Realism and Regionalism in Latin American Novels: A Historical Overview

Posted on Sep 23, 2024 in Latin

Novelistic Genre Before the 20th Century: Realism and Regionalism

The novelistic genre emerged relatively late in Latin America. El Periquillo Sarmiento by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, published in Mexico in 1816, is considered the first Latin American novel. Romantic novels like María by Colombian author Jorge Isaacs and Amalia by Argentine author José Mármol followed, marking the beginning of Hispanic nature taking center stage in literature. Modernist approaches led to two novelistic trends: one focused on artistic novels and another committed to portraying American reality through realistic novels.

The First Half of the 20th Century

Until the 1920s, the Latin American novel, influenced by Spanish tradition, delved into two main themes: socio-political issues and the relationship between humans and the land.

Novels of Socio-Political Issues

The exploitation of Latin America’s immense resources by foreign powers, the impoverished conditions of indigenous populations, and the rise of dictatorships within ruling oligarchies provided fertile ground for novelists. An omniscient narrator typically presented these realities with fidelity but without direct intervention. Two main aspects emerged:

  1. Novels of the Mexican Revolution:

    These novels, focusing on the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), explored the shift from a fight for freedom to a social and agrarian revolution led by figures like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Authors like Mariano Azuela (Andrés Pérez, The Flies, The Underdogs, The Bosses) and Martín Luis Guzmán (The Shadow of the Leader, The Serpent) depicted the betrayal of revolutionary ideals and identified with the marginalized.

  2. The Indian Novel:

    This trend highlighted the struggles of indigenous communities. Notable authors include Jorge Icaza (Huasipungo), Alcides Arguedas (Raza de Bronce), and Ciro Alegría (The World is Wide and Alien).

Novels of the Earth

This category, showcasing the unequal struggle between civilization and the vastness of American nature, also had two main trends:

  1. The Regional Novel:

    Pioneered by José Eustasio Rivera‘s The Vortex, this trend, also featuring works like Rómulo Gallegos‘s Doña Bárbara, depicted the clash between human ambition and the untamed wilderness of the Pampas, Andes, and Amazon.

  2. The Gaucho Novel:

    Exemplified by Ricardo Güiraldes‘s Don Segundo Sombra, this trend romanticized the gaucho as a symbol of freedom against the backdrop of a poeticized and nostalgic natural world.

The Success of Realism

By the mid-20th century, the Latin American novel evolved to reflect a more universal scope, moving beyond simply representing reality to serving as a lens for exploring broader human concerns. The omniscient narrator declined, and a double renewal took place:

  1. Thematic Renewal:

    Alongside vast landscapes, urban spaces and the complexities of human dreams came to the forefront. Inspired by Freudian psychology, writers explored the irrational and questioned the nature of time and identity.

  2. Formal Renewal:

    Surrealism, existentialism, and other European and American literary movements profoundly impacted narrative techniques.

Magical Realism

From this point onward, imagination and fantasy became integral to the Latin American novel. Authors recognized that traditional realism couldn’t fully capture the inherent wonder and magic of Latin American reality. The natural and supernatural intertwined seamlessly, with irrational elements woven into everyday events, creating a uniquely logical and captivating world. Key figures include:

  • Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala): Legends of Guatemala, El Señor Presidente
  • Alejo Carpentier (Cuba): The Kingdom of This World, The Lost Steps, Explosion in a Cathedral, The Rite of Spring, Baroque Concerto
  • Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina): Ficciones, The Aleph, The Maker, Brodie’s Report, The Book of Sand, A History of Eternity
  • Juan Rulfo (Mexico): El Llano en Llamas, Pedro Páramo, The Golden Cockerel

The”Boo” Latinoamericano

In the 1960s, the Cuban Revolution’s cultural influence and the desire to break the political and economic blockade imposed on the island sparked a literary phenomenon known as the”Boo” Latinoamericano. This movement, spearheaded by authors like Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel García Márquez, aimed to showcase Latin American literature on a global stage. These writers, initially supportive of Fidel Castro’s revolution, believed it held promise for their people. Simultaneously, Spanish publishing houses, eager to tap into Latin American markets, established initiatives like the Biblioteca Breve Prize, further propelling the movement. The Boom explored urban issues, existential crises, and the search for identity, often incorporating elements of magical realism. Notable authors include:

  • Ernesto Sabato (Argentina): The Tunnel, On Heroes and Tombs, Abaddon the Exterminator
  • Julio Cortázar (Argentina): Bestiary, Secret Weapons, Hopscotch
  • Carlos Fuentes (Mexico): The Death of Artemio Cruz
  • Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru): The Time of the Hero, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The Green House, Conversation in the Cathedral, The War of the End of the World, Death in the Andes
  • Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia): One Hundred Years of Solitude, Leaf Storm, No One Writes to the Colonel, Big Mama’s Funeral, The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Love in the Time of Cholera

Generation of 1927: A New Golden Age in Spanish Poetry

This group of poets, born between 1891 and 1905, earned various labels, including the”Generation of the Dictatorship” the”Generation of the Journal of the West” and the”Grandchildren of ’98” Luis Cernuda coined the term”Generation of 1925″ marking the publication of significant works like Libro de poemas (Lorca, 1921) and Cántico (Guillén, 1928). Dámaso Alonso proposed”Group of 1927″ referencing the tercentenary of Luis de Góngora’s death. Lacking a singular leader, this”Generation of Friendshi” connected through institutions like the Residencia de Estudiantes, the Center for Historical Studies, and literary magazines like La Gaceta Literaria and Revista de Occidente.

