MODERN AND MEDIEVAL LANGUAGES TRIPOS Part IA

Option B: post A-level

MODERN AND MEDIEVAL LANGUAGES TRIPOS Part IB

(For those candidates who took Option A (ab initio) or Option B in Part IA

Spanish)

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SPECIMEN PAPER for Tripos 2006

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Paper Sp. 2

INTRODUCTION TO HISPANIC TEXTS

Answer THREE questions, ONE OR NONE from Section A, ONE OR NONE from Section B, and ONE, TWO OR THREE from Section C.

You may NOT answer more than ONE commentary question

(i.e. questions marked with an asterisk).

Do NOT use substantially the same material for more than ONE answer.

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

SECTION A

1 EITHER (a) ‘Jorge Manrique’s technical achievement outweighs the meditative tone of the poem.’ Discuss.

OR (b) ‘Manrique’s use of the commonplaces of the Middle Ages lacks intellectual originality but has great emotional power.’ Discuss.

2 EITHER (a) ‘There is no conflict between love and reason in Cárcel de Amor.’ Discuss.

OR (b) ‘The central motif of Cárcel de Amor is imprisonment.’ Discuss.

3 EITHER (a) ‘Despite the dated nature of his themes, the suggestive and problematic way in which Cervantes handles them, and the skill and drama of the narration, justify the classic status that is traditionally given to the novelas.’ Discuss.

OR (b) Discuss the treatment of perverse or villainous characters in Cervantes’s novelas.

4 EITHER (a) ‘Honour is a social conspiracy in which Lázaro learns to play his part’. Discuss with reference to Lazarillo de Tormes.

OR (b) ‘En este grosero estilo escribo’. Discuss the implications of the use of colloquial language in first-person narratives with reference to Lazarillo de Tormes.

5 EITHER (a) In what ways is the tension between, on the one hand, Sor Juana’s intellectual and literary leanings, and on the other, her condition as a woman and vocation as a nun, reflected in her writings?

OR *(b) Write a commentary on the following sonnet by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, explaining in what ways it is typical of her style and thought:

Verde¹ embeleso de la vida humana,

loca Esperanza, frenesí dorado,

sueño de los despiertos intrincado,

como de sueños, de tesoro vana;

alma del mundo, senectud lozana, 5

decrépito verdor imaginado;

el hoy de los dichosos esperado,

y de los desdichados el mañana:

sigan tu sombra en busca de tu día

los que, con verdes vidrios por anteojos, 10

todo lo ven pintado a su deseo;

que yo, más cuerda en la fortuna mía,

tengo en entrambas manos ambos ojos

y solamente lo que toco veo.

¹In that age, the colour green symbolised hope.

6 EITHER (a) ‘Honour in Fuenteovejuna and El burlador de Sevilla cuts across class lines and motivates all characters in much the same way’. Discuss.

(TURN OVER)

OR (b) Compare and contrast the treatment of revenge AND/OR retribution in El burlador de Sevilla and Fuente Ovejuna.

7 EITHER (a) ‘In La de Bringas the theme of keeping up appearances is treated both poignantly and comically.’ Discuss.

OR (b) ‘Galdós’s irony is so pervasive in La de Bringas that any interpretation of the novel is always tentative and ambiguous.’ Discuss.

SECTION B

8 EITHER (a) ‘In Lorca’s plays the protagonist’s fantasies and desires struggle to break free from the constraining pigeonhole in which society tries to insert him or her.’ Discuss.

OR (b) ‘A theatre designed to challenge conventional assumptions, moral and artistic.’ Discuss this comment on the two Lorca plays that you have studied.

9 EITHER (a) Examine Rosario Castellanos’s treatment of the theme of womanhood.

OR (b) Comment on the significance of these lines from Castellanos’s ‘Poesía no eres tú’:

El otro. Con el otro

la humanidad, el diálogo, la poesía, comienzan.

10 EITHER (a) Discuss TWO of the stories of Tres novelas ejemplares y un prólogo in the light of Unamuno’s statement that ‘por el que hayamos querido ser, no por el que hayamos sido, nos salvaremos o perderemos’.

OR (b) In relation to Tres novelas ejemplares y un prólogo discuss TWO of the following:

(i) the use of archetypes; (iii) dialogue; (v) honour.

