MODERN AND MEDIEVAL LANGUAGES TRIPOS Part II
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Monday 4 June 2012 1.30 to 4.30
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Paper Sp. 12
LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE
Answer three questions, at least one from each section. One or more answers must contain substantial discussion of poetry.
Candidates for this paper may not draw substantially on material from their dissertations or material which they have used or intend to use in another scheduled paper. Candidates may not draw substantially on the same material in more than one question on the same paper.
Write your number not your name on the cover sheet of the answer booklet.
STATIONERY REQUIREMENTS SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
20 Page Answer Book x 1 None
Rough work pad
Tags
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You may not start to read the questions printed on the subsequent pages of this question paper until instructed that you may do so by the Invigilator
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SECTION A
Topics in Latin American Culture
1 ‘El culto preciosista de la forma favorece el desarrollo de una voluntad de estilo que culmina en refinamiento artificioso y en inevitable amaneramiento.’
Discuss with reference to two or more modernista poets.
2 ‘Para hacer esta muralla,/ tráiganme todas las manos:/ Los negros, sus manos negras,/ los blancos, sus blancas manos.’ (N. Guillén)
Discuss with reference to the work of two or more poets associated with negrista poetry.
3 ‘Inside the avant-garde artist who talks of pure or impure poetry is the one forever moving inward, the one tapping his own roots.’
Discuss with reference to the work of any two or more avant-garde poets.
4 ‘While rediscovering ancestral or primeval terrain, the Narrativa de la tierra seems intent on chastizing cultural nostalgia and breaking new ground. Its pioneering spirit is forward-looking rather than regressive.’
Discuss with reference to two or more authors.
5 ‘In political poetry social engagement, testimony and an aesthetic of solidarity need not deteriorate into declamatory propaganda.’
Discuss with reference to the work of two or more poets.
6 ‘Habría que preguntarse: si la ciudad es el sitio de la teatralidad, el espejismo, el desamparo, la desigualdad, ¿por qué es que la novelística y el cine se identifican tanto con ese revoltijo de todo lo inauténtico y banal? Quizás, habría que visualizarla desde el otro lado, donde aún no está.’
Discuss with reference to two or more urban narratives OR films or both.
7 ‘Siempre soy la que no soy.’
Discuss the treatment of voice, gender and expression in the work of two or more Latin American women poets.
8 ‘Experimentation in the novel is a risky undertaking that exposes the virtuosity of the writer at the expense of intellectual communication and tangible, critical discourse.’
Discuss with reference to the work of two or more writers.
9 ‘The short story is artful yet self-effacing; short-lived in duration yet lasting in its effects; it is the most exacting form of subtraction leading to illumination.’
Discuss
10 ‘A menudo, la subversión, la inscripción de lo suprimido que propone la “otra” visión, la visión negada del ser, se manifiesta en estrategias de escondite y la producción de palimpsestos.’
Discuss with reference to texts by two or more women writers.
11 ‘The course of the fantastic in Latin American art is “subterranean”: it makes polarities permeable, prompts unexpected fusions and juxtapositions, combining hybrid, cross-cultural imagery with an often hermetic personal style.’
Discuss with reference to the work of two or more Latin American artists/photographers.
12 ‘No se trataba de hacer un arte nacional a través de las expresiones superficiales de los aspectos epidérmicos de nuestra nacionalidad; era necesario proceder con la mayor hondura para llegar a lo certero.’ (D. Alfaro Siqueiros)
Discuss with detailed reference to the work and visual strategies of two or more artists.
SECTION B
Writers and Artists
13 ‘Echoes, segments, ruins: Rulfo’s elliptical narratives seek to communicate the enormity of injustice through blurred and incomplete presences. The reader may be forgiven for listening to the “ghosts” and overlooking the critique.’
Discuss.
14 ‘For Borges textuality is the space of detection in which the practices of writing are exposed as if associated with a criminal intent that threatens the reader.’
Discuss with reference to the writing of Borges.
