Short Story vs. Novel

GGM:
Escribir una novela es pegar ladrillos. Escribir un cuento es vaciar en concreto.

El cuento es una flecha en el centro del blanco y la novela es cazar conejos.

El cuento parecer ser el género natural de la humanidad por su incorporación espontánea a la vida cotidiana.

Cortázar:
La historia, la arqueología, la biografía, coinciden en la misma terrible tarea: clavar la mariposa en el cartón.

Cortázar on Neruda:
En el principio fue la mujer; para nosotros, Eva precedió a Adán en mi Buenos Aires de los años treinta. Éramos muy jóvenes, la poesía nos había llegado bajo el signo imperial del simbolismo y del modernismo, Mallarmé y Rubén Darío, Rimbaud y Rainer María Rilke: la poesía era gnosis, revelación, apertura órfica, desdén de la realidad convencional, aristocracia, rechazando el lirismo fatigado y rancio de tanto bardo sudamericano. Jóvenes pumas ansiosos de morder en lo más hondo de una vida profunda y secreta, de espaldas a nuestras tierras, a nuestras voces, traidores inocentes y apasionados, cerrándose en cónclaves de café y de pensiones bohemias: entonces entró Eva hablando español desde un librito de bolsillo nacido en Chile, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada.

Cuando la guerra civil española lo lleva a escribir España en el corazón, Neruda ha dado el paso final que lo desplaza del escenario a los actores, de la tierra a los hombres; su definición política, que tanto malentendido innoble haría surgir (y pudrir) en América Latina, tiene la necesidad y la llaneza del cumplimiento amoroso, de la posesión en la entrega última; y es fácil advertir que el signo ha cambiado, que a la lenta, apasionada enumeración de los frutos terrestres por boca de un hombre solitario y melancólico, sucede ahora la insistente llamada a recobrar esos frutos jamás gozados o injustamente perdidos, la proposición de una poesía de combate lentamente forjada desde la palabra y desde la acción.

Cortázar, que fuera reprodu­cido en el Nº 132 de la revista Señales, de Buenos Aires: “Hace años que estoy convencida de que una de las ra­zones que más se oponen a una gran literatura argentina de ficción, es el falso lenguaje literario (sea realista y aun neorrealista, sea alambicadamente estetizante). Quiero decir que si bien no se trata de escribir como se habla en la Argentina, es necesario encontrar un lenguaje lite­rario que llegue por fin a tener la misma espontaneidad, el mismo derecho que nuestro hermoso, inteligente, rico y hasta deslumbrante estilo oral. Pocos, creo, se van acer­cando a ese lenguaje paralelo: pero ya son bastantes como para creer que, fatalmente, desembocaremos un día en esa admirable libertad que tienen los escritores franceses o ingleses de escribir como quien respira y sin caer por eso en una parodia del lenguaje de la calle o de la casa”.

More on Borges Cortázar

Cor¬tázar, que ha confesado reiteradamente su deuda inte¬lectual con Borges, pero que ha aclarado: “Si se trata de las invenciones y las intenciones de Borges, ando hace mucho lejos de él”, se diferencia sobre todo del autor de Ficciones en un matiz que puede ser decisivo: ambos tienen un fondo de lirismo, pero en tanto que Borges “es radicalmente escéptico pero cree en la be¬lleza de todas las teorías” (son palabras de Enrique Anderson Imbert), Cortázar es más bien esperanzado y reserva su escepticismo precisamente para las teorías. En su agnosticismo, Borges se evade hacia la belleza, mientras que Cortázar busca denodadamente su kibutz en los meandros de la realidad, en los recovecos del alma humana, en las fatigas de la conciencia. La ra¬yuela de Cortázar tiene, de todos modos, un cielo, mien¬tras que las fabulaciones de Borges sólo traman y re¬corren sus ruinas circulares. “La gran lección de Bor¬ges es su rigor, no su temática”, ha dicho Cortázar; pero siendo uno y otro escritores excepcionales, cabe anotar que mientras Borges emplea su rigor para hacer cada vez más irrespirable la atmósfera de sus laberin¬tos, Cortázar en cambio lo usa para calcular y recalcular dónde estará el pasaje o el intercesor o la salida que lleve de algún modo a ese kibutz prolijamente entre-soñado.

Latin Americanists, I need your help

So I've been struggling over this question, why did I put the books and authors on my LatAm list that I did, including Borges and Cortazar short stories and how they are different. And you know what, I can't figure out why or how I think they are different, what did Cortazar take away from reading Borges' stories like El jardin de los senderos q se bifurcan and Pierre Menard and Funes, and what did he do differently?
So here is my attempt at brainstorming; it's very scattered, but seriously, any comments or suggestions would be really helpful. Thanks.

