MODERN AND MEDIEVAL LANGUAGES TRIPOS Part II
___________________________________________________________
Date time to time
____________________________________________________________________
Paper 28
LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
Answer THREE questions, ONE, TWO OR THREE from Section A, NONE OR ONE from EACH of Sections B and C.
Candidates’ scripts as a whole must include ONE OR MORE answers that relate to poetry.
Do NOT use substantially the same material in more than ONE answer.
SECTION A
Topics in Latin-American Culture
1 ‘Modernismo is the literary response to Latin America’s entrance into modernity, to the spiritual and æsthetic vacuum of materialistic, bourgeois values.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE modernista poets.
2 ‘In poesía negrista, ethnographic, æsthetic, and political concerns converge.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE negrista poets.
3 Discuss the convergence of erotics and poetics in the work of TWO OR MORE twentieth-century Mexican poets.
4 ‘Avant-garde poetry is characterized by the exaltation of metaphor to fuse different areas of experience, challenging the reader’s imagination.’ Discuss with reference EITHER to works of creacionismo OR to other Latin American avant-garde poetry OR BOTH.
5 ‘El poeta revolucionario opera siempre cerca de la vida en carne y hueso, frente a los seres y fenómenos circundantes. Nada de masturbaciones abstractas ni de ingenio de bufete. Desplaza la fómula mesiánica, diciendo: «Mi reino es de este mundo».’ Discuss the applicability of any aspects of this description to the work of TWO OR THREE writers of political poetry.
6 ‘More than a simple device to connect to a collective memory and stir up a familiar emotion, reference to the Mexican revolution by novelists represents a constant and critical re-examination of the national myths that still sustain the current political powers.’ Discuss with reference to works by AT LEAST TWO authors.
7 Examine the representation of violence and suffering AND/OR the themes of exile and displacement in AT LEAST TWO texts dealing with dictatorship.
8 ‘The fundamentally flawed principle underlying indigenista writing is that literary representation can amount to political representation, that a European form such as the novel can speak for a culture that it is responsible for effacing.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE writers.
9 Assess the importance of the essay for an understanding of notions of national or regional identity in Latin America. Your answer should refer to the work of AT LEAST TWO essayists.
10 ‘In the novela de la tierra, cultivation as Culture becomes a powerful metaphor for a new discourse of the Nation.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE works.
11 Examine TWO OR THREE of the following themes in the work of TWO OR MORE women poets, and show how they are interrelated: love, knowledge, poetry, domesticity, religion, death.
12 ‘Estas grandes novelas quieren serlo todo: visión totalizadora de la historia americana; registro de los sentimientos más íntimos del hombre; manual de filosofía y literatura; y laberinto de juegos textuales.’ Discuss some of the aspects mentioned in this quotation with reference to experimental narratives by AT LEAST TWO writers.
13 ‘The best works of Latin American literature have been written both with and against the grain of history.’ Discuss with reference to the work of AT LEAST TWO writers or poets.
14 ‘The short story is less about capturing the real in writing, than about capturing thought in the act of capturing the real.’ How useful do you find this idea for understanding the work of TWO OR MORE short-story writers?
15 ‘It is a cinema which does not limit itself to giving testimony of horror, but which explores with frightening precision the root causes of that horror.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR THREE post-dictatorship Argentine films.
16 ‘La escritura femenina metaforiza el cuerpo femenino, para hacer de él un nuevo espacio imaginativo y creativo.’ Discuss with reference to work by TWO OR MORE writers.
17 ‘Magic Realism stretches “the suspension of disbelief” to breaking point.’ Discuss with reference to texts by AT LEAST TWO authors.
18 Compare the techniques used by TWO OR MORE writers or film directors to represent urban space AND/OR the conflicts of life in the Latin American city.
19 ‘In the most unlikely of circumstances, these writers re-discover the transformative power of story-telling.’ Discuss with reference to AT LEAST TWO writers of texts influenced by popular culture.
20 ‘La literatura de testimonio demuestra una tensión compleja entre un “yo” individual y un “nosotros” colectivo al que el “yo” quisiera representar.” Discuss with reference to AT LEAST TWO works.