15 ‘En la narrativa de Alejo Carpentier, el desajuste cronológico, el juego irónico y el delirio descriptivo caracterizan un quehacer literario subversivo obsesionado por la historia cultural de Latinoamérica.’
Discuss.
16 ‘En la obra de García Márquez el fabulista prevalece sobre el periodista sin dejar huella visible del combate entre las vertientes dispares de su imaginación.’
Discuss.
17 ‘Cortázar’s deconstructive fictions experiment with subjectivity and yet reassert or enact the existential struggle of the self.’
Discuss
18 ‘La corrupción del lenguaje latinoamericano es tal, que todo acto de lenguaje verdadero es en sí mismo revolucionario. El lenguaje, de buena o mala gana, nos posee a todos.’
In the light of this quotation, discuss the interplay of social critique and crisis of form in the work of Carlos Fuentes.
(TURN OVER)
19 ‘According to Vargas Llosa, in literature the dialogue between creator and society can be a tense, daring, intimate and above all seditious enterprise.’
Discuss with reference to two or more novels by Vargas Llosa.
20 ‘A primera vista se tiene la impresión de que el papel de víctima corresponde al indio y el de verdugo al otro. Pero las relaciones humanas nunca son tan esquemáticas y las sociales lo son aún menos. Las máscaras se cambian a veces, los papeles se truecan.’ (R. Castellanos)
Discuss with reference to two or more works of fiction by Rosario Castellanos.
21 ‘La interminable búsqueda del ser en su priopio laberinto y en el laberinto de los demás.’
Discuss with the reference to two or more works by Ernesto Sábato.
22 ‘La palabra se levanta/ de la página escrita./ La palabra,/ labrada estalactita,/ grabada columna/ una a una letra a letra./ El eco se congela en la página pétrea.’ (O. Paz)
In the light of this quotation, discuss the theme of power in relation to spoken and written language in the poetry of Octavio Paz.
23 ‘Vallejo conquers his freedom as a poet in the freedom of his language, but this path of liberation is also a cul-de-sac.’
Discuss.
24 ‘Ambiguous syntax is one of the most fascinating aspects of Neruda’s manner of proceeding in all his complex poems. He exploits the full range of ambiguity.’
Discuss with reference to two or more collections of his poetry.
25 ‘¿Se trata de una cuestión de formas? No. Se trata, ante todo, de una cuestión de ideas. El clisé verbal es dañino porque encierra en sí el clisé mental.’ (R. Darío)
Discuss with reference to two or more collections of Darío’s work.
26 ‘For Huidobro the visionary poet was to be the new culture hero — a Prometheus who could not only create new worlds but also new and liberated humans.’
Discuss.
27 ‘Y me quedo hecha una ruina para toda la vida.’ (F. Kahlo)
In the light of this quotation, discuss construction, performance and identity in the paintings of Frida Kahlo.
28 Write a critical commentary on the following poem:
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Mi corazón se amerita…
Mi corazón leal, se amerita en la sombra. Yo lo sacara al día, como lengua de fuego que se saca de un ínfimo purgatorio a la luz; y al oírlo batir su cárcel, yo me anego y me hundo en la ternura remordida de un padre que siente, entre sus brazos, latir un hijo ciego.
Mi corazón, leal, se amerita en la sombra. Placer, amor, dolor… todo le es ultraje y estimula su cruel carrera logarítmica, sus ávidas mareas y su eterno oleaje.
Mi corazón, leal, se amerita en la sombra. En la mitra y la válvula…Yo me lo arrancaría para llevarlo en triunfo a conocer el día, la estola de violetas en los hombros del alba, el cíngulo morado de los atardeceres, los astros, y el perímetro jovial de las mujeres.
Mi corazón, leal, se amerita en la sombra. Desde una cumbre enhiesta yo lo he de lanzar como sangriento disco a la hoguera solar. Así extirparé el cáncer de mi fatiga dura, seré impasible por el este y oeste, asistiré con una sonrisa depravada a las ineptitudes de la inepta cultura, y habrá en mi corazón la llama que le preste el incendio sinfónico de la esfera celeste. |
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Ramón López Velarde
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