Differences between Borges and Cortázar?
-What progression does Cortázar make, he moves from a more realist story-telling to a fantastical one, he makes us suspend disbelief and creates fantastic worlds where people become fish and fish become people, where motorcycle riders crash and wake up to their real life being hunted by Aztecs for human sacrifice, his works are more sensorial than Borges’, who relies more on metaphysics, philosophy, intertextuality, dialogues with literary works, the questioning of originality, a multiplicity of identities, the disintegration of the subject, highlighting the mediation of storytelling and narration, exploring and reworking nationalistic concepts of courage, betrayal, country, duels, minorities, always looking from the periphery, Argentine writer as writing from the periphery, interested in marginalized groups like Jews (Emma Zunz), Japanese (Se Bifurcan), Irish (Forma Espada), and historical moments (WWII, Irish rebellion against British rule) and canonical figures (Cervantes, Shakespeare, Schopenhour) but an undoing of them or questioning of them, displacement as many of his figures are out of their habitat, Irish mistaken for English living in Brazil Vincent Moon, Japanese spy on English boat spying for Germans, multiple identities like Borges himself with English blood, play with language, infinite games, time, infinite possibilities like ajedrez and the labrytine book of the spy’s ancestor in Senderos like to Bifurcan, translation, mocking of literary criticism’s penchant for lists, how reading informs a writer’s works, and Cortázar writes from Paris, the indepthment of the Argentine writer into the European culture, he is the displaced figure, out of body experiences in his literature, things have gone wrong,

What are the differences between Cortázar’s short stories and Borges’ short stories?
Cortázar avoids the literary intertextuality that Borges thrives upon, he does not reveal so directly the literary dialogues (if such dialogues exist) as Borges does, and he does not engage so explicitly in the dialogue with philosophical theories; his short stories that I have read engage in more subtle exploration of metaphysical concerns (death and earthly time and mythical time), whereas in Borges you have so much engagement with the reader, and Cortázar makes life difficult on the reader, they both make you think and do not let you just slide by without working,

Latin American concern, to be constructed by the other, and the struggle between the lure of Europe and the nation they leave behind, self-exiles or exiles of state, or non-exiles that don’t write enough about their own patria to please some public, Huidobro in Paris from 1916 and that influence on his poetics with creacionismo, Vallejo leaving Peru for Europe by 1923 never to return after feared more incarceration, Neruda and his travels as ambassador and forced exile and triumphant return only to have socialist Allende ousted by Pinochet, Mistral’s travels as ambassador, Borges’ travels (although staying in Argentina), Cortázar to France in ’51 as he was opposed to Peron, Marxists, Communists, Socialists, travels to USSR,

Cortázar – interior monologue, stream of consciousness, surrealism, fantasy,
Borges – dialogue, storytelling by characters in the short stories

Good Call, Von Cookie

And you reminded me of one that I'd forgotten which kinda goes with your Ortega quote.
Guillermo de Torre says una imagen es: “el protoplasma primordial, la substancia celular del nuevo organismo lírico…la dinamo motriz, suscitadora del circuito de sugerencias…el reactivo colorante de sus precipitados alquímicos…nuclealmente, el fijo coeficiente valorador de la ecuación poemática creacionista.”

Mas Guerra Civil

Albert Camus: "Fue en España donde los hombres aprendieron que es posible tener razón y aun así sufrir la derrota. Que la fuerza puede vencer al espíritu y que hay momentos en que el coraje no tiene recompensa. Esto es sin duda lo que explica por qué tantos hombres en el mundo consideran el drama español como su drama personal".

Deastheticized Autonomous Art

Aesthetic Preoccupation and Social Criticism:

Divests itself of Schein effect (appearance of curing social ills, catharsis, but is an illusory effect) but retains distance from the real...

Preoccupied with its own form and brings to bear criticism of society's conditions...

What does this look like?
-Lorca and Poeta en NY (poetic theorizing is more implicit, explicit denouncements of dehumanizing modernized society in urban NY)
-Alberti and sus angeles (alienation of the modern subject), the form itself devolves from controlled/traditional Becquer to complete free verse
-Tirano Banderas

In TB, in 3 days during the celebration of Dia de los Muertos, in the time of caudalismo and its tradition of Tyrants back in the Roman tradition, is an overtly hostile to the reader text, formally very complex and very controlled in its system like a swiss watch, in Valle-Inclan code

- - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
*-*
-
-
-
This scene in the middle is the fulcrum around which circles this story, it is the act in which the young boy dies, the young indigenous child who is eaten alive by wild pigs after he's left alone as the authorities have killed his father and taken away his mother
The system is a reflection too, so in the first scene of Act I and the final scene TB is in his tower

A few good quotes

Ortega y Gasset: "Vida es una cosa, poesía es otra...el poeta empieza donde el hombre acaba."

“Y a mi alborotado ruiseñor
Lo encerré en la jaula
Y oprimí el botón del ascensor.”
-Gerardo Diego

Lorca: “Tropezando con mi rostro distinto de cada día.” (Vuelta de paseo, Poeta NY)

Borges: “El yo es sólo una ancha denominación colectiva que abarca la pluralidad de todos los estados de conciencia.” (Manifiesto, ultraísmo)

Diario de un poeta recien casado

Within the larger trajectory of Juan Ramón Jiménez’s (JRJ) poetry, Diario de un poeta recién casado marks a significant shift from a modernist, ‘fin de siglo’ poetics to one that is outside of all tradition; as Javier Blasco states, “se sitúa con este libro fuera de toda tradición…en su momento, causó un desconcierto…fue y sigue siendo un libro adánico en muchos aspectos” (italics mine). Some of the novel aspects of this book include the rupture between prose and verse and the diversity in tonal registers (from pure lyricism to irony); it is written in free verse without opulent use of adjectives (a contrast with modernismo) in a metaphysical exploration of language that could be seen to rival Huidobro’s creacionismo. Blasco does not locate the intention to be one of novelty for novelty’s sake, but rather “el hacerse paso a paso de una conciencia, en un continuo preguntarse por la realidad profunda q hay detrás de las cosas” and a “nueva intuición generadora del poema”. JRJ moves from a stripping of down language to an encounter with modernity, machines, highly industrialized New York and irrational images that Lorca later picks up in Poeta en Nueva York. What coincide with this metaphysical and linguistic preoccupation are his travels; the catalyst for his social concern is the encounter with hyper-modernity in urban New York.

