his liberal contemporaries caution, moderation and unity in order to avoid mistakes of predecessors.
---Prim was assassinated in 1870

3800 imaginary characters in his novels, about 6% recurring ones

In broad terms, he subscribed to the Hegelian or realist concept of history characteristic of the 19th century; seeks ‘the recorded past’ and participates in the ‘rage for a realistic apprehension of the world’ (Hayden White); like the tree metaphor.
---deviations in his obsession with the historia chica
---intrahistoria
---Aware of the precariousness of his information (gaps in narrative, retelling of stories different than his, holes in information)
---Role of chance in shaping history

Once he has returned to the episodios in 1898, no longer easy solutions to Spain’s problems; almost an esperpento, bloodbath, constant conflict, struggle to balance progress and stability

***General lessons to be learned:
Disgust at intrigue and capricious government, loathing of instinctive recourse to violence, distrust of heroic rhetoric and foreign adventures, apprehension about popular uprisings, ironic contempt for bureaucracy, despair at the neglect of education, concern for innocent victims (often women), approval of free and honest personal relations.
-critics claim that his historical perspective in certain areas, econ, working class, regionalism, are lacking
---La de Bringas is an essay on credit consumerism capitalism free market values and the Spanish crown's bankruptcy

Difference bt Episodios nacionales y novelas contemporaneas:
1) Galdos named them this way as such (and even packaged the episodios in yellow and red)
2) Practical working out of national problem, not philosophical-religious theorizing
3) Content dominated, not as interested in the form/style
4) Quantity of Historical knowledge necessary in episodios is greater
5) Titles of episodios refer to historical event, date or person; novelas, minus one exception, do not
6) A major historical development or figure is shown in action in every episodio
7) Lukács: “Necessary Anachronism”
8) Didactic purposes
9) Formal framework: 10 vol. Series unit, progressive sequence of time, prescribed quantitative limitations (?), 85000 words, 30 chapters
10) Narrative Structure: Autobiography, 3rd person, mixed technique
11) Time-scale: Episodios up to 60 years difference; Novelas 6 years
12) Free Indirect Discourse, and character contamination of narration (ideas and vocab enter into the narration)

Historian’s task is not futile: “it is complex, incomplete, and inexhaustible”

Since the future is predetermined in his novels, Galdós is trapped in a rigid deterministic pattern.

Takes particular trouble to construct characters who offer a broad spectrum of opinions from the contemporary scene, and possibilities of outcomes are explored before the expected one arrives. Open-mindedness and reader-response; I’d even say in España sin rey, if you didn’t know the history of Spain well, would you know who is chosen King? And would it matter? Are you more interested in the history outcome or the outcome between Fernanda, DJ and Céfora?
---Take España sin rey as an example; there is much dialogue, discussion and debate over who will be the next King of Spain: Carlos VII, a foreign king, Alfonso XII, etc…etc…we even get a close perspective of los carlistas and the main reason, at least in this narrative, for their failure to put Carlos in the throne (lack of $$$; put into a difficult situation with the constitution)

Galdós on episodios: “el género novelesco con base histórica”

Doña Perfecta (1876)
-First novela contemporánea, de la primera época
-which means: Clear-cut confrontation between two political attitudes representing traditional Catholic values and Modern liberalism; imaginary, provincial setting (Orbajosa) and an unspecified time of action (although it can be deduced rather easily)
- Moderate use of standard form of the traditional novel, the epistolary mode, as in the letters by Don Cayetano which conclude the novel

España sin rey (1908)
-Ribbans quotes the first page of this book as proof of the further justification of unrecorded or overlooked personal events –authentic or fictional—which form part of the totality of history
-Representation of la historia pequeña o la historia chica with the metaphor of the tree and its associations with steady organic growth to designate the fictional stories of obscure individuals
-Anonymous personal narrator
-Novel ends with murder of Céfora by Fernanda, guardia civil comes, theater dialogue with acotaciones: Ribbans calls it ‘pseudo-dramatic dialogue’
-Wayward traditionalist Tapia declares the Progressives would disappear without Prim

Prim not presented directly, but rather mentioned by characters in the episodio
-Most pressing complex problem facing Prim was the ? of succession
-Carlos VII el niño terso (smooth boy)
-This novel deals with the dangerous time, ‘la maldita Interinidad’, before the new choice for Monarch is made
-Prim’s murder anticipated
-Much of book centered on absurdist Carlist figure Don Wifredo de Romarete, Bailío de Nueve Villas and Caballero de San Juan, from Ultra-Traditionalist Vitoria, and reflects the naïve, anachronistic, optimistic claims of Carlist legitimacy. Identified with Don Quijote, idealistic integrity and sympathy as well as unpractical (amorous weapons of ’43); we see the Cortés through him; Dios en el Sinaí speech by Castelar, overwhelms and dazzles his opponents, including Wifredo, who is disillusioned by this and the love affair of DJ and Céfora, engages in drunken orgy, goes crazy, distorts Castelar’s speech while drunk
-Carolina embodies the flexible go with the flow position, at least whichever flow will coincide with your personal interests: she reminisces about her time as camarista for dona Francisca, and loses her property rights during the Revolution, but regains them when restored by Serrano’s gov, accepts Bourbon restoration of Alfonso XII.

