Realism and Regionalism in Latin American Novels: A Historical Overview

Posted on Sep 24, 2024 in Latin

Novelistic Developments Pre-20th Century: Realism and Regionalism

The novelistic genre emerged relatively late in Latin America. El Periquillo Sarmiento by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, published in Mexico in 1816, is considered the first Latin American novel. Romantic novels like María by Colombian author Jorge Isaacs and Amalia by Argentine author José Mármol followed, marking the beginning of Hispanic nature taking center stage in literature. Modernist approaches led to two novelistic trends: one focused on artistic novels and the other committed to portraying American reality through realism.

The First Half of the 20th Century

Until the 1920s, the Latin American novel, influenced by Spanish tradition, delved into political and social themes, giving rise to two prominent subgenres: novels of socio-political issues and novels of the earth.

Novels of Socio-Political Issues

These novels drew inspiration from the exploitation of Latin American resources by foreign powers, the plight of underpaid workers and impoverished indigenous populations, and the rise of dictatorships. An omniscient narrator typically presented the facts faithfully without direct intervention. Two main trends emerged within this subgenre:

  1. Novels of the Mexican Revolution:

    These novels, focusing on the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), explored the shift from a fight for freedom to a social and agrarian revolution led by figures like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Authors like Mariano Azuela (known for works such as Los de abajo, The Underdogs, and The Flies) and Martín Luis Guzmán (The Shadow of the Leader, The Eagle and the Serpent) depicted the betrayal of revolutionary ideals and the struggles of marginalized communities.

  2. The Indian Novel:

    This trend highlighted the problems faced by indigenous communities. Notable authors include Jorge Icaza (Huasipungo), Alcides Arguedas (Raza de bronce), and Ciro Alegría (The World is Wide and Alien).

Novels of the Earth

This subgenre showcased the unequal struggle between civilization (progress, culture, dominance) and the vast, overwhelming American landscape (the Pampas, Andes, Amazon). Two main trends emerged:

  1. The Regional Novel:

    This trend, pioneered by José Eustasio Rivera’s La Vorágine (The Vortex), emphasized the relationship between humans and their specific geographical and cultural contexts. Rómulo Gallegos’s Doña Bárbara is another significant work in this category.

  2. The Gaucho Novel:

    This trend romanticized the gaucho, the nomadic horseman of the Pampas, as a symbol of freedom against the backdrop of a poeticized and nostalgic natural world. Ricardo Güiraldes’s Don Segundo Sombra is a prime example.

The Triumph of Realism

By the mid-20th century, the Latin American novel evolved to reflect a more universal scope, moving beyond simply representing reality to serving as a lens for exploring broader human concerns. The omniscient narrator declined in popularity, replaced by more experimental narrative techniques. This period saw a two-fold renewal:

  1. Thematic Renewal:

    Alongside the vast natural landscapes, urban spaces and the complexities of human dreams and desires became prominent themes. The influence of Freudian psychology led writers to explore the irrational and the subconscious, questioning the nature of reality and identity.

  2. Formal Renewal:

    Latin American novelists embraced innovative literary movements like surrealism and existentialism, incorporating experimental techniques and pushing the boundaries of traditional storytelling.

Magical Realism

This period marked the rise of magical realism, a genre that blended fantasy and reality, reflecting the unique blend of indigenous beliefs, history, and modernity in Latin America. Magical elements were seamlessly woven into everyday events, creating a world where the supernatural felt entirely natural. Key figures in this movement include:

  • Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala): Legends of Guatemala, El Señor Presidente
  • Alejo Carpentier (Cuba): The Kingdom of this World, The Lost Steps, Explosion in a Cathedral, The Rite of Spring, Concierto barroco
  • Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina): Ficciones, The Aleph, The Maker, Brodie’s Report, The Book of Sand, A History of Eternity
  • Juan Rulfo (Mexico): El llano en llamas, Pedro Páramo, The Golden Cockerel