The structure of this book follows the path of JRJ’s travel, beginning in “Soledad” with el mar and the constant flow of its waves as a metaphor for the constant flow and dynamism of the poetic yo’s conscience. “En ti estás todo, mar, y sin embargo, ¡qué sin ti estás, qué solo,/qué lejos, siempre, de ti mismo!” This image reflects an out of body feeling and the distancing between an essential self and the knowing of the self. The verse, “tus olas van como mis pensamientos”, exemplifies the tides of thoughts in the conscience that lead to “un eterno conocerse,/mar, y desconocerse.” The first line of the final stanza of this brief poem sums up the struggle: “Eres tú, y no lo sabes”. It is beautiful in its simplicity, and yet the sentiment of self-alienation and solitude (evidenced in the title and final words, “mar solo”) reveals a feeling of anguish in the poetic yo. In terms of narrative, JRJ is crossing the sea to America and is embarking upon a trip of self-discovery. The second poem of this first section emphasizes the word nada and the burying of this word “como un cadáver de palabras/que se tendiera en su sepulcro/natural…¡Nada!.” Here JRJ transmits a feeling of emptiness of being, and the focus on the word speaks to the linguistic innovation and renovation that JRJ is engaging in. “Cielo” is an important poem in the transformational qualities of language and the word; the poem is directed at cielo and the poet’s tired eyes admit to having forgotten cielo (“sin nombre”) and its vague existence. But once he retrains and refocuses his gaze, things change. “Hoy te he mirado lentamente,/y te has ido elevando hasta tu nombre.” The sky has been transformed from a nebulous existence to an elevated one, contingent on its name. In the second section, we see how the importance of the name and the essence of the thing coincide as the poetic yo reaches América del este and encounters the sky. “Como tu nombre es otro,/cielo, y su sentimiento/no es mío, aún, aún no eres cielo.” The poet has to submit to a process of knowing and discovery to learn its name and essence. This makes me think of Huidobro’s suggestion that one should always write poetry in a foreign language.

From this adventure of self-discovery, the reader is suddenly shocked by a change in form (reportaje) and the plunge into modernity, complete with its earthly ties. It’s as if the poet has taken us from the interior self and the sky, and planted us directly into melancholic (and barren) Boston and New York. The only marker of location in “Túnel ciudadano” is actually in the description. “Boston, Hotel Somerset,/ 14 de marzo, tarde, después de un día cansado.” As a purely biographical note, this is how the poet must have felt upon finally arriving to America. After such a time on the sea and in isolation from most of humanity, to suddenly arrive in an urban city covered in soot and snow would be quite an epiphany. The dominating sensation in this report on the tunnel to humanity and the city is the color black: black snow, black dried-out trees, black skies (from the murderous smoke of the trains without end), black bridges, black tunnels. “Nada da la sensación de que en parte alguna…haya vida con pensamientos y sentimientos de colores, con sentidos corporales…Todo es confuso, difuso, monótono, seco, frío y sucio a un tiempo, negro y blanco, es decir, negro, sin hora ni contajio.” In other words, everything feels dead to the senses and to the mind. Monotony and ‘sin tregua’, which is mentioned earlier regarding the trains’ smoke emissions, are terms that relate to machinery’s ability to consistently reproduce the same event and the lack of humanity in such an action. We are much more limited from capably reproducing the same movement at the same rhythm; machines are not. Industrialization entails a certain degree of dehumanization.

The next step is on to New York in “Sueño en el tren…no en el lecho”, dreaming of the goodbye at the train station platform waving to someone, no one, ah yes: “era alguien que me esperaba en la estación y me abrazaba riendo, riendo, riendo, mujer primavera…” Spring has embraced our narrator and come along for the ride to the city. Here the contrast between city and nature is explicit. Here the move from calling the train a ‘caballo vencedor’ to ‘caballo negro’ demonstrates a problematizing of industrial advancement. Also, the colors of those saying goodbye, “los pañuelos blancos, los sombreros de paja, las sombrillas verdes, moradas, canelas…”, contrast with the arrival to the urban monotony and black which permeated the previous report. The poems that follow detail various ventures throughout the city and the experiences or thoughts of our narrator. In “Iglesias”, churches are compared to window shopping. “Pesadilla de olores” evokes the nightmarish bad smells walking through the poor barrios. “Es como si en un trust de males olores, todos estos pobres que aquí viven –chinos, irlandeses, judíos, negros--, juntasen en su sueño miserable sus pesadillas de hambre, harapo y desprecio, y ese sueño tomara vida y fuera verdugo de esta ciudad mejor.” What stands out is not only the sympathy towards the poor, oppressed groups or the image of their worst dreams being realized, but this last line about how the plight of the poor has become the albatross around the neck of ‘esta ciudad mejor’. In Poeta en Nueva York the denouncement of the city is rather complete, but here there is the belief that a better city lies beneath this pathetic exterior reality. The emphasis on dreams evokes another consciousness and sublevel reality. I don’t know how to interpret the woman’s role as primavera, except as her role as life-giver. “Fuego” is a comical interpretation on the abundance of fire escapes throughout New York, to the extreme that the narrator asks if this was the point of building New York, in order to save it from fire. Herein there is an incorporation of the conflicting tensions between an industrialization that suppresses nature and an attraction towards urban life. “La primavera asalta las escaleras de hierro…Yo quiero tener en mi casa la primavera, sin posibilidad de salida. ¡Prefiero quemarme vivo, os lo aseguro!” This dramatic declaration is followed by two succinct, bare poems in which the coming of la primavera is announced. “ ¿Sencillo?/ Las palabras/verdaderas;/lo justo para que ella, sonriendo/entre sus rosas puras de hoy,/lo comprenda./Con un azul, un blanco, un verde/--justos--,/se hace --¿no ves?—la primavera.” The hailing of the coming of the spring takes place in “¡Viva la primavera!, which is how this poem ends, with three times the declaration of spring. The battle between the machines and nature has been fought, and spring has broken through.

