1.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
2.
Literature
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Literature, in its broadest sense, is any single body of written works. Its Latin root literatura/litteratura was used to refer to all written accounts, developments in print technology have allowed an evergrowing distribution and proliferation of written works, culminating in electronic literature. There have been attempts to define literature. Simon and Delyse Ryan begin their attempt to answer the question What is Literature, with the observation, The quest to discover a definition for literature is a road that is much travelled, though the point of arrival, if ever reached, is seldom satisfactory. Most attempted definitions are broad and vague, and they change over time. In fact, the thing that is certain about defining literature is that the definition will change. Concepts of what is literature change over time as well, definitions of literature have varied over time, it is a culturally relative definition. In Western Europe prior to the century, literature as a term indicated all books. A more restricted sense of the term emerged during the Romantic period, contemporary debates over what constitutes literature can be seen as returning to the older, more inclusive notion of what constitutes literature. Cultural studies, for instance, takes as its subject of both popular and minority genres, in addition to canonical works. The value judgment definition of literature considers it to cover exclusively those writings that possess high quality or distinction and this sort of definition is that used in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition when it classifies literature as the best expression of the best thought reduced to writing. The formalist definition is that literature foregrounds poetic effects, it is the literariness or poetic of literature that distinguishes it from ordinary speech or other kinds of writing. Etymologically, the term derives from Latin literatura/litteratura learning, a writing, grammar, originally writing formed with letters, in spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or sung texts. Poetry is a form of art which uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of. Possibly as a result of Aristotles influence, poetry before the century was usually less a technical designation for verse than a normative category of fictive or rhetorical art. As a form it may pre-date literacy, with the earliest works being composed within and sustained by an oral tradition, novel, a long fictional prose narrative. It was the close relation to real life that differentiated it from the chivalric romance, in most European languages the equivalent term is roman. In English, the term emerged from the Romance languages in the fifteenth century, with the meaning of news, it came to indicate something new
3.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
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Argentina
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Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a federal republic in the southern half of South America. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the second largest in Latin America, and the largest Spanish-speaking one. The country is subdivided into provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system, Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The earliest recorded presence in the area of modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century, Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest developed nation in the world by the early 20th century, Argentina retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs, and is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America and is a member of the G-15 and it is the country with the second highest Human Development Index in Latin America with a rating of very high. Because of its stability, market size and growing high-tech sector, the description of the country by the word Argentina has to be found on a Venice map in 1536. In English the name Argentina probably comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, Argentina means in Italian of silver, silver coloured, probably borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine of silver > silver coloured already mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the form of argentin and derives of argent silver with the suffix -in. The Italian naming Argentina for the country implies Argentina Terra land of silver or Argentina costa coast of silver, in Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is often used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said lArgentina. The name Argentina was probably first given by the Venitian and Genoese navigators, in Spanish and Portuguese, the words for silver are respectively plata and prata and of silver is said plateado and prateado. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin. The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region, the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name Argentine Republic in legal documents. The name Argentine Confederation was also used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the name as Argentine Republic
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Cuba
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Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital, other cities include Santiago de Cuba. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres, prior to Spanish colonization in the late 15th century, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindian tribes. It remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, as a fragile republic, Cuba attempted to strengthen its democratic system, but mounting political radicalization and social strife culminated in the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Further unrest and instability led to Batistas ousting in January 1959 by the July 26 Movement, since 1965, the state has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. A point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear war broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America, Cuba is a Marxist–Leninist one-party republic, where the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Independent observers have accused the Cuban government of human rights abuses. It is one of the worlds last planned economies and its economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee, according to the Human Development Index, Cuba is described as a country with high human development and is ranked the eighth highest in North America. It also ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including health care, the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as where fertile land is abundant, authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by three distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Taíno, the Guanajatabey, and the Ciboney people. The ancestors of the Ciboney migrated from the mainland of South America, the Taíno arrived from Hispanola sometime in the 3rd century A. D. When Columbus arrived they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having a population of 150,000. The name Cuba comes from the native Taíno language and it is derived from either coabana meaning great place, or from cubao meaning where fertile land is abundant. The Taíno were farmers, while the Ciboney were farmers as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers, Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa, other towns soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1515, which later became the capital
6.
