MODERN  AND  MEDIEVAL  LANGUAGES  TRIPOS    Part II

 

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            Wednesday 7 June 2006     1.30 to 4.30

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            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          Discuss the role of TWO OR THREE of the following with reference to TWO OR MORE modernista poets:

 

            (i)  love;                        (iii) poetry;        (v)  intertextuality;         (vii) symbols.

(ii) Latin America;         (iv) death;         (vi) the exotic; 

 

2          ‘La poesía llamada negrista fusiona las formas populares, muchas veces africanas en su origen, con la tradicional estructura estrófica española.’  Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE poets.

 

3          ‘La poesía vanguardista muestra y demuestra textualmente las posibilidades y limitaciones de la expresión misma.’  Discuss with reference to the work of TWO OR MORE avant-garde poets.

 

4          ‘The novela de la dictadura shows a contradictory fascination and disgust with the mechanisms and the exercise of power.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.

 

5          ‘In these earth-bound narratives haunted by cultural nostalgia, the past dominates and eventually supplants the present.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE works of la narrativa de la tierra.

 

6          Examine the effectiveness of the techniques used by writers of political poetry to convey ideological messages.

 

7          ‘El “realismo mágico” como procedimiento literario se convirtió rápidamente en exotismo barato y cansado muy lejos de sus “maravillosos” orígenes.’  Discuss.

 

8          ‘Literary or cinematic engagement with the urban implies a commitment to representing the social transformations at work within the city.  But this is often accompanied by a questioning of forms of representation, be they literary, cinematic or social.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE urban narratives OR films OR BOTH.

 

9          ‘Una poesía de contravoz, de profundo cuestionamiento de los sistemas patriarcales.’  How applicable is this statement to the work of TWO OR MORE Latin-American women poets?

 

10        ‘La novela experimental no abandona la realidad sino que nos revela su contracara.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE works of experimental fiction.

 

11        ‘Contemporary historical fiction thoroughly debunks notions of authenticity and transparency in representation.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE works.

 

12        ‘The Latin-American short story – whether surrealist, allegorical, magic realist, or philosophical – is caught in the clutches of the fantastic.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE collections of stories by MORE THAN ONE writer.

 

13        ‘El verdadero y más hondo tema de las películas de la pos-dictadura en la Argentina – el cual impacta sobre el mismo discurso fílmico, el modo de contar – es la pérdida o la recuperación de la memoria.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE films.

 

 

 

14        ‘The concept of escritura femenina implies difference, but in Latin America it is more associated with critique.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.

 

15        ‘Latin America’s popular culture is not a folk tale. It is a bastard, mongrel soap opera where Hollywood and MTV can be authentic representations of our contemporary identity.’  In the light of this quotation, discuss the use of popular culture in the work of TWO OR MORE writers.

 

16        Analyse the relative roles of the witness and the re-teller in TWO OR MORE works of testimonial fiction.

 

17        EITHER (a) ‘The visual discourse of recognisable identities invites questioning, for it depends paradoxically on an interplay of disclosure and affirmation, concealment and elision, the seen and the unseen.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE artists AND/OR photographers.

 

OR (b) Discuss visual strategy and its significance in the work of TWO OR MORE artists and/or photographers in relation to ANY TWO of the following:

 

(i)   memory and history;                                   (v)   form and function;

(ii)  self and other;                                             (vi)  culture and nature;

(iii) tradition and modernity;                               (vii) gender and performance.

(iv) self-referentiality and social critique;

 

 

SECTION B

 

Poetry and Commentary

 

18        Answer ONE of the following questions:

 

            (a) Examine the role of poetic self-reflexivity in the work of Octavio Paz.

 

            (b) ‘El placer, físico, poético, intelectivo, es el tema central de la poesía de Darío, pero no está exento de sombras y desequilibrios.’  Discuss.

 

            (c) ‘César Vallejo makes poetry out of the shards of a ruined Logos, the flotsam and jetsam of a belief system and a social system in crisis.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE collections.

 

            (d) ‘En Neruda hay una profunda dialéctica de voz y silencio, sentido y sinsentido, vida y muerte.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE collections.