• “Deshora” and “La luna” are two examples of the irrational imagery approaching surrealism that Lorca employs in Poeta en NY.

• Important quote to remember, which details how JRJ was influential to varying paths of vanguardia: “Nacen dos corrientes fundamentales de poesía posterior: la q vengo llamando el hodiernismo poético q culminará en Cántico; y la q prepara la semántica irracional q culminará en Poeta en NY…, las realizaciones estéticas del 27 más opuestas y significativas de la literatura de los años de entreguerras” (Juan Manuel Rozas).

The Modern Liberal Concept of Spain was created during the Peninsular War of 1808-1814

So says Quiroga and Balfour

• “The invasion of Napoleonic troops mobilized an important sector of the population in the struggle against the French and triggered the liberal revolution. In 1810 the National Assembly convened in Cádiz and assumed national sovereignty in defence of a modern canon of Spain as a political community of citizens endowed with equal rights. In March 1812 the National Assembly approved a constitution that established the Spanish nation as sovereign and recognized Spain as a national, constitutional, parliamentarian and Catholic body. To justify abandoning the absolutist regime, Spanish liberalism sought to position itself within popular traditions. Liberals defined the national community in terms of a common history and culture rooted in the Middle Ages. Thus Aragon’s medieval parliaments and the Castilian Comuneros’ opposition to the rule of the Habsburgs were mobilized as historical landmarks for Spanish liberalism’s claim that it had ‘traditional’ origins. In turn, this contention of a popular and democratic past was meant to legitimize liberalism and the creation of new parcipatory institutions within a modern state. In other words, from its conception the liberal idea of Spain incorporated an important ‘organicist’ perception of the nation as a community shaped by history and culture, an idea that would eventually underlie the 1978 Constitution.”

One of the key obsessions (tiempo) of Antonio Machado is reflected in the contrast/interplay of two elements signaled as key to his (and all) poetry: esencialidad y temporalidad. This apparently contradictory pair is what Machado attempts to reconcile in his poetics; when he defines poetry as “palabra esencial en el tiempo”, la esencia refers to the immutable, ahistorical, objective while lo temporal might be described as the personal subjective experiences of the poet in his specific lived time. No matter if the poet wishes his poetry could exist outside of time, there are external constraints which make this impossible. I think that Machado is also saying that his subjective feelings that he tries to express in his poetry (a step back towards Romanticism and Bécquer) are also objective, universal feelings that many or all people have felt at one time or another: melancholy, happiness, nostalgia, loss, and the sureness of no matter what we do, she (Death) awaits us all. He achieves this expression of personal/objective feelings, I think, by creating his own symbolic range: la tarde, las aguas, los fuentes, el camino, el viajero, las estaciones del año. The apparent simplicity of his poetry belies a depth that allows the reader to access the poet’s feelings, sympathize with them, and also later in his works to read into the noventayochesco element in his Campos de Castilla and the later explicitly historically contextualized and propagandistic poems during La Guerra Civil.
It is important to stress Machado’s self-conscious split with much of the modernists’ poetic tropes, although he does express admiration and friendship with those such as Rubén Darío. In the first poem,“Retrato”, from the book Campos de Castilla, 1907-1917, Machado expresses his poetic split: “Adoro la hermosura, y en la moderna estética/corté las viejas rosas del huerto de Ronsard;/mas no amo los afeites de la actual cosmética, ni soy un ave de esas del nuevo gay-trinar.” The poet explicitly repudiates the modernist influence on his poetics and places himself within a more romantic space (Pierre de Ronsard was a medieval French poet who was praised by the Romantics for among other things his expression of melancholy and play with medieval forms). Machado also makes apparent his deviation from the modernists in his prologue to his 1907 version of Soledades, galerías, y otros poemas. “Por aquellos años (1899-1902), Rubén Darío…era el ídolo de una selecta minoría. Yo también admiraba al autor de Prosas profanas, el maestro incomparable de la forma y de la sensación, que más tarde nos reveló la hondura de su alma…Pero yo pretendí…seguir camino bien distinto. Pensaba yo que el elemento poético no era la palabra por su valor fónico, ni el color, ni la línea, ni un complejo de sensaciones, sino una honda palpitación del espíritu.” This explanation not only sheds light on how Machado read Darío, but also his self-reflective tendency in his prose as well as his lyric. What is paradoxical about such an intimate knowledge of his poetics, at least when it is expressed within his poems, is that the very fact that his works are meta-poetic is a characteristic of modernism. This is also evident in his first poem of Galerías, LXI “Introducción”: “El alma del poeta/se orienta hacia el misterio./Sólo el poeta puede/mirar lo que está lejos/dentro del alma”. Machado defends a rather Romantic perspective of poetry within his poetry, a modernist gesture. It is romantic in the sense that the poet is enthralled with mystery, that which lies outside of logic (a modernist idea as well), but the emphasis on expressing interiority, of the soul and galleries of personal memories without end no less, de-emphasizes the focus on the other poetic elements like the musicality and sensuality of the poem. Machado, especially in Soledades, wants to navigate the expression of personal and objective experiences.
One poem in particular that I wanted to focus on was “Recuerdo infantil”. Monotony, melancholy and a lack of nostalgia permeate the poem. Some poems express a desire to recuperate experiences past, but here the memory isn’t pleasant; it is not an idyllic vision of juventud. Machado achieves monotony by ending the poem with the same first stanza, as well as the monotonous singing of their lesson by the chorus of children: “mil veces ciento, cien mil;/ mil veces mil, un millón.” Enjambement and the image of rain pelting the windows contributes to the poem’s feeling that the passage of time is slow. The adjectives used to describe the tarde, parda y fría, reflects the interior feelings felt by the subject remembering this experience. The image of Cain and Abel, one brother slayed and lying dead in a puddle of blood while the other flees, creates an uneasy feeling. Is this a reflection on the state of Spain and the past civil wars? It would be hard to make that argument regarding Soledades, but as we see later on in both Campos de Castilla and his later poems promoting the liberal war effort, Machado moves into a poetry that not only reflects his subjective experiences and comments on the decay of Spain (hence, the depiction by many as a late noventayochentista) represented by the state of Castilla in, for example, XCVIII “Orillas del Duero”: “Castilla miserable, ayer dominadora”. The poet laments the contemporary situation of Castilla (Spain) and its once illustrious past (referencing El Cid). In his poems concerning war, Machado very explicitly unveils his alliance with the Republic, calling out for help to the Soviets, Mexico, decrying the murder of Federico García Lorca in his own Granada!, calling to alert the youth of Spain to fight, and his last verse, “estos días azules y este sol de la infancia”. His nationalism, implicit to a certain extent in Campos, comes through vividly in these final works.