Cánovas the leader of the alfonsinos and his powerful influence, behind the scenes, loss of revolutionary zeal and inexorable progress towards Restauración.
-“Esperamos, y esperando hacemos la Historia de España”

DJ Urries does not have much depth of character, due role as donjuan and political intriguer, when he betrays Fernanda he is betraying the unspoilt values of the country.

-Echegaray, using science vocab in his speeches, will win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1904; ‘lastima q no sea usted dramaturgo’



La de Bringas (1884)
-Narrator has an ironic role, unobtrusive but highly significant intervention (he becomes the one who divides and hands out all of the goods of the Royal family, in the final few pages no clear resolution but does tell us that Rosalía will take care of the family after they’ve left the Palacio Real)
-Example of historical incident which forms part of flow of narration and impinges on fictional characters, Los Bringases involved in the fall of Isabella II within the Palacio Real
-Also an example of resemblance bt a fictional character and an eminent historical figure: Bringas is consistently and ironically identified with the French economist and statesman Thiers
-Set toward the end of Isabella II’s reign, and her indiscriminate charitable instincts are used for a fictional purpose: serve as the last recourse for financial assistance for those in her service.
-When Rosalía has a new shawl, she tells her husband that it was generously given to her by Isabella II. She uses her generosity as a way to avoid consequences of her extravagance. When her financial despair has reached critical level, the Señora’s absence has a disastrous effect: she tells how usually Isabella II will help out her friends if you throw yourself at her feet and beg a little bit and cry.
-Milagros: cunning, insinuating, hypocritical, Rosalía’s role model
*-We come near to the queen is the dinner served to the poor after the traditional ceremony of washing their feet. A good example of Hayden White’s Emplotment!!! Viewed a distance from a distorted angle, gives Isabelita Bringas nightmares, seen through the eyes of the children, grotesque parody relieved by Isabelita, the royal part being played by her mother accompanied by Pez (who she cheats on her husband with); identification of Rosalía and Isabella II, each of them adulteresses.
-Galdós does not disguise his disgust for this travesty of charity: calls it ‘comedia palaciega’ that has nothing to do with the Evangelical. Spectators are noisy, poor women hardly eat anything as they are bewildered and shamed, food packed up to be later resold at boarding houses. Another example of unthinking charity. Farce
-Shadows of forthcoming upheaval are everywhere in evidence in La de Bringas
-Caballero’s immoral decision to take Amparo as his mistress and live with her in France a confirmation of the widespread moral and political disorder: “La revolución no tarda; vendrá el despojo de los ricos, el ateísmo, el amor libre.”
*The whole action of the novel, more or less, is confined to the Palacio Real, its own little city, metonymic fashion as a microcosm of Spanish society on the verge of Revolution.
-Thiers prominent in the revolutionary situation, the collapse of the 3rd Empire; Bringas is el ratoncito Pérez, obsession with hoarding recalls the classic miser is the reverse of the dynamics of capitalism; ‘dinero en manos muertas’
-Pez is the mechanism through which politics is explored for most part: is first neutral, makes sure not to upset Bringas with the inevitable coming of the Revolution, sympathizes with the expulsed generals of Unión Liberal
-Bringases rejoice at the forceful sign of government; bodily reaction to the Navy uprising; Bringas blames Prim for the revolution, and rejoices at a false rumor of his death (pseudo-prolepsis)
-Dona Candida says Queen only needs to show up in Madrid to squash the uprising
*-Consistent, meticulous use of historical detail not required; rather it offers the effects of the crumbling of a style of life, the end of a dynasty and a system, with 2 reactions presented: 1) Bringas’ apocalyptic conviction that all traditional values are irreparably lost, 2) Cynical, accommodating view of Rosalia and Pez, who are confident in facing the unknown, things won’t change that much, Pez nicely situated with revolutionary friends
-Surprisingly peaceful transfer of the building; although fearful of the revolutionaries, are meek and the new administrator (the narrator) is very accommodating to his friends
-Bly: La de Bringas is 1/4th historical novel and 3/4th socio-psychological novel
: “I think that it is not inappropriate to assert that the story of Rosalia and Francisco can be construed as an allegory, or a metaphor, on the decline and fall of the House of Bourbon.”

Reign of Isabella II 1843-1868
Daughter of Ferdinand VII and María Cristina. Father died when she was 3. Took throne. Ferdinand VII’s brother, Carlos V, and his supporters rose up in arms, first Carlista Wars. María Cristina abdicated in 1840. Espartero falls in ’43, Isabella 13 and declared Queen by Narvaez and O' Donnell.

Why was the Transition successful, Paul and Raul?

Paul Preston, a British expert on the Spanish transition, said one of its lessons was that ''the longer a dictatorship has lasted and the nastier it is the more likely it is that the opposition will relinquish its demands for revenge.'' He added, ''Any improvement is worth going for, and you get the kind of broad consensus that was the key in Spain.''

Raul Morodo, a Spanish politician and author, was more blunt. ''The key factor in the transition was fear, and fear produced the consensus,'' he said. Spaniards feared a return to the anarchic bloodletting of the civil war; they were determined not to let it happen again. King Juan Carlos feared the anti-monarchist sentiments among the newly legalized Socialists. The military feared a purge, and the left feared the military. By turning its back on old scores, and on its own blood-stained history, Spain achieved the transition.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEED6143DF935A25757C0A96F948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2