Book contents
- Frontmatter
- I THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MIDDLE AND SOUTH AMERICA ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST
- II COLONIAL SPANISH AMERICA
- III COLONIAL BRAZIL
- IV THE INDEPENDENCE OF LATIN AMERICA
- V LATIN AMERICA: ECONOMY, SOCIETY, POLITICS, c. 1820 TO c. 1870
- VI LATIN AMERICA: ECONOMY, SOCIETY, POLITICS, c. 1870 to 1930
- VII LATIN AMERICA: ECONOMY, SOCIETY, POLITICS, 1930 to c. 1990
- VIII IDEAS IN LATIN AMERICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE
- IX LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE SINCE INDEPENDENCE
- 1 Art and literature, c. 1820–c. 1870
- 2 Art and literature, c. 1870–1930
- 3 Narrative since c. 1920
- 4 Poetry since c. 1920
- 5 Indigenous literatures and cultures in the twentieth century
- 6 Art and architecture since c. 1920
- 7 Music since c. 1920
- 8 Cinema
- 9 The mass media
- X THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF LATIN AMERICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE
- THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICA
4 - Poetry since c. 1920
from IX - LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE SINCE INDEPENDENCE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- I THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MIDDLE AND SOUTH AMERICA ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST
- II COLONIAL SPANISH AMERICA
- III COLONIAL BRAZIL
- IV THE INDEPENDENCE OF LATIN AMERICA
- V LATIN AMERICA: ECONOMY, SOCIETY, POLITICS, c. 1820 TO c. 1870
- VI LATIN AMERICA: ECONOMY, SOCIETY, POLITICS, c. 1870 to 1930
- VII LATIN AMERICA: ECONOMY, SOCIETY, POLITICS, 1930 to c. 1990
- VIII IDEAS IN LATIN AMERICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE
- IX LATIN AMERICAN CULTURE SINCE INDEPENDENCE
- 1 Art and literature, c. 1820–c. 1870
- 2 Art and literature, c. 1870–1930
- 3 Narrative since c. 1920
- 4 Poetry since c. 1920
- 5 Indigenous literatures and cultures in the twentieth century
- 6 Art and architecture since c. 1920
- 7 Music since c. 1920
- 8 Cinema
- 9 The mass media
- X THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF LATIN AMERICA SINCE INDEPENDENCE
- THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICA
Summary
An appropriate starting point for any survey of twentieth-century Latin American poetry is Saúl Yurkievich, Fundadores de la nueva poesía latinoamericana (1971; 2nd ed., Barcelona, 1973), which contains essays on César Vallejo, Vicente Huidobro, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz and Oliverio Girondo. Yurkievich, a poet and a perceptive critic, favours the experimental side of the twentieth-century poetic tradition. Despite its title, his survey does not include Brazilians. Equally stimulating, and more wide ranging, is Guillermo Sucre, La máscara, la transparencia (Caracas, 1975) with essays on all the principal Hispanic poets from Darío to Pizarnik and Pacheco; strangely it excludes Pablo Neruda. Another poet-critic who has written engagingly on Spanish American poets is Julio Ortega in his Figuración de la persona (Madrid, 1970), with essays on Vallejo, Belli, Parra, Pacheco and many Peruvians. The best survey in English is Gordon Brotherston, Latin American Poetry: Origins and Presence (Cambridge, Eng., 1975), from Darió to Girri and Lihn, and including the Brazilians. Brotherston’s forte is situating the poets in a cultural definition of American-ness. The most useful academic survey (with bibliographies) is Merlin Forster, Historia de la poesía hispanoamericana (Clear Creek, Ind., 1981). A sympathetic approach to modern Latin American poets emerges in Ramón Xirau’s Poesía iberoamericana contemporánea (Mexico, D.F., 1972). A chronicle of very recent poetry, arguing for a living avant-garde, is Eduardo Milan’s Una cierta mirada (Mexico, D.F., 1989), based on reviews in Octavio Paz’s magazine, Vuelta. Pedro Lastra’s critical edition of the special number of Inti: Revista de Literatura Hispánica, 18–19 (1983–4), ‘Catorce poetas hispanoamericanos de hoy’, ranges from Gonzalo Rojas to Antonio Cisneros.
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of Latin America , pp. 916 - 925Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995