MODERN AND MEDIEVAL LANGUAGES TRIPOS Part II
_______________________________________________________________________
Thursday 9 June 2005 9 to 12
_______________________________________________________________________
Paper Sp. 12
LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
Answer THREE questions, ONE, TWO OR THREE from Section A, ONE OR NONE from Section B, and ONE OR NONE from Section C.
Candidates’ scripts as a whole must include ONE OR MORE answers that relate to 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.
STATIONERY REQUIREMENTS
20 Page Answer Book x 1
Rough work pad
Tags
|
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
Topics in Latin-American Culture
1 Examine the use and function of TWO OR MORE of the following with reference to TWO OR MORE modernista poets.
(i) eroticism; (iii) exoticism; (v) cultural references.
(ii) linguistic innovation; (iv) death;
2 ‘Negrista poetry is undermined by exoticism, stereotyping, facile essentializing, and political rhetoric.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE poets.
3 ‘Avant-garde poetry tends explicitly or implicitly to propose its own poetics or dramatize the activity of the poet himself.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE avant-garde poets.
4 ‘La novela de la dictadura exige un lenguaje que pueda reflejar la violencia de ciertos regímenes y que a la vez constituya una zona de resistencia y de reflexión.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
5 ‘Lejos de ser un género conservador o simplista, la narrativa de la tierra tiende a subvertir las certezas y dicotomías que aparentemente establece.’ Discuss with reference to the novels or short stories of TWO OR MORE writers.
6 ‘La poesía política lograda es la que alcanza ese precario equilibrio entre el mensaje, la retórica, y una intensidad creadora resistente a la interpretación fácil.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE socially committed poets.
7 ‘Magic realism is an ambiguous phenomenon which seems at once to mystify and to offer a sharply critical analysis.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE works.
8 ‘Much recent Latin-American cinema and literature is responding, in different ways, to the violence inherent within, indeed generated by social injustice, or the structural transformations of global capitalism.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE urban narratives OR films.
9 ‘Their poetry is always an unwriting of masculine language, a poetry of bodily presence and haunting absence.’ How applicable is this statement to the work of TWO OR MORE Latin-American women poets?
10 ‘Latin-American experimental novels tend to combine a narcissistic display of literary and cultural sophistication with a radical awareness of mystery, unknowability, the limitations of representation.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
11 ‘Historical fiction increasingly displays a critical awareness of its own status and functioning.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE works.
12 ‘El cuento latinoamericano va más allá de la realidad cotidiana gracias a intensas vivencias existenciales o intelectuales.’ Discuss with reference to the works of TWO OR MORE short-story writers.
13 Discuss the treatment of the ethical complexity involved in the representation of dictatorship in TWO OR MORE Argentine films of the post-dictatorship period.
14 ‘Escritura femenina in Latin America eschews the abstract, locating its writing firmly in the material and local.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
15 ‘The use of popular culture in literature critically destabilizes established notions of genre, authorship, taste and ideology.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE writers.
16 ‘Despite its claim to give a voice to the subaltern, testimonial literature is a discourse principally configured through and for the lettered.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE works.
17 EITHER (a) ‘The interrelation between tradition and innovation, individuals and collective memory, public space and personal imaginary characterizes visual production in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.’ Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE artists (which may include photographers) in Mexico.
OR (b) ‘The idea of appearance as artifice strikes at the very heart of the idea of identity inhabited as a natural skin’ (Dawn Ades). Discuss with reference to the motif of authenticity in the work of TWO OR MORE artists (which may include photographers).
SECTION B
Poetry and Commentary
18 Answer ONE of the following questions:
(a) ‘Entrever y forjar la unidad vital enterrada por el tiempo, el poder, la dispersión.’ Discuss this characterization of Paz’s poetry.
(b) ‘En medio de sus exquisiteces preciosistas, devaneos culturales e incluso su demagogia americanista, se mantiene vivo en su palabra el culto a la belleza, la verdad y el amor.’ Discuss with reference to the poetry of Rubén Darío.
(c) ‘Sus más audaces desmantelamientos del lenguaje poético y del discurso humanista y racional siempre están al servicio del hombre y su desgarrada realidad.’ Discuss with reference to the poetry of Vallejo.
