Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to Volume 2
- 1 Modernist poetry
- 2 Modernist prose
- 3 The Vanguardia and its implications
- 4 The literature of Indigenismo
- 5 Afro-Hispanic American literature
- 6 The Criollista novel
- 7 The novel of the Mexican Revolution
- 8 The Spanish American novel from 1950 to 1975
- 9 The Spanish American novel: recent developments, 1975 to 1990
- 10 Spanish American poetry from 1922 to 1975
- 11 The modern essay in Spanish America
- 12 Literary criticism in Spanish America
- 13 The autobiographical narrative
- 14 The twentieth-century short story in Spanish America
- 15 Spanish American theatre in the twentieth century
- 16 Latin American (Hispanic Caribbean) literature written in the United States
- 17 Chicano literature
- Index
- Bibliographies
- References
2 - Modernist prose
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to Volume 2
- 1 Modernist poetry
- 2 Modernist prose
- 3 The Vanguardia and its implications
- 4 The literature of Indigenismo
- 5 Afro-Hispanic American literature
- 6 The Criollista novel
- 7 The novel of the Mexican Revolution
- 8 The Spanish American novel from 1950 to 1975
- 9 The Spanish American novel: recent developments, 1975 to 1990
- 10 Spanish American poetry from 1922 to 1975
- 11 The modern essay in Spanish America
- 12 Literary criticism in Spanish America
- 13 The autobiographical narrative
- 14 The twentieth-century short story in Spanish America
- 15 Spanish American theatre in the twentieth century
- 16 Latin American (Hispanic Caribbean) literature written in the United States
- 17 Chicano literature
- Index
- Bibliographies
- References
Summary
The most cursory glance at the collected works of the major Spanish American Modernistas [Modernists] shows that the majority of these writings were prose. An unprejudiced reading of that prose soon reveals that most of it is of a quality equal to the Modernists’ best verse works, or to the prose works being written in Europe and the United States at about the same time.
Shortly after the Modernist movement waned in the late 1920s, critics, influenced on the one hand by the prestige of the telluric narratives, such as La vorágine (1923) [The Vortex] and Doña Bárbara (1929) [Doña Barbara], and on the other by the splendor of modernist poetry and that of its successors, such as Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), César Vallejo (1892-1938), and the Generation of 1927 in Spain, began to value Modernismo [Modernism] primarily as a poetic movement and to ignore or reject the achievements of modernist prose. When the Modernists’ prose was studied at all, it was usually in a fragmentary manner and subordinated to poetry. Thus, for example, fragments of essays and chronicles by José Martí (1853-1895), Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (1859-1895), and José Enrique Rodó (1871-1917) were studied for their value as “poetic prose.” Scant attention was paid to works in their entirety and to the ideas about art, literature, and society expressed in them, not only because some of these ideas had become unfashionable, but also because many had in fact become deeply ingrained in the fabric of Spanish American writing and were accepted without question.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature , pp. 69 - 113Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
References
- 62
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