Spring Courses 2004
This class reviews the external and internal history of Spanish. It begins when Latin spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and it ends in the present, when the unity and value of Spanish is still debated. One of the components of the course is the traditional description of the history of the language as a single-minded march towards the standard, as a process of lineal evolution of phonic, morphological and syntactic units. A second component presents cultural and linguistic phenomena (bilingualism, diglossia, standardization) that allow us to approach critically the historical emergence of Spanish as a "language" and the circumstances of its spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and the American continent.
The poetic production of the fifteenth century is one of the most fascinating, and least known areas of Spanish literary history. It reflects a profound crisis: the beginning of the transformation of a primarily courtly society with a feudal structure into a modern, urban society. The conjunction of various technological advances such as the invention of the clock, the printing press, the caravel and gunpowder fuses with the economic revolution which had been growing during the previous centuries to create a social discourse –the discourse of the festive—in which the craft of poetry is elevated to an ennobling and dignifying art. Although this new type of poetry, which may be described as "courtly", is produced in a rigidly hierarchical society, it nonetheless becomes a mechanism of social mobility. In this course we will study the works of four representative members of fifteenth century Castilian society: the erudite Juan de Mena and his Laberinto de fortuna, the sonnets and the Serranillas of the Marqués de Santillana, Jorge Manrique’s Coplas a la muerte de su padre, as well as the satirical and burlesque poetry of Antón de Montoro, the tailor of Córdoba. We will also explore the poetry of women writers such as Florencia Pinar and Mayor Arias, lyric popular poetry and the Carajicomedia.
This course takes an in-depth look at contemporary Portuguese poetry with a special emphasis on Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), one of the most influential writers of the modern world. We will begin with a quick review of the precursors of Portuguese Modernism (e.g., Camilo Pessanha, & etc.) before exploring the poetry of Pessoa ortónimo (Antinous) and several heteronyms--fictional personas--into which the Portuguese author’s divided his poetic vision: Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis, Bernardo Soares (The Book of Disquietude) & etc. It is in this context, that we will study the work of other important Portuguese poets: António Botto, Mario de Sá-Carneiro, Florbela Espanca, Judith Teixeira. The course ends with a panoramic look at the contemporary scene in the world of Portuguese poetry (Mário Máximo, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Mário Cesariny, Fiama Hasse Pais Brandno, António Franco Aleixandre, Luíza Neto Jorge, Al Berto, David Mourno Ferreira, Jorge de Sena , José Saramago & etc.). Specific topics for class discussion will focus on issues of gender as well genre (e.g., the "prose poem").
The course introduces students to the fundamentals of phonological analysis and to the application of this analysis to the facts of Spanish. It covers the phonemic principle and the phonemic analysis of Spanish, the features of major phonological theoretical approaches, the difference between phonetic and phonological representations and their application to Spanish, the notion of phonological rules, formal and substantive phonological universals and their manifestation in Spanish, and the interaction between morphology and phonology in Spanish inflectional paradigms.
In this course some of the most significant texts of the period from the beginning of the twentieth century until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936) will be studied. Some of the topics that will be explored are: the life and culture in Spain at the end of the nineteenth century; Modernism and Noventayochismo; literature and ecology (the Institución Libre de EnseZanza); Costa and the "regeneracionismo"; painting and photography in the Generation of ?98 (ekphrasis); the dehumanized novel and the social novel; the role of the Moroccan wars in the novel.
This course will focus on the emergence and early development of narrative fiction in medieval Spain, from the beginning of the twelfth to the end of the fifteenth century. Emphasis will be placed on the narrative elements of selected exempla of different origins (oriental tales legends, miracles, classical myths, ancient and biblical stories, travelers’ accounts etc.) and from different sources (chronicles, hagiographical biographies, florilegia, compendia, sermons’ manuals etc.) as well as on their functions (religious, moral, didactic, paradigmatic, rhetorical) as they evolve into more complex and more autonomous forms of literary fiction. In studying the texts, special attention will be paid to modifications in the language, in themes and narrative models, in the techniques of exposition etc. as authors responded to a changing world and addressed themselves to new audiences. Texts to be read in class include Don Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor, ed. J. Manuel Blecua, Madrid: Castalia; Alfonso Martinez de Toledo, El Arcipreste de Talavera, ed. Michael Gerli, Madrid: Catedra; Diego de San Pedro: Cárcel de amor, ed, Keith Whinnom, Madrid: Castalia. Selection from the Disciplina clericalis, Calila y Dimna, El libro de los engaños will be distributed in class.