Key Moments in 19th and 20th century that lead up to the Spanish Civil War

• 1812 Constitución de Cádiz:
---Leading up this event, Spain suffered a terrible collapse, economically, militarily, in terms of perceived and real power.
---Lost to France in war, Godoy as PM (and reformer), wars with Britain, isolation from colonies, loss of colonies, loss of independence to France as Joseph king, uprising from 1808 to 1814
---The liberals formed a Junta in Madrid, which relocated to Sevilla and then Cádiz; they promulgated a Constitution which was to affect the next 50 years of politics and Spain
---El rey deseado, Fernando VII, takes the throne

• 1820-1823 Trienio
---Fernando VII is out; General Riego issues a pronunciamiento as Military leans toward liberalism, general population is indifferent
---Proves the futility of the 1812 Constitution, as after 3 years the government falls with the intervention of France and the throne goes back to Fernando VII (and the Restoration Monarchy continues)

• Carlista wars, Moderates rule, Liberals rule, Trains
---There are sporadic uprisings, revolutions in ’48 and ’54, Narváez as a military dictator, and Modernization of Spain under Narváez in some respects
---Carlista war from ’33-‘39
---Heavy Investment in trains, leads to an uneven industrialization

• 1868 La Gloriosa
---’68 Revolution leads to another Constitution ‘69
---by ’73, new king, Amadeo, abdicates, First Republic ensues (shortlived)
---Prim is assassinated in ‘70
---Cánovas and his system, el turno pacífico, will rule political Spain (along with the interruptions of the monarch and to a lesser extent the military, until 1923)

• 1898 Disaster
---Spain loses the rest of its colonies: PR, Cuba, Philippines, in war with US
---Little short-term costs economically or militarily, but huge psychological impact, as Spain is now seen without doubt as a second-class European citizen
---Leads to the concept of Regeneration, the need to fix Spain
---’97 Cánovas is shot by an anarchist militant

• 1909 Semana trágica
---Example of the unrest and continued uprisings/confrontations between workers, socialists, anarchists, militants and the government/military
---Also highlights the center role that Barcelona takes in the anarchist movement, uprisings and strikes, and the subsequent violent reprisals
---Canalejas assassinated by CNT militant in 1912

• Disaster in Annual in 1921
---Moroccan wars in 1909-1914, and then later with uprising after Spain overextends itself, lead to losses and the disaster at Annual
---In the aftermath, a search for those responsible for the loss, fearful that can expose military, monarch
---Primo de Rivera, with the support of Alfonso XIII (who came of age in 1906 and who considered the military’s role in politics to be essential), comes to power of military dictatorship, from 1923-1929

• 2nd Republic 1931-1936
---After Primo’s fall and a short quick fix, elections are held and a Republic is formed, Alfonso XIII flees
---After two years and little success, the Left loses its control of the cabinet and the government goes to the Right, who are determined to bring down the Republic by legal means; known as the bienio negro
---1932 General Sanjurjo attempts a coup, fails
---’33-’35 CEDA and Gil Robles dismantle reforms from previous administration, but in an effort to create a whole RIGHT government, new elections are needed; the Left, banded together (even the CNT allows their members to vote) Right out of power

• Military uprising, Civil War
---General Mola, with support from other generals and ultimately from Franco, plan military uprising
---Calvo Sotelo is murdered in ’36, spurs to action the generals (and wins Franco’s support of the coup)
---Garrisons in Melilla rise up, round up all opposition, first battle of the Civil War is fought and won (without anyone knowing about it)