 

            (e)   ‘El simple sport de los vocablos.’  How well does this line from Altazor characterize Vicente Huidobro’s poetic practice?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(TURN OVER for continuation of Question 18

            (f)   Write a critical commentary on the following poem.  You do not need to be familiar with the work of Oliverio Girondo, but if you are, you may, if you wish, compare this poem to other work by the poet.

 

Cansancio

Cansado.
¡Sí!
Cansado
de usar un solo bazo,
dos labios,                                                                      5
veinte dedos,
no sé cuántas palabras,
no sé cuántos recuerdos,
grisáceos,
fragmentarios.                                                               10

Cansado,
muy cansado
de este frío esqueleto,
tan púdico,
tan casto,                                                                      15
que cuando se desnude
no sabrá si es el mismo
que usé mientras vivía.

Cansado.
¡Sí!                                                                               20

Cansado
por carecer de antenas,
de un ojo en cada omóplato
y de una cola auténtica,
alegre                                                                           25
desatada,
y no este rabo hipócrita,
degenerado,
enano.

Cansado                                                                       30
sobre todo,
de estar siempre conmigo,
de hallarme cada día,
cuando termina el sueño,
allí, donde me encuentre,                                               35
con las mismas narices
y con las mismas piernas;
como si no deseara
esperar la rompiente con un cutis de playa,
ofrecer, al rocío, dos senos de magnolia,                       40
acariciar la tierra con un vientre de oruga,
y vivir, unos meses, adentro de una piedra.

 

                                                Oliverio Girondo

 

            (g)  Discuss the attempt to combine poetic and ideological aims in the poetry of Ernesto Cardenal.

 

 

 

            (h)   ‘En la obra poética de Lezama Lima, la búsqueda del origen está motivada por un explícito deseo de trascendencia y por una casi religiosa fe en la poesía.’  Discuss.

 

            (i)    ‘No quiero ser un poeta que cante sino uno que diga.’  Discuss the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges in the light of this quotation attributed to him.

 

            (j)  Analyse and compare the role of AT LEAST TWO of the following in the work of TWO OR MORE Latin-American poets:

 

(i)            scepticism towards language;                (iii) the search for transcendence;

(ii)          the questioning of social codes              (iv) play with words.

        or gender roles;

 

 

SECTION C

 

Narrative

 

19        Answer ONE of the following questions:

 

 (a) ‘La obra de Juan Rulfo está llena de vacíos y ausencias.’  Discuss.

 

            (b)  Discuss the critique of realism in the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges.  Your answer should refer to TWO OR MORE collections.

 

            (c)  ‘En las novelas de Carpentier hay una búsqueda, siempre compleja e irónica, de identidad y origen.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.

 

            (d)  ‘Differences of perspective – whether cultural, temporal, social or sexual – lie at the heart of García Márquez’s themes and narrative style.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts.

 

            (e)  ‘La escritura de Julio Cortázar nace del encontronazo entre la costumbre y la búsqueda, entre el deseo y la realidad, entre el yo y el otro.’  Discuss.

 

            (f) ‘The texts of Carlos Fuentes constitute a radical engagement with time and identity.’  Discuss.

 

            (g) Discuss Mario Vargas Llosa’s engagement, whether implicit or self-aware, with the techniques of realism.

 

(h) ‘Las identidades de sus personajes son unidimensionales y estereotipadas.  No hay profundidad de sentimientos ni de expresión narrativa.’  Discuss this characterization of the work of Manuel Puig.

 

            (i) ‘Identity in her work is always plurivocal, straining against the fixity of both social codes and narrative form.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE works by Marta Traba.

 

            (j)   ‘Su gran tema es la otredad, y su escritura está marcada por la agonizante búsqueda de una ética narrativa capaz de acercarse a ella sin traicionarla.’  Discuss with reference to TWO OR MORE texts by Rosario Castellanos.

 

            (k)  Discuss the influence of surrealism on the works of Ernesto Sábato.

 

 

END OF PAPER