The seminar will focus on a historical and philological reading of Cervantes’s Novelas ejemplares in the context of the constitution and evolution of the genre “novela corta” in Spain. Lexical, rhetorical and textual problems will be dealt with, as well as fictional devices that are characteristic of Cervantine discourses. The texts will be also studied in relation to their social and artistic contexts, and to other novels written by Cervantes before and after the Novelas ejemplares. Editions to be studied include Harry Sieber’s (Cátedra), J. B. Avalle Arce’s (Castalia) and F. Sevilla’s and A. Rey Hazas’s (Alianza). A bibliography of secondary sources will be given in class.
This seminar will focus on Lope’s play, seen as the last recreation in seventeenth century Spanish literature of the model built by Fernando de Rojas in La Celestina. Thus it will be studied in its relationship to Rojas’s and other literary precedents, including Lope’s own prior reworkings of the "Dorotea matter". As belonging to the cycle of works called de senectute in Lope’s corpus, La Dorotea will be analyzed in its construction according to the principle of imitation of basic canonical Greek and Latin classics: in particular, Ovid and elegiac poetry and comedy; Seneca’s tragedies and some of his Neostoic epistles. The study of the work as an ars amandi will be combined with that of its function as an ars poetica. Lope’s position in the polemic on Góngora and gongorismo, which developed after 1613, will be also evaluated in the context of the aesthetics of wit’s practices. The text will be read in E. Morby’s Castalia editions – maior and minor; these will be compared with J.M. Blecua’s for Cátedra and his older University of Puerto Rico edition. A bibliography of secondary sources will be distributed in class.
In this course we will investigate two interrelated topics: the organization of city life in specific spaces, and urban literature. Focusing on the organization and uses of space, and offering Barcelona as a paradigm for the process of urban growth into Modernity, we will study the development of the modern city and its impact on literature. Readings include works by Narcís Oller, J. Maragall., M. de Unamuno, E. d'Ors, M. Rodoreda, J. Gil de Biedma and G. Ferrater M. Vázquez Montalbán.
This seminar will analyze the most influential theories of fiction, the poetics of fiction, and fictional genres. It will also examine some principles of narratology (from Gérard Genette to Mieke Bal), which are deemed fundamental to understand the locus of the fantastic in literature, as well as the originality of the masters of the genre in Spanish America. Among the authors studied will be Horacio Quiroga (a selection from Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte), Jorge Luis Borges (a selection from Ficciones and El aleph), Julio Cortázar (a selection from Bestiario and Final del juego), Virgilio PiZera (a selection from El que vino a salvarme) and Carlos Fuentes (the short novel Aura).
SPAN 90000 - Dissertation Supervision: Interdisciplinary Concentration in Translation: SPAN 78600 - Practicum in Translation:
Closely associated with authors such as Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, Ben Okri, and Salman Rushdie, magical realism is recognized as one of the most important modes of prose fiction of the past fifty years. Less well understood is its importance to global filmmaking.This course will investigate magical realism as a cultural and historical phenomenon of global storytelling. Why has magical realism gained such importance and prominence in recent years? How is it related to globalization and to postmodernism? How do its aims change in relation to its places and times of origin in particular cultures? What are its shared formal characteristics? What are the specifically cinematic configurations of those characteristics? How does magical realism differ from but retain family resemblances to the supernatural and the fantastic? Indeed, how useful is the designation magical realism? A selection of films from around the world will be analyzed in light of these questions. Films may include A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (Cuba), The Exterminating Angel (Mexico), Daughters of the Dust (USA), and Time of the Gypsies (Yugoslavia). Readings will include comparative examples of prose fiction and theoretical writings by Alejo Carpentier, Tvsetan Todorov, Frederic Jameson, and others.
A survey of the popular and art music traditions of Spain, with
special attention to flamenco, zarzuela, opera,
Latin-American-influenced genres, and the vihuela, guitar and keyboard
repertoires, as well as themes such as nationalism, exoticism, and the
role of Spain in the European musical imagination. Coverage will
include major composers such as Albéniz,
lesser-known ones such as Guerau and Literes, and important scholars
and their contribution to the construction of a national musical
identity. |
SPAN 70100 - History of the Spanish Language:
GC, Thursday, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., Room 4419, 3 credits, Professor del Valle [62627]