Military:
The military is constantly upset and divided. In the early 19th century, it has its power (which was betrothed to it by the throne) reduced by Godoy’s reforms. The loss of naval superiority cuts Spain off from its Spanish American colonies (British blockade), which are crucial to the Empire. It is also weakened by constant war, lack of modernization, too much money spent on officers and not on training soldiers, and a resistance to reform from within (although in early 19th century more liberal than in later years). The military reasserts its power through various pronunciamientos issued by Generals, starting with Elío, who states that the interests of the military are the interests of Spain. The military had become angry and refused to go in 1820 on rickety boats across the sea to America. Military usually seen as retrograde, but at this time was aligned with liberals. Some of the prominent generals to have a role in the government include Prim, Serrano, Narváez, and many others. The decision of the military to intervene in politics and be outside of civilian rule is one that transcends the 19th century, as we see Primo de Rivera and then later Franco intercede in governmental affairs and office. The Military also suffers from divisions; between africanistas and peninsulares, the privileged and not-privileged, the Navy, Armed Forces and the Army and Artillery. There are also battles over promotion by seniority or merit (which can be abused, Primo case in point). The Military became the only force that could guarantee law and order; when Narváez formed the Guardia Civil this force greatly enforced law and order as well.

Agrarian/Land Reform:
This also ties in to the Catholic Church and disamortization, which freed up lands supposedly to help the poor, landless or tenant farmers, but almost resolutely contributed to consolidation of power for the landed oligarchy, who had the means and the access to purchase the lands. Various liberal reforms were introduced throughout the 19th and early 20th century with very little success; Esdaile believes they were ill-conceived and in many cases ruled by self-interest. The situation for the poor agrarian workers, the poor farmers, and the industry itself suffered immensely into the 20th century. Even the reforms enacted by the 2nd Republic were half-hearted, under-funded, and had unintentional consequences and loopholes. Because of the failures of the land reforms, as well as political developments outside of Spain, there is a rise in radical political beliefs and politics. PSOE is formed by Pablo Iglesias in 1879 and in 1888 the UGT is created, the workers’ wing of the party.

Catholic Church:
The Catholic Church repeatedly suffered great restraints on its power and then subsequent lifting of their restrictions. The first attempt at reducing its financial strength was introduced by Godoy, who reduced its wealth by 15% by 1808. Also at play during the 19th century is the institution of the Jesuits, the Inquisition, the role of the Church in education (an easy way to indoctrinate future generations). Generally the Left/liberals reduced the power of the Church and were considered to be very anti-clerical; the Right tended to defend its power and restore its rights. In the 20th century the Catholic Church was under even greater attack from some, and was symbolic for anarchists, socialists and other radicals as the ultimate source of privilege and corruption, and therefore there were numerous attacks on Church buildings, clergy, and the 2nd Republic declared freedom of religion. As a consequence, the Right consolidated its power with the Church.

Regionalism:
Regional concerns were not prevalent in the early part of the 19th century, but began in seriousness in Catalonia in the ‘50s and ‘60s with a heroic, nationalistic approach that praised past accomplishments, but had very little traction politically, especially with the bourgeoisie. Basque and Galician concerns were less powerful, especially in the Basque region, where immigration diluted the ‘Basqueness’ of the region and the elites refused to speak the native tongue. Political parties are formed in the early 20th century, including the Lliga and Esquerra for the Catalan region, and the PNV. There is a rift between the bourgeoisie industrialists and the working class, their interests of Catalan autonomy in conflict with their business interests. The Catalan industrialists align themselves with Primo de Rivera, for example, believing him to be an ideal ally due to his repression of anarchist and worker uprisings in Barcelona as Capitan General de BCN. However, they are mistaken, as he is a centralist who strips Catalonia of its autonomy and alienates the Catalonian nationalists of all stripes.

Industrialization and Modernization:
Spain’s industrialization is not uniform, and the lack of a more complex and successful industrialization would have had consequences concerning the plight of the landless workers and poor and on immigration. As it was, the time period underneath Narváez and the Moderates is considered the beginning of the industrial stirrings in Spain, with much of the focus on the railways. In 1855, a law was passed the eased the restrictions on importing railway goods into Spain, and a railroad construction boom followed suit. Foreign capital was responsible for the majority of the investment, as domestic capital was limited (although it too was directed primarily at trains). Unfortunately, the belief that heavy investment in railways would lead to industrialization in other parts of Spain was not realized, and only certain regions of Spain (Catalonia, Barcelona in particular, Basque region, Vizcaya, Bilbao) enjoyed industrial awakening. This hurt the poor who wanted to move to big cities and find employment (Barcelona and Bilbao would be two exceptions), since jobs weren’t to be had. It also negatively affected the economy, as less development in industry and the agricultural industry (and protectionist tariffs that stunted growth and modernizing) resulted in less economic development and taxes. The slow industrialization led to a slowed urbanization of Spain, and it wouldn’t be until the ‘20s that Spain underwent a more profound industrialization under Primo. It also led to a modernization of Spain and his downfall.