(ii) gender relations; (iv) maternity;

11 EITHER (a) ‘The sexual games in Tusquets’s El amor es un juego solitario are driven by a struggle for domination.’ Discuss.

OR (b) ‘The “juego solitario” of the title aptly sums up the sterile nature of the world evoked by Tusquets’s novel, devoid of moral or social commitment.’ Discuss.

12 EITHER (a) Discuss the relationship between fantasy and memory in Martín Gaite’s El cuarto de atrás.

OR (b) Discuss the relationship between private experience and public history in El cuarto de atrás.

13 EITHER (a) ‘Time in Cien años de soledad is not linear, but cyclic or circular.’ Discuss.

OR *(b) Write a critical commentary on the following passage of Cien años de soledad, explaining in what ways it is typical of the novel:

(TURN OVER)

Remedios, la bella, se quedó vagando por el desierto de la soledad, sin cruces a cuestas, madurándose en sus sueños sin pesadillas, en sus baños interminables, en sus comidas sin horarios, en sus hondos y prolongados silencios sin recuerdos, hasta una tarde de marzo en que Fernanda quiso doblar en el jardín sus sábanas de bramante, y pidió ayuda a las mujeres de la casa. Apenas habían empezado, cuando Amaranta advirtió que Remedios, la bella, estaba transparentada por una palidez intensa.

‘¿Te sientes mal?’, le preguntó.

Remedios, la bella, que tenía agarrada la sábana por el otro extremo, hizo una sonrisa de lástima.

‘Al contrario’, dijo, ‘nunca me he sentido mejor.’

Acabó de decirlo, cuando Fernanda sintió que un delicado viento de luz le arrancó las sábanas de las manos y las desplegó con toda su amplitud. Amaranta sintió un temblor misterioso en los encajes de sus pollerinas y trató de agarrarse de la sábana para no caer, en el instante en que Remedios, la bella, empezaba a elevarse. Úrsula, ya casi ciega, fue la única que tuvo serenidad para identificar la naturaleza de aquel viento irreparable, y dejó las sábanas que subían con ella, que abandonaban con ella el aire de los escarabajos y las dalias, y pasaban con ella a través del aire donde terminaban las cuatro de la tarde, y se perdieron con ella para siempre en los altos aires donde no podían alcanzarla ni los más altos pájaros de la memoria.

Los forasteros, por supuesto, pensaron que Remedios, la bella, había sucumbido por fin a su irrevocable destino de abeja reina, y que su familia trataba de salvar la honra con la patraña de la levitación. Fernanda, mordida por la envidia, terminó por aceptar el prodigio, y durante mucho tiempo siguió rogando a Dios que le devolviera las sábanas. La mayoría creyó en el milagro, y hasta se encendieron velas y se rezaron novenarios.

14 EITHER (a) Examine the convergence of Mario’s autobiography and Camacho’s radionovelas in La tía Julia y el escribidor.

OR (b) ‘La tía Julia y el escribidor blurs the boundaries not only between popular and highbrow culture but also between literature and life.’ Discuss.

SECTION C

15 Space, Place, and Identity

EITHER (a) Discuss the significance of the links between TWO of the following with reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

(i) identity; (ii) space;

(iii) honour; (iv) gender;

OR (b) ‘Women’s writing reveals concern with intimacy and the emotions, while writing by men foregrounds the public sphere’. Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

16 Desire Limited, Desire Unlimited

EITHER (a) Compare the treatment of honour in relation to sex outside wedlock in TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

(TURN OVER)

OR (b) Discuss the significance of TWO of the following with reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

(i) desire; (ii) flirtation;

(iii) honour; (iv) shame

17 Performance and Performativity

EITHER (a) Give a critical account of role playing with reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

OR (b) Does the verisimilitude of the characters or the setting enhance or detract from the overall dramatic effect of a literary work? Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

18 Popular Culture

EITHER (a) By introducing elements of popular culture into their works authors blur the boundary between literature and life. Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

OR (b) Do works which deal with aspects of popular culture provide an implicit criticism of the societies in which they are located? Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

19 Metafiction

EITHER (a) Assess the treatment of the relationship between fiction, OR fantasy, and lived experience with reference to reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

OR (b) Is metafiction always ironic and/or self-reflective? Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE authors, with AT LEAST ONE taken from EACH section.

END OF PAPER