SECTION B
Poetry and Commentary
21 Answer only ONE of the following questions:
(a) Write a critical commentary on the following poem (it is not necessary for you to be familiar with other work by this poet):
A la espera de la oscuridad
Ese instante que no se olvida
Tan vacío devuelto por las sombras
Tan vacío rechazado por los relojes
Ese pobre instante adoptado por mi ternura
Desnudo desnudo de sangre de alas 5
Sin ojos para recordar angustias de antaño
Sin labios para recoger el zumo de las violencias
Perdidas en el canto de los helados campanarios.
Ampáralo niña ciega de alma.
Ponle tus cabellos escarchados por el fuego 10
Abrázalo pequeña estatua de terror.
Señálale el mundo convulsionado a tus pies
A tus pies donde mueren las golondrinas
Tiritantes de pavor frente al futuro
Dile que los suspiros del mar 15
Humedecen las únicas palabras
Por las que vale vivir.
Pero ese instante sudoroso de nada
Acurrucado en la cueva del destino
Sin manos para decir nunca 20
Sin manos para regalar mariposas
A los niños muertos.
Alejandra Pizarnik (Argentina)
(b) ‘If in one poem Paz writes that words are “guantes grises, polvo mental sobre la yerba, el agua, la piel”, in another he invokes “sílabas que brillan en la cima de la ola nocturna”. The texture of his poetry is woven from this contradictory attitude towards language.’ Discuss.
(c) ‘For Darío, the poem itself was its own referent.’ Discuss.
(d) Analyse the means by which the poetic voice is constructed in the work of Pablo Neruda. Your answer should refer to TWO OR MORE collections.
(e) ‘Poesía … entre el decirlo y el callarlo’ (Vallejo). How characteristic is this description of the poetry of César Vallejo?
(f) ‘Borges’ poetic work is a labyrinth of sameness, where the idea of progression is linked to the notion of repetition’. Discuss.
(g) Ernesto Cardenal wrote that he wished to write a ‘poetry created with the images of the outside world, the world we see and touch’. Examine his poetry in the light of this statement.
(h) ‘His ornamental and elaborate metaphors are an attempt to go beyond the historical, to a mythical time of origination.’ How useful do you find this description of the poetry of José Lezama Lima?
(i) Compare and contrast the use of innovative poetic language in the work of AT LEAST TWO Latin-American poets.
SECTION C
Narrative
22 Answer only ONE of the following questions:
(a) ‘The principle problem faced by the characters in Rulfo’s texts is that they do not have, and, symbolically at least, have never had a father’s name.’ Discuss.
(b) ‘It is the critical encounter between Western modernity (or Enlightenment rationality) and African or indigenous myth systems which produces such a unique vision in Carpentier’s novels.’ Discuss.
(c) ‘El lector de Borges, como el detective despistado, se extravía en muchos laberintos, pero el más peligroso es el de sus propios prejuicios.’ Discuss.
(d) ‘La sexualidad, prostituida, perversa, o sublimada, desempeña un papel protagónico en la novelística de Vargas Llosa.’ Discuss.
(e) ‘Espejo, máscara, revolución, conquista, historia, texto… en fin, todo en la novela de Fuentes termina siendo cifra de un prodigioso y peligroso desdoblamiento.’ Discuss.
(f) ‘The pattern of repetition established throughout García Márquez’s work ultimately brings history to a halt.’ Discuss.
(g) ‘Onetti’s novels are testimony to the infinite capacity for self-deception and dream that sustains human beings in a time of crisis.’ Discuss.
(h) Examine the themes of guilt, violation, and monsters in the work of Julio Cortázar.
(i) ‘His novels portray wasted lives, displaced by time, politics, or history.’ Discuss with reference to the novels of José Donoso.
(j) ‘Indaga, despiadadamente, en el lado oscuro de la llamada civilización.’ Examine the novels of Ernesto Sábato in the light of this description of his work.
(k) ‘Puig reveals human beings to be little more than actors, willing or otherwise, in pre-scripted and re-enacted scenarios.’ Discuss.
(l) ‘Las novelas de Rosario Castellanos nos dan la imagen de una sociedad que es, a pesar de lo que se creen los blancos, fundamentalmente híbrida.’ Discuss.
(m) ‘Allende’s novels tackle issues of guilt, political irresponsibility, and brutal repression, using, paradoxically, all the devices of a soap opera transformed into feminist fable.’ Discuss.
(n) ‘Traba is somehow able to turn repeated and devastating experiences of failure into a precarious form of hope for the future.’ Discuss.
END OF PAPER