The Latin American”Boo”

The 1960s witnessed the Latin American”Boom” a literary explosion that brought international attention to Latin American literature. This movement, fueled in part by a desire to break the political and economic isolation of Cuba under Castro’s regime, saw a group of writers gain global recognition. These authors, including Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel García Márquez, explored urban issues, existential crises, and the search for identity, often incorporating elements of magical realism. Key figures include:

  • Ernesto Sabato (Argentina): El Túnel (The Tunnel), On Heroes and Tombs, Abaddón the Exterminator
  • Julio Cortázar (Argentina): Bestiario (Bestiary), Rayuela (Hopscotch)
  • Carlos Fuentes (Mexico): The Death of Artemio Cruz
  • Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru): The Time of the Hero, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The Green House, Conversation in the Cathedral, The War of the End of the World, Death in the Andes
  • Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia): One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, No One Writes to the Colonel, Leaf Storm, In Evil Hour, The Autumn of the Patriarch

The Generation of 1927: Poetry in Spain

Various Names and Artistic Affinities

Poets born around 1891-1905, influenced by the Generation of ’98, were known by various names, including the”Generation of the Dictatorship” the”Generation of the Revista de Occidente” and the”Grandchildren of ’98” Luis Cernuda coined the term”Generation of 1925″ marking the publication of major works like Lorca’s Libro de poemas (1921) and Guillén’s Cántico (1928). Dámaso Alonso later proposed”Group of 1927″ commemorating the tercentenary of Góngora’s death. This group, lacking a singular leader, included figures like Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Dámaso Alonso, Federico García Lorca, Vicente Aleixandre, Rafael Alberti, Luis Cernuda, Emilio Prados, and Manuel Altolaguirre. They were also dubbed the”Generation of Friendshi” due to their close personal and intellectual connections fostered at institutions like the Residencia de Estudiantes and through journals like La Gaceta Literaria and Revista de Occidente.

Characteristics of the Group

The Generation of 1927 was characterized by a tendency to balance opposing forces:

  1. Intellect and Emotion: Their poetry blended restrained emotion with intellectual rigor.
  2. Mysticism and Craftsmanship: They viewed poetry as both a mystical experience and a product of meticulous craftsmanship, balancing intuition and reason.
  3. Aesthetic Purity and Human Authenticity: While valuing aesthetic beauty, they also grappled with themes of human authenticity and existential concerns.
  4. Minority and Majority: Their poetry alternated between obscure symbolism and accessible clarity, appealing to both elite and wider audiences.
  5. Universal and Spanish: They navigated the tension between universal themes and Spanish tradition, embracing both innovation and their literary heritage.
  6. Cultured and Popular Aesthetics: They combined sophisticated literary techniques with elements of popular forms like ballads and folk songs, revitalizing contemporary poetry.

Evolution and Stages

According to Dámaso Alonso and Luis Cernuda, the group’s evolution can be divided into three stages:

  1. Up to 1927: This initial phase was marked by the influence of Bécquer, a rejection of Modernism, and early experimentation with avant-garde techniques. Juan Ramón Jiménez’s emphasis on pure poetry inspired a focus on metaphor and a move away from overly sentimental or ornate language. Works like Alberti’s Marinero en tierra and Lorca’s Libro de poemas exemplify this phase.
  2. From 1927 to the Civil War: This period marked the peak and subsequent decline of their aesthetic ideals. Surrealism’s influence became more pronounced, leading to an exploration of human emotions, existential anxieties, and the subconscious. Social and political themes also emerged in their work.
  3. The Civil War and After: The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) profoundly impacted the group. Lorca’s tragic death and the exile of many members led to a shift in focus. Their poetry reflected themes of loss, nostalgia for their homeland, and the experience of displacement. Despite these challenges, they continued to produce significant work, with Vicente Aleixandre’s Nobel Prize in Literature in 1977 solidifying the group’s legacy as a pivotal force in Spanish poetry.