Juan Rulfo
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Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno, best known as Juan Rulfo, was a Mexican writer, screenwriter and photographer. He is best known for two works, El Llano en llamas, a collection of short stories, and the 1955 novel Pedro Páramo. Fifteen of the seventeen short stories in El Llano en llamas have been translated into English and published as The Burning Plain and this collection includes the popular tale ¡Diles que no me maten. The Juan Rulfo Foundation, which was established by Rulfos family after his death, Rulfo was born in 1917 in Apulco, Jalisco, in the home of his paternal grandfather. After his father was killed in 1923 and his mother died in 1927, Rulfos grandmother raised him in the town of San Gabriel, Rulfo was sent to study in the Luis Silva School, where he lived from 1928 to 1932. He completed six years of school and a special seventh year from which he graduated as a bookkeeper. Rulfo moved to Mexico City, where he entered the National Military Academy and he then hoped to study law at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. In 1936, Rulfo was able to audit courses in literature at the University and it was at the University that Rulfo first began writing under the tutelage of a coworker, Efrén Hernández. In 1944, Rulfo had co-founded the literary journal Pan, later, he was able to advance in his career and travel throughout Mexico as an immigration agent. In 1946, he started as a foreman for Goodrich Euzkadi and this obligated him to travel throughout all of southern Mexico, until he was fired in 1952 for asking for a radio for his company car. Rulfo obtained a fellowship at the Centro Mexicano de Escritores, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, there, between 1952 and 1954, he was able to write two books. The first book was a collection of harshly realistic short stories, the stories centered on life in rural Mexico around the time of the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War. Among the best-known stories are ¡Diles que no me maten, initially, the novel met with cool critical reception and sold only two thousand copies during the first four years, later, however, the book became highly acclaimed. Páramo was a key influence for Latin American writers such as Gabriel García Márquez, Pedro Páramo has been translated into more than 30 languages, and the English version has sold more than a million copies in the United States. The book went through changes in name. In two letters written in 1947 to his fiancée Clara Aparicio, he refers to the novel he was writing as Una estrella junto a la luna, during the last stages of writing, he wrote in journals that the title would be Los murmullos. With the assistance of a grant from the Centro Mexicano de Escritores, between 1956 and 1958, Rulfo worked on a novella entitled El gallo de oro, which was not published until 1980. A revised and corrected edition was issued posthumously in 2010, the Fundación Rulfo possesses fragments of two unfinished novels, La cordillera and Ozumacín
7.
Octavio Paz
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Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Octavio Paz was introduced to literature early in his life through the influence of his grandfathers library, filled with classic Mexican and European literature. During the 1920s, he discovered Gerardo Diego, Juan Ramón Jiménez, as a teenager in 1931, Paz published his first poems, including Cabellera. Two years later, at the age of 19, he published Luna Silvestre, in 1932, with some friends, he founded his first literary review, Barandal. In 1937 at the age of 23, Paz abandoned his law studies and left Mexico City for Yucatán to work at a school in Mérida, set up for the sons of peasants and workers. There, he working on the first of his long, ambitious poems. Influenced by the work of T. S. Eliot, it explores the situation of the Mexican peasant under the landlords of the day. Upon his return to Mexico, Paz co-founded a literary journal, Taller in 1938, in 1937 he married Elena Garro, who is considered one of Mexicos finest writers. They had one daughter, Helena, and were divorced in 1959, in 1943, Paz received a Guggenheim fellowship and used it to study at the University of California at Berkeley in the United States. Two years later he entered the Mexican diplomatic service, and was assigned for a time to New York City, in 1945, he was sent to Paris, where he wrote El Laberinto de la Soledad. In 1952, he travelled to India for the first time and that same year, he went to Tokyo, as chargé daffaires. He next was assigned to Geneva, Switzerland and he returned to Mexico City in 1954, where he wrote his great poem Piedra de sol in 1957, and published Libertad bajo palabra, a compilation of his poetry up to that time. He was sent again to Paris in 1959, in 1962 he was named Mexicos ambassador to India. In India, Paz completed several works, including El mono gramático, while in India, he met numerous writers of a group known as the Hungry Generation and had a profound influence on them. He met his first wife Elena Garro a writer in Mexico City and was married to her in 1937 and they had a daughter Helena Laura Paz Garro. In 1965, he married Marie-José Tramini, a French woman who would be his wife for the rest of his life. In October 1968, he resigned from the service in protest of the Mexican governments massacre of student demonstrators in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco. After staying in Paris for refuge, he returned to Mexico in 1969 and he founded his magazine Plural with a group of liberal Mexican and Latin American writers
8.
