20th Century Latin American Literature: Regionalism to Magical Realism

Posted on Oct 5, 2024 in Latin

The Regional Novel: Traditional Realism

Early 20th Century Trends

  • Romance of the Earth: This theme explores the struggle between civilization and nature in the American landscape, often with mixed outcomes.
  • Formal Characteristics: Traditional realism is applied to the American context, featuring committed narrators, flat characters, detailed descriptions, and diverse language reflecting regional variations.
  • Representative Works: The Vortex by José Eustasio Rivera, Don Segundo Sombra by Ricardo Güiraldes, and Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos.

The Social Novel

  • Themes: This genre introduces socio-political conflicts between the rich and poor, and the powerful versus the marginalized.
  • Formal Characteristics: A shift towards a more sober style with less emphasis on scenic elements.

The Novel of the Mexican Revolution

  • Focus: Depicts the social and political events following the 1910 Mexican Revolution, including the initial enthusiasm and eventual disillusionment.
  • Key Work: The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela.

The Indian Novel

  • Focus: Addresses the oppression and exploitation faced by indigenous and mestizo populations in various parts of the Americas.
  • Representative Works: Huasipungo by Jorge Icaza and The World is Wide and Alien by Ciro Alegría.

The New Novel: Magical Realism

The Success of Regionalism (1940s-1950s)

  • Regional Overreaction: Excessive focus on landscape descriptions, political propaganda, and dialectal variations.
  • New Influences: European and American storytellers (Joyce, Faulkner), Surrealism (Breton), and Existentialism (Sartre, Camus).
  • Magical Realism: The fusion of these influences with history, myth, and the American landscape creates a new poetic style.
  • Key Characteristics: Universal native themes, linguistic experimentation, and existential perspectives.
  • Key Authors: Miguel Ángel Asturias (Legends of Guatemala), Alejo Carpentier (Ecue-Yamba-O), Juan Rulfo (Pedro Páramo).

The Boom of the 1950s

  • Internationalization: Literary awards, conferences, critical studies, and publishing contribute to the novel’s global reach.
  • Formal Developments: Subjectivism in narration, multiple perspectives, disrupted timelines, and linguistic experimentation.
  • Themes: Loneliness, isolation, the illogical, sexuality, death, commitment, and intellectualism.
  • Representative Works: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar, and The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes.

New Narrators from the 1970s

  • Shift in Focus: While retaining experimental elements, there’s a return to more realistic approaches exploring themes like love, humor, and feminism.
  • Key Authors: Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel.

The Short Story: Fantastic Realism

Genre Development

  • Renewal: The short story undergoes significant renovation alongside the novel from 1940 onwards.
  • Key Authors: Many of the same authors prominent in the new novel also contributed to the short story’s evolution.

Jorge Luis Borges

  • Themes: Explores the meaning of life and the overwhelming nature of reality through themes like labyrinths, libraries, mirrors, and the circularity of time.
  • Style: Incorporates classical myths, literary quotations, historical allusions, paradoxes, intellectual games, and symbolism in clear and accessible language.
  • Key Works: Ficciones, The Aleph, A Universal History of Infamy.

Julio Cortázar

  • Themes and Style: Questions the monotony of daily life through linguistic reflection, playfulness, and surreal humor.
  • Key Works: Bestiary and Cronopios and Famas.

New Trends: The Micro-Story

  • Characteristics: Part of a larger trend towards brevity, eliminating unnecessary elements while maintaining core narrative principles.
  • Key Authors: Augusto Monterroso, Eduardo Galeano.

Latin American Poetry

20th Century Trends

  • Postmodernist Poetry: A shift from Modernism in the 1920s with new themes and simpler forms.
  • Intimate Poetry: Expresses simple feelings of love and existential themes with an intimate tone, particularly in the works of Gabriela Mistral (Desolation, Tenderness, Tala) and Alfonsina Storni (World of Seven Wells).
  • Negrista Poetry: Emerges in areas with significant Black populations, featuring folklore, rhythmic effects, musicality, color, sensuality, and eroticism. Nicolás Guillén (Songoro Cosongo) is a key figure.
  • Avant-Garde Poetry: European avant-garde movements like Creationism and Ultraism find representation in Latin America, influencing the introduction of these movements in Spain.