Metrical Innovations

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Their contributions are:

1. Discard a large number of meters and stanzas used by Modernism. Developed free verse or verse, by the influence of Juan Ramón, Surrealism and the Spanish American poets Vallejo and Neruda.

2. The measures and the pauses are variables. Matter the pace, (not the quantity or the rhyme) that arises from the repetition of ideas (anaphora, parallelism, etc.)..

3 .- resources appear traditional metric metrical schemes, repetitions, syntactic, etc.

AUTHORS

Federico García Lorca (Granada 1898): lively personality also shows a sense of frustration evident in his works where the cultured and popular melt like the passion and perfection. His first books were: Impressions and Landscapes (prose), Book of Poems (poetry reflects its infancy). Then followed songs (very heterogeneous), Poema del Cante Jondo (with compact unit), Gypsy Ballads (sung to the fringes of society to great success), Poet in New York (written after the crisis suffered by staying in NY.) His latest poems are: Divan Tamarit and Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías.

Rafael Alberti (Puerto Santa María 1902), with active participation in politics and war is exiled. After a crisis that makes you lose faith written on angels (surreal), with the same stylistic line Sermons and Purple. Start a social and political poetry he calls civil Poet in the street, from one moment to another and include the carnation and the sword. With his exile poems come from exile under the title Poems of exile and waiting. In recent times has given us books like eight names of Picasso, Open all hours, etc.. Grove also wrote a book of memories lost.

Emilio Prados (Manchester 1899), has a tendency to retreat and delve into the problems of life and death. His early poetry is marked by the popular and J. Ramón Jiménez, surreal stage coincides with a crisis and Walking The captive voice, walking around the world. A brief poetic stage crying in the blood, lower Songbook for combatants. In exile comprises an enclosed garden. Although it has always been placed in a second row his poetry is beautiful and very elaborate.

Manuel Altobelli (1905): youngest of the group and a close friend of Meadows with a sympathetic character after living since the war in Cuba and Mexico back in Spain where he died in 1929. Emphasizes the musicality of his verse. His most important works are invited islands, Poetry, Solitudes boards, etc. Weekend in exile issued a love and Poetry of America.

Luis Cernuda:

Ø Life: Born in 1902 in Seville, was a student at Salinas and actively supported the Republican cause in the war for which he was exiled in 1938. Lecturer in English and American universities lived in Mexico until 1963 when he died. Solitary nature and sensitivity never hid his homosexuality and his awareness of marginal creature, which he did rebel.

Ø Topics: romantic substrate singled him his poetic world. Its thematic focus is the separation between desire and reality imposed, his favorite subjects are loneliness, the desire for perfect beauty and love.

Ø Style: gives the special place it occupies in the escape group of “fashion” as it embarks on a lonely road and unmistakable. His poetic language comes from a triple rejection discarded because too marked rhythms, rhyme and bright and rich language in pictures in preference to a conversational tone.

Ø Work:

or several books together since 1936 under a common title: La realidad y el deseo

or His first production was in the air inside profile of pure poetry. Remains eclogue, elegy and ode.

or in French Surrealist poetry reading and a rising river, love.

Leave the surrealist language or to find a more personal tone in Donde habite el olvido

or invocations closes its pre-war poetry.

o During the early days of war and exile up clouds, poems inspired by the reality of the moment

or remain in exile as he awaits the dawn, Vivir sin estar living, with the hours counted and Desolation of the Chimera.

o Ocnos poetic prose is a nostalgic evocation of his distant Andalusia. Variations on a Mexican theme and several books of essays finish their work in prose.

Ø Significance: his solitary peculiarity makes it difficult to classify, their sullen independence led him thematic stylistic paths untrodden. To his poetry poets and critics have become in recent years. His language clean perfect, dense ever-increasing rise estimate.