Characteristics

This group sought balance in their poetry:

  1. Intellect and Emotion: Their work blended restrained emotion with intellectual depth.
  2. Mysticism and Craftsmanship: They embraced the inexplicable nature of poetry while adhering to rigorous technique.
  3. Aesthetic Purity and Human Authenticity: While valuing beauty, they grappled with questions of human existence.
  4. Minority and Majority: Their poems shifted between obscurity and clarity, appealing to both elite and popular audiences.
  5. Universal and Spanish: They navigated the tension between tradition and innovation, drawing inspiration from both classical and avant-garde sources.
  6. Cultured and Popular Aesthetics: They combined sophisticated aesthetics with reverence for traditional forms like ballads and folk songs.

Evolution and Stages

Dámaso Alonso and Luis Cernuda identified three distinct phases:

  1. Before 1927: Early works reflected the influence of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, rejecting modernism while embracing avant-garde elements. Juan Ramón Jiménez’s emphasis on pure poetry (metaphor) inspired a shift towards dehumanized art and a renewed interest in popular poetry (e.g., Alberti’s Marinero en tierra and Libro de poemas, Lorca’s early works).
  2. 1927 to the Spanish Civil War: This period marked the peak and subsequent decline of aesthetic ideals. Poets engaged in intimate dialogue with the world and readers. Surrealism’s emergence led to explorations of love, longing, and existentialism. Social and political themes emerged.
  3. The War and After: The Spanish Civil War and Lorca’s death scattered the group. Exile became a central theme, expressing nostalgia and displacement. Vicente Aleixandre’s 1977 Nobel Prize in Literature solidified the group’s legacy as a driving force behind a new Golden Age of Spanish poetry.

Metrical Innovations

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Their contributions are:

1. Discard a large number of meters and stanzas used by Modernism. Developed free verse or verse, by the influence of Juan Ramón, Surrealism and the Spanish American poets Vallejo and Neruda.

2. The measures and the pauses are variables. Matter the pace, (not the quantity or the rhyme) that arises from the repetition of ideas (anaphora, parallelism, etc.)..

3 .- resources appear traditional metric metrical schemes, repetitions, syntactic, etc.

AUTHORS

Federico García Lorca (Granada 1898): lively personality also shows a sense of frustration evident in his works where the cultured and popular melt like the passion and perfection. His first books were: Impressions and Landscapes (prose), Book of Poems (poetry reflects its infancy). Then followed songs (very heterogeneous), Poema del Cante Jondo (with compact unit), Gypsy Ballads (sung to the fringes of society to great success), Poet in New York (written after the crisis suffered by staying in NY.) His latest poems are: Divan Tamarit and Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías.

Rafael Alberti (Puerto Santa María 1902), with active participation in politics and war is exiled. After a crisis that makes you lose faith written on angels (surreal), with the same stylistic line Sermons and Purple. Start a social and political poetry he calls civil Poet in the street, from one moment to another and include the carnation and the sword. With his exile poems come from exile under the title Poems of exile and waiting. In recent times has given us books like eight names of Picasso, Open all hours, etc.. Grove also wrote a book of memories lost.

Emilio Prados (Manchester 1899), has a tendency to retreat and delve into the problems of life and death. His early poetry is marked by the popular and J. Ramón Jiménez, surreal stage coincides with a crisis and Walking The captive voice, walking around the world. A brief poetic stage crying in the blood, lower Songbook for combatants. In exile comprises an enclosed garden. Although it has always been placed in a second row his poetry is beautiful and very elaborate.

Manuel Altobelli (1905): youngest of the group and a close friend of Meadows with a sympathetic character after living since the war in Cuba and Mexico back in Spain where he died in 1929. Emphasizes the musicality of his verse. His most important works are invited islands, Poetry, Solitudes boards, etc. Weekend in exile issued a love and Poetry of America.

Luis Cernuda:

Ø Life: Born in 1902 in Seville, was a student at Salinas and actively supported the Republican cause in the war for which he was exiled in 1938. Lecturer in English and American universities lived in Mexico until 1963 when he died. Solitary nature and sensitivity never hid his homosexuality and his awareness of marginal creature, which he did rebel.

Ø Topics: romantic substrate singled him his poetic world. Its thematic focus is the separation between desire and reality imposed, his favorite subjects are loneliness, the desire for perfect beauty and love.

Ø Style: gives the special place it occupies in the escape group of “fashion” as it embarks on a lonely road and unmistakable. His poetic language comes from a triple rejection discarded because too marked rhythms, rhyme and bright and rich language in pictures in preference to a conversational tone.

Ø Work:

or several books together since 1936 under a common title: La realidad y el deseo

or His first production was in the air inside profile of pure poetry. Remains eclogue, elegy and ode.

or in French Surrealist poetry reading and a rising river, love.

Leave the surrealist language or to find a more personal tone in Donde habite el olvido

or invocations closes its pre-war poetry.

o During the early days of war and exile up clouds, poems inspired by the reality of the moment

or remain in exile as he awaits the dawn, Vivir sin estar living, with the hours counted and Desolation of the Chimera.

o Ocnos poetic prose is a nostalgic evocation of his distant Andalusia. Variations on a Mexican theme and several books of essays finish their work in prose.

Ø Significance: his solitary peculiarity makes it difficult to classify, their sullen independence led him thematic stylistic paths untrodden. To his poetry poets and critics have become in recent years. His language clean perfect, dense ever-increasing rise estimate.