(d) Examine the role of TWO OR MORE of the following in the poetry of Pablo Neruda:
(i) nature; (iii) sexuality; (v) social life.
(ii) chaos and order; (iv) the poet;
(e) ‘Huidobro’s poetry pushes to the limit the need to revitalize language, to experiment beyond common verbal and logical connections, transcending the limits of poetic discourse.’ Discuss.
(TURN OVER
(f) Write a critical commentary on the following poem.
NOCTURNO EN QUE NADA SE OYE
En medio de un silencio desierto como la calle antes del crimen
sin respirar siquiera para que nada turbe mi muerte
en esta soledad sin paredes
al tiempo que huyeron los ángulos
en la tumba del lecho dejo mi estatua sin sangre 5
para salir en un momento tan lento
en un interminable descenso
sin brazos que tender
sin dedos para alcanzar la escala que cae de un piano invisible
sin más que una mirada y una voz 10
que no recuerdan haber salido de ojos y labios
¿qué son labios? ¿qué son miradas que son labios?
Y mi voz ya no es mía
Dentro del agua que no moja
Dentro del aire de vidrio 15
Dentro del fuego lívido que corta como un grito.
Y en el juego angustioso de un espejo frente a otro
Cae mi voz
y mi voz que madura
y mi voz quemadura 20
y mi bosque madura
y mi voz quema dura
como el hielo de vidrio
como el grito de hielo
aquí en el caracol de la oreja 25
el latido de un mar en el que no sé nada
en el que no se nada
pues he dejado pies y brazos en la orilla
siento caer fuera de mí la red de mis nervios
mas huye todo como el pez que se da cuenta 30
hasta siento en el pulso de mis sienes
muda telegrafía a la que nadie responde
porque el sueño y la muerte nada tienen ya qué decirse.
Xavier Villaurrutia
(g) ‘The politically committed poetry of Ernesto Cardenal is marked both by an antagonism against traditional literariness and a markedly distinct poetical rhetoric.’ Discuss.
(h) ‘Deslumbrante laberinto lingüístico cuyo sentido es misterioso y evanescente.’ Discuss this description of the poetry of José Lezama Lima.
(i) Discuss Borges’s comment that in his poetry he pursues ‘not simplicity, which is nothing, but a modest and secret complexity’.
(j) Compare the treatment of time in the work of TWO OR MORE Latin-American poets.
SECTION C
Narrative
19 Answer ONE of the following questions:
(a) ‘Juan Rulfo largely dramatizes the reality of rural Mexico on the stage of the family.’ Discuss.
(b) ‘Prodigiosa crónica del divorcio y de la complicidad entre el lenguaje y el mundo.’ Discuss this characterization of Borges’s work with reference to TWO OR MORE collections of short stories.
(c) ‘Alejo Carpentier’s novels give a complex literary shape to Latin-American historical time.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
(d) ‘La prosa de Gabriel García Márquez capta de una manera difícil de formular las miserias y las maravillas de la vivencia humana en América Latina.’ Discuss.
(e) ‘Celebración de un lenguaje literario seguro de sus poderes y a la vez amenazado por una otredad que revela su fragilidad.’ Discuss this characterization of Cortázar’s work.
(f) Examine the function of TWO OR MORE of the following in the narratives of Carlos Fuentes:
(i) history; (iii) the family; (v) Mexico;
(ii) otherness; (iv) the carnivalesque; (vi) the feminine.
(g) ‘His novels are usually structured around a complex play between distinct literary spaces or genres.’ Discuss with reference to the work of Mario Vargas Llosa.
(h) ‘En la obra de Puig la voz narrativa tradicional cede el lugar a una pluralidad de voces y de discursos que exige una recepción atenta y abierta por parte del lector.’ Discuss.
(i) ‘Traba appears to be tracing out a border between desire and the imposed limits, within language and other social structures, constraining that desire.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.
(j) ‘Su obra fue una elocuente y dolorosa pesquisa sobre lo que significaba ser mujer y ser mexicana.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts by Rosario Castellanos.
(k) ‘El mal, la locura, la oscuridad y la obsesión son los hilos principales de sus inquietantes tramas.’ Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts by Ernesto Sábato.
END OF PAPER