Monarch:
The rift between the Carlistas and the Borbones (am I mixing this up and Carlos was a Borbon too?) can be traced back to Fernando VII’s decision to marry his neice, María Cristina, who gave birth to who would later become Isabel II. This precluded his brother, Carlos, from the throne. Once this decision was made, the Carlistas were born, who consistently fought the monarchy in an attempt to dethrone Isabel and reinstall Carlos (his son). This moved on into the 20th century, as the Carlistas were to become symbolic of a desire for traditional values. After the Revolution of 1868 removed Isabel from the throne, a battle raged over what form the government should take and who should be king. Amadeo the brief was from 1870-1873, and then he abdicated in disgust, leaving a vacuum with the First Republic poorly filled. What was to be the government and was there to be a king? Eventually Cánovas and conservatives created a system which was to become known as the turno pacífico, and Alfonso XII became king. Those who supported Alfonso and later his son were known as alfonsistas, who had an important role after Alfonso XIII fled at the start of the 2nd Republic. They combined with other traditional forces, such as the military, carlistas, Church, and conservative political groups like CEDA, Falange, etc, in the revolt of ’36. I should note too that the monarchy had a meddling personality when it came to politics, especially during the turno pacífico, which led to much grumbling among politicians; Alfonso XIII was known as a soldier king and preferred military control and intervention to civilian rule, which was part of the reason he assisted Primo de Rivera’s military directory.

Immigration/Migration:
Migration did occur in smaller quantities during the 19th century, primarily to the Spanish American colonies. However, immigration was less than might have been expected, because of the lack of employment in the bigger cities (failed industrialization in many aspects); Esdaile calls it more of a 20th century phenomenon. In the 20th century, urbanization was more prevalent as the number of citizens employed in agriculture dropped below 50% and immigration from rural areas to the cities was more persistent. This led to more numbers of union members, over-crowding, and other problems associated with immigration, and there was an unsettling amount of unrest and uprisings by militant anarchists, workers, socialists, radicalists, who were unhappy with the sluggish to non-existent social reforms of the government and believed that a universal general strike would lead to the overthrow of capitalism. As the urban populations increased, so did education of the population and literacy, its access to cinema, travel, exposure to other ideas, and other forms of modernization which led to a questioning of the status quo, and by the end of Primo’s dictatorship, politics and mass interest in Spain coincided on a large scale.



Notes added in meet:
Mistake was to become too aligned with France after 7 year war
Louis XV alliance with Spanish Borbones
Continuous war for most of end of 1788 to 1814
British blockade leads to problem of economic downturn, lack of supplies from the new world like silver and gold, no trade, lack of industry
No prolonged reforming period
Also, reforms and revolutions were feared because of the French example, off with the king’s head, the reign of terror, and the dangers to ruling class interests (would lose everything)
A lack of political representation, what helped cause French Revolution, present in Spain; population’s interests not represented by governments (for a really really long time); represents landed oligarchy
Lack of revolution, or alternative to revolution
Lack of viable professional middle class
Industrialization was delayed, insufficient to soak up landless laborers
Conservatives/Liberals divided by issues: peripheral regionalism vs. Castilian Spain
What kind of government do we want? Centralized? Republic? Monarchy? Carlista? Borbones?
Army sees itself as the stable force in Spain, only guarantee of law and order, only security force government can rely upon, tradition of military intervention
Then Narváez created the Guardia Civil, which is a separate force, known for its ferocity and feared by population, loyal to government
Turning point 1898 disaster
Morocco problem as well, which had its roots in 19th century Spain, in 20th century the Army sees it as the last remnant of the Empire as well as the last sure ground where the Military can test itself (battle-hardened africanistas vs. peninsulares)
Political movements (except for the Falange) are already in movement in 19th century

Sobre los angeles

Sobre los ángeles marks a transitional phase in Rafael Alberti’s poetry between his more popular/neopopular innocent poetry books (beginning with Marinero en tierra) to socially engaged verse. This interaction with the modern world and criticism of it can also be seen in the third and final section of Sobre los ángeles. Alberti is politically active by the start of the 1930s decade, has joined the PCE, writes socially engaged poetry and is eventually exiled after the end of the Civil War, not to return to Spain until after the death of Franco.

There are many ways of reading this book, as it is hard to pin down; one can read it as a crisis of religious faith, a crisis resulting from a love lost, an aesthetic crisis. It is an extremely depressing, disillusioned and very fragmented poetic yo that leaves his body and descends into the depths of hell, himself. The angst that the poetic yo feels is profound; there is a feeling of loss, nostalgia. This journey to the core of a person finds the poetic yo experiencing and encountering various angels, many of them evil, bad, ugly, rusting, lying; why angels? The connection with Bécquer’s verse that is repeated (“Huésped de las nieblas”) needs to be explored. In this verse from Bécquer’s Rima LXXV, in which Alberti believes that Bécquer suffers from insomnia because he never sleeps. When he falls asleep, his soul leaves his body to go explore other regions, and to meet others. I think Alberti was fascinated and obsessed with this idea, and this book of poems reflects a similar journey, yet this journey is also an encounter with himself and his various demons. However, he does not name them as such, but rather angels, an important distinction. The fact that the first poem is titled “Paraíso perdido” evokes the epic poem by John Milton which details the battle between Satan and God for the Heavens, his subsequent defeat and banishment. The Romantics began to read Milton’s epic poem in a new light, empathizing with the character of Satan, rebellious, knowledgeable, independent, and ultimately not divine. I see parallels between this story and the symbols used by Alberti; for example, ‘la rebelión de las sombras’ is a rebellion of man or of the humanized angels who know have shadows (since an angel is divine and not human, he cannot have a shadow like in El Angel Angel ‘nunca escribió su sombra la figura de un hombre’). There is an aesthetic interaction with Bécquer, his clouds, the story of rebellion against god and extreme loss of hope. The stage has been set, as the world we are entering is nebulous, not of our comprehension, and it is depressing, hope has been lost, paradise has been lost, and the final words of the first section emphasize this disillusionment: “yo, sin luz para siempre.”

