SPAN 44 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Contemporary French Literature, American Imperialism, Spanish Empire
Imagining Civilization and Progress at the Turn of the Century
Costumbrismo, Modernismo, Museums nad Photography
Midterm:
● Match the column 10 pts
● Short Identification A and B (20 pts each)
● Long Essay 50 pts
● Do not need to know exact dates, just big ones like 1492
○ Should know certain centuries at least (mid, early, late, etc)
● Bring pen/pencil, no need ot bring blue book
● Covers weeks 1-4, study guide on CCLE
Chapter Overview
● Acceleration of the acculmulation of wealth & cultural capital within the hands of a few elites who
considered themselves of european culture
○ Worsening of living/working conditions of other people (marginalized groups)
○ Most heavily affected indigenous and afro-descendant (agricultural) workers
● Going to observe both sides of the economic transformation at this time: benefits and cost
Latin America at the turn of the century
● Export model of economic development
○ Exports of raw material and agricultural products vs. imports of manufactured goods
■ Exporting agricultural products
○ Era of abundane and luxurious import goods (exotic and expensive commodities coming from
pacific trade, from Europe and Norht America) → modernismo
■ Importing luxuries like clothes, decorations, etc. and manufactured goods
● The Latin political map stabilizes (after years of territorial chaos!)
○ Cuba gets independence from spain in 1898, PUerto Ricco annexed to the US
○ Panama will separate from Columbia 1903
○ War of the Pacific (1879-1883) will set the borders between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia as they are
today
■ Prior to 1883, Bolivia had access to the pacific ocean
○ Argentina will conquer all of Patagonia territory by 1890 → military Campaign of the Desert
○ War of the Chaco will be the last significant Latin American territorial war → Paragruay will lose
⅓ of its territory to Bolivia (1935)
● Emergence of new technologies nad cultural forms
○ Visiual technologies → daguerrotype, photography, cinematography
○ Print technologies → daily newspapers, illustrated magazines
■ Appealled especially to female readers
● Era of urban reforms and transfomrations (giving cities a european flare!)
○ Urban reforms (imitating Paris) → ample boulevards, paseos, alamedas…
○ Public monuments celebrating (heroic) past and (brilliant) future
○ Public buildings as repositories of the national history and culture → national museums, national
libraries, national theaters, opera houses, etc.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
○ First department store and commercial galleries → advertising and consumption
○ Public transportaiton (horse-tramways), streetlights, sanitation systems (sensorial change!)
■ Image: national theater in San Jose Costa Rica (1897) as well as other technological,
cultural, and urban freforms
● Desire to appear “civilized” and “progressive” to the world
○ Emphasis in presenting Latin American nations with deep historical density and cultural
specificity
■ Museums, archaeology, natural histories
■ Costumbrismo:
■ Giving historical and cultural identity to each of the territories
○ Emphasis in presenting Latin American nations as wealthy, productive; technologically,
politically, and culturally “modern” (according to Eurocentric stnadards)
■ Industrial fairs
■ Continental and international exhibitiions
■ modernismo
■ .
Costumbrismo, moddernity and nostalgia
● Costumbrismo: cultural sensibility that expresses ambivalent feelings in relation to modernity →
literature, painting, and photography (modernity and tradition)
○ Expresses nostalgia for the past depicted as in the process of being lsot (picturesque)
○ Represents the proceses of modernization as accelerated and inevitable
○ Contrast “gold ole times” with “modernity”
■ Modernity represented w/ admiration and ridicule at the same time
● Can criticize new habits of the elites (imitating europe) in LA
● Relies heavily on visuality and visual cues (somtimes accompanied by images)
● Humoristic and satirical tone (The Major’s Calf)
● Preference for very short formats
○ Sketches of manners (cuadros de custmbres) → render snippets of mdoern life vivid for the
reader
○ Related to new formations of print circulation → periodical press and illustrated journals
● Very popular genre
● Some costumbrista authors
○ Chile: Alberto Blest Gana
○ Guatemala: Jose Milla y Vidaurre (Salme Jil)
Ricardo Palma and the Peruvian Traditions (Tradiciones peruanas)
● 1833-1919 (lived a long life!)
○ Witnessed so many transformations throughtout Latin America and Peru
● Journalist and director of the national library of Peru (Lima) between 1872-1910
○ Life project: rebuilt corpus of books destoryed during War of the Pacific
● Wrote more than 500 tradiciones
○ Originally published in the press
○ Later compied in Series → 10 volumes published between 1872-1910
● Tradiciones as a hybrid genre
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
○ Explanation of popular legends, old saying/proverbs, customs/superstitions
■ Friar Gomez’s Scorpion
○ Historical mischellanea of well-known historical characters, but also less-known historical
figures
○ Autobiographical anecdotes and reminiscenses (like in Friar Gomez’s Scorpion)
○ Use of humor, mixture of history and fiction, frequent digressions of the author, conversational
tone toward the reader
○ Establishes historical continuity in light and enjoyable way → from precolumbian times (Inca
empire) colonial period, Independence wars uuntil contemporary and modern (Peru’s historical
identity and cultural specificity)
Friar Gomez’s Scorpion
● Conversational tone, use of humor, use of old sayings/expressions, gusto for wrodplay and popular
rhymes
○ Y vieja, pelleja, aqui dio fin la conseja (how you end bedtime stories)
● positions himsel f(the author) as the bridge between history and modernity (the future, his young
daugther); connecting past and future
○ “In diebus illis, I mean to say when I was a boy…”
● Mixes historical characters w/ fictional ones
● Depicts the colonial period as a magical period, when everything was possible nad believable
(vs.modernity)
○ Macial miracles back during colonial times, but don’t happen anymore
The Major’s Calf”
● Manipulates historical documents for the sake of humor and the anecdote
● Characters and some events (battles) are real but the anecdote is apochryphal → mixture of history and
fiction
● Revisits the colonial rhetoric of the witness but twists it → no more first hand witnesses, the new
legitimate witnesses are now the historians
○ “I, the undersigned, guarantee with all the gravity incumbent upon th ecollector of Traditions, the
authenticity of the signatures…”
Modernismo, the aestetic alternative of the fin-de-siecle
● Emerges as new literary style during 1880s-90s, (will be dominant until approx 1920)
○ → julian del casal, jose asuncion silvia, jose marti, and ruben dario
● Modernistas practiced different genres: novel, travel chronicle,
○ Poetry most important (focus on Ruben Dario)
● Literary style BORN in Latin America and later exported to Spain
● Influenced by two French literary movements: Parnassianism and Symbolism
○ “Back to form” respect for the literary verse, back to classical forms
○ Poetry as sacred, cult of beauty, aim for aesthetic perfection → the art for the art’s sake
■ Has goal of aesthetic perfection, reaching an ideal
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Imagining civilization and progress at the turn of the century. Short identification a and b (20 pts each) Do not need to know exact dates, just big ones like 1492. Should know certain centuries at least (mid, early, late, etc) Bring pen/pencil, no need ot bring blue book. Covers weeks 1-4, study guide on ccle. Acceleration of the acculmulation of wealth & cultural capital within the hands of a few elites who considered themselves of european culture. Worsening of living/working conditions of other people (marginalized groups) Most heavily affected indigenous and afro-descendant (agricultural) workers. Going to observe both sides of the economic transformation at this time: benefits and cost. Latin america at the turn of the century. Exports of raw material and agricultural products vs. imports of manufactured goods. Era of abundane and luxurious import goods (exotic and expensive commodities coming from pacific trade, from europe and norht america) modernismo. Importing luxuries like clothes, decorations, etc. and manufactured goods.
