Galician Authors: Méndez Ferrín, Casares, Ferreiro, and Novoneyra

Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín

His Work

From a literary standpoint, Méndez Ferrín is a fundamental author of current Portuguese literature, both in poetry and narrative.

His Narrative Work

As a narrator, he writes stories and novels. His early works are within the New Galician Narrative, influenced by European and American literature.

His narrative work revolves around three themes:

  • A fantastic theme, recreating characters and environments of the Matter of Britain and the Arthurian legends.
  • The exploration
Read More

Late 20th and Early 21st Century Poetry: Trends and Authors

The Poetry of the Late 20th and Early 21st Century

The late twentieth and early twenty-first century is characterized by a genuine poetic expression and evolution of a genre that leads to the decay of the previous social realism and diversification thematic and formal.

Poetry before 1976 centered on reclamation of standardization of language and the conquest of areas of use. Two basic aspects are clear antecedents of poetic production later are the teaching of the elders and the decline of poetry

Read More

Phonological Shifts in English: Vowels, Consonants, Stress

The Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift was the greatest and most important phonological change in the history of English. Yet, Old English spelling was maintained because printers based spelling on medieval manuscripts, not on the new pronunciation. For example:

  • Middle English: feet [e]
  • Modern English: feet [i:]

Learned men preferred an archaic spelling: ‘y’ was used as ‘th’:

  • ‘y’ as an abbreviation of ‘that’
  • ‘ye’ as an abbreviation of ‘the’
  • Example: Ye Olde Shoppe

‘i’ as a vowel and ‘j’ as a consonant

Read More

Mastering Punctuation and Accentuation in Spanish

Punctuation

Punctuation aims to help continue the thought of writing, stating in writing pauses, intonation, and emphasis. You cannot write without punctuation or use the signs without knowing their value and meaning, so it was deemed necessary to make a sketch of the most used.

  • Comma (,) represents the shortest pause. It is used to:
    • Separate phrases, words, or sentences in a series of similar elements.
    • Separate the vocative from the rest of the sentence.
    • Separate anything set in front of the subject.
Read More

Understanding Spanish Grammar: Parts of Speech

Spanish Grammar: Key Components

Interjection

An interjection often expresses emotion or surprise. Examples include: wham bam sounds bang, ehh antecion call hi, moods ah ay bah.

Adverb

An adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb. It often refers to related circumstances.

  • Place: there
  • Time: now, después, then
  • Manner: well, good, bad
  • Amount: far, short, less, but
  • Affirmation: if, also, of course
  • Negation: not, tampoco
  • Question: perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
  • Interrogative: where, when, as

Preposition

A preposition

Read More

19th-Century Spanish Realism and Naturalism: Authors and Characteristics

Realism: Origins and Evolution

Realism arose in France in the first half of the 19th century, immersed in Romanticism. It even started with authors such as Balzac and Stendhal. It developed as an independent movement with Flaubert in the context of an urban, industrial society, with the bourgeois class established.

In Spain, the realist movement began around 1870, after the “Glorious Revolution,” and had its heyday in the 1880s. It was influenced by Romantic genres, such as the historical novel and

Read More