Spanish & Latin American Novels: Key Themes & Authors
The Novel in the Forties
The two most important novels of the forties are The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela. This reflects the inhumanity and violence of rural Spain. Cela’s picaresque novel combines naturalism and the grotesque. The novel Nothing reflects the emptiness and lack of expectations in the miserable and gray life of post-war Spain.
The Social Novel
During the fifties, the social novel dominated Spanish literature. This trend provides critical testimony of Spanish society.
Read MoreEvolution of Spanish Theater: Modernism to Esperpento
Spanish Theater in the Early 20th Century
The early 20th-century Spanish theater inherited forms from the previous century: historical dramas in verse, “high comedy” aimed at bourgeois society, and the “kind guy,” inherited from farce and *entremés*. Authors of the Generation of ’98 (such as Valle-Inclán) and the Generation of ’27 (such as García Lorca) created innovative works, leading to significant Spanish theatrical creations.
Modernist Theater and the Generation of ’98
A “commercial” theater
Read MoreEuropean Avant-Garde Movements and the Generation of ’27
European Avant-Garde Movements
The period following World War I saw the rise of numerous avant-garde artistic movements and isms across Europe. These movements aimed to break away from traditional culture and propose a new, modern, and original vision for art and literature.
Major European Avant-Garde Movements
- Cubism: Introduced calligrams, poems where the verse arrangement forms images (e.g., fountains, propellers).
- Futurism: Rejected sentimentality and romanticism, celebrating the beauty of machines,
A Concise Overview of Roman Art and Architecture
Roman Art and Architecture
Roman art and architecture assimilated and incorporated multiple elements from Etruscan and Greek traditions, as well as from the architecture of conquered territories.
Rationality and order were key principles in all Roman buildings, as emphasized by Vitruvius.
Materials used included marble, brick, opus latericium, stone, clay molding, and concrete, often covered with stone slabs and opus caementicium.
Architectural Orders
The Romans adapted the Greek orders, creating two
Read MoreChronicle of a Death Foretold: Tragedy and Fate
Gabriel García Márquez was a Colombian novelist who worked at various newspapers in the country. In 1967, he wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude. The years 1981-82 are important for his chronicle of public life, and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. One of the issues highlighted is the tragic drama, the fatal destiny. In the novel, an atmosphere of tragedy prevails. Santiago Nasar is the one who bears the weight of the inevitable tragic fate, as foreshadowed in the title of the novel.
Read MorePlautus, Seneca, Virgil: Key Figures in Roman Literature
Plautus (Archaic Period)
He is considered the most genuine comic writer of Roman literature. He also organized performances of great public success, despite the financial problems encountered. Noted for his adaptations of Greek New Comedy.
- Host: Jupiter is in love with Alcmene and makes her believe that her husband was returning from the war. The tone is familiar and everyday.
- The Comedy of the Pot: An old miser has found a pot of gold and does not trust anyone.
- Menaechmus: A character looking for his