I think that from the very opening lines Alberti is using a religious language and symbolism that he is familiar with, being raised in a Jesuit school, and that a majority of his readers would be familiar with. For example, the metaphor of the body as a house that is uninhabited as the body is without the soul. But rather than having a personal religious struggle with faith, this language gives him the ability to speak of other things. Also, it can be seen as a parallel of the state of the sacred and profane as it stands in these poems. Just as the sacred is being profaned, the sacred language has been profaned. Is Alberti really talking about the battle in the heavens between St. Michael and Lucifer in his poem Los dos ángeles? Is this Biblical battle what truly preoccupies his soul? Especially once the reader enters into the third section, the poetic yo takes on a prophetic tone, an enunciator tone, of what seems to be the coming Apocalypse. The short verses of the first two sections are cast aside for much longer verses, and the vosotros tense becomes prominent. The poet is calling attention to the problems in society, calling out the ‘hombres de cinc, alquitrán y plomo’, who are the ángeles de las ruinas. He includes himself in those who have forgotten about the Edenic era, a pre-time, pre-name, pre-body existence when the soul was alive; here the return to the human and rejection of a dehumanized verse seems to be evident. And the profanation of religious language and symbols is evident as well; for example, the final stanza in los ángeles de las ruinas:

“Y nadie espera ya la llegada del expreso,

La visita oficial de la luz a los mares necesitados,

La resurrección de las voces en los ecos que se

calcinan.”

The blending of images of the Express train arriving at a station and the ‘official’ visit of the Light (Holy Spirit, Jesús) with the resurrection, and using the term resurrection, but not to detail the return of Jesus but the calcified voices/echoes. This language also brings us into a modern world, of trains, rust, crashes, and revolvers and bullets.

“No os acerquéis/….Os he dicho que no acerquéis./Os he pedido un poco de distancia:/ la mínima para comprender un sueño/y un hastío sin rumbo haga estallar las flores y las/calderas.” (Los ángeles de las ruinas)

I think these lines are possibly a wink from Alberti at how to read his book of poems; with a little bit of distance, understand a dream, the explosion of flowers and boilers (beauty and modern Apocalypse). Hope is still weak in the final poem, ‘El ángel superviviente’. Images of death, disillusion, disintegration abound, but the verse “La derrota del cielo, un amigo.” drives in the nail of despair into the reader. In the end, one angel with broken wings survives, as all the others have died. This personal crisis of Alberti (fragmented yo, “yo era…”, “yo era…”, the quote of his about having published 5 books and still having to live off of his parents’ money, ?Qué era yo? Ni bachiller, what’s his purpose as a poet) has been answered in this final section. It is to be a socially engaged poet, one who returns to the human, no matter how profane it may be, and fight, rebel with the other shadows, and take on perceived evils of the modern world (“hombres de cinc, alquitrán y plomo”).

Welcome

Thanks for checking out my site. From today on I will post once a day, as a way to keep me on schedule and thinking about my exam. I will not post on Thanksgiving. Word.

Arte poética

Kinda like Rimas, this lyrical title tends to be used by a lot of poets and attributed to one in particular. These poems, written during the vanguardia movement in Latin America, are quite different. Which one do you like better?

Arte poética, Pablo Neruda

Entre sombra y espacio, entre guarniciones y doncellas,

Dotado de corazón singular y sueños funestos,

Precipitadamente pálido, marchito en la frente,

Y con luto de viudo furioso por cada día de vida,

Ay, para cada agua invisible que bebo soñolientamente,

Y de todo sonido que acojo temblando,

Tengo la misma sed ausente y la misma fiebre fría,

Un oído que nace, una angustia indirecta,

Como si llegaran ladrones o fantasmas,

Y en una cáscara de extensión fija y profunda,

Como un camarero humillado, como una campana un poco ronca)

Como un espejo viejo, como un olor de casa sola

En la que los huéspedes entran de noche perdidamente ebrios,

Y hay un olor de ropa tirada al suelo, y una ausencia de flores,

Posiblemente de otro modo aún menos melancólico,

Pero, la verdad, de pronto, el viento que azota mi pecho,

Las noches de substancia infinita caídas en mi dormitorio,

El ruido de un día que arde con sacrificio,

Me piden lo profético que hay en mí, con melancolía,

Y un golpe de objetos que llaman sin ser respondidos

Hay, y un movimiento sin tregua, y un nombre confuso.

Arte poética, Vicente Huidobro

Que el verso sea como una llave
Que abra mil puertas.
Una hoja cae; algo pasa volando;
Cuanto miren los ojos creado sea,
Y el alma del oyente quede temblando.

Inventa mundos nuevos y cuida tu palabra;
El adjetivo, cuando no da vida, mata.

Estamos en el ciclo de los nervios.
El músculo cuelga,
Como recuerdo, en los museos;
Mas no por eso tenemos menos fuerza:
El vigor verdadero
Reside en la cabeza.

Por qué cantáis la rosa, ¡oh Poetas!
Hacedla florecer en el poema;

Sólo para nosotros
Viven todas las cosas bajo el Sol.

El Poeta es un pequeño Dios.