Carlos Fuentes
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Carlos Fuentes Macías audio was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are The Death of Artemio Cruz, Aura, Terra Nostra, The Old Gringo and his many literary honors include the Miguel de Cervantes Prize as well as Mexicos highest award, the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor. He was often named as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Fuentes was born in Panama City, the son of Berta Macías and Rafael Fuentes, from 1934 to 1940, Fuentes father was posted to the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D. C. where Carlos attended English-language school, eventually becoming fluent. He also began to write during this time, creating his own magazine, in 1940, the Fuentes family was transferred to Santiago, Chile. There Carlos first became interested in socialism, which would one of his lifelong passions. He lived in Mexico for the first time at the age of 16, during this time, he also began working at the daily newspaper Hoy and writing short stories. He later attended the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, in 1957, Fuentes was named head of cultural relations at the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs. The following year, he published Where the Air Is Clear, in 1959, he moved to Havana in the wake of the Cuban Revolution, where he wrote pro-Castro articles and essays. The same year, he married Mexican actress Rita Macedo, considered dashingly handsome, Fuentes also had high-profile affairs with actresses Jeanne Moreau and Jean Seberg, the latter of whom inspired his novel Diana, The Goddess Who Hunts Alone. His second marriage, to journalist Silvia Lemus, lasted until his death, Fuentes served as Mexicos ambassador to France from 1975 to 1977, resigning in protest of former President Gustavo Díaz Ordazs appointment as ambassador to Spain. He also taught at Cambridge, Brown, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth and his friends included Luis Buñuel, William Styron, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and sociologist C. Wright Mills, to whom he dedicated his book The Death of Artemio Cruz. Once good friends with Nobel-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz, Fuentes became estranged from him in the 1980s in a disagreement over the Sandinistas, whom Fuentes supported. In 1988, Pazs magazine Vuelta carried an attack by Enrique Krauze on the legitimacy of Fuentes Mexican identity, opening a feud between Paz and Fuentes that lasted until Pazs 1998 death. In 1989, he was the subject of a full-length PBS television documentary, Crossing Borders, The Journey of Carlos Fuentes, only one of them survived him, Cecilia Fuentes Macedo, born in 1962. A son, Carlos Fuentes Lemus, died from complications associated with hemophilia in 1999 at the age of 25, a daughter, Natasha Fuentes Lemus, died of an apparent drug overdose in Mexico City on August 22,2005, at the age of 30. Fuentes described himself as a writer, using only pens, ink. He asked, Do words need anything else, Fuentes said that he detested those authors who from the beginning claim to have a recipe for success
9.
Amado Nervo
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Amado Nervo also known as Juan Crisóstomo Ruiz de Nervo, was a Mexican poet, journalist and educator. He also acted as Mexican Ambassador to Argentina and Uruguay and his poetry was known for its use of metaphor and reference to mysticism, presenting both love and religion, as well as Christianity and Hinduism. Nervo is noted as one of the most important Mexican poets of the 19th century, Amado Nervo was born in Tepic, Nayarit. His father died when Nervo was 9 years old, two more deaths were to mark his life, the suicide of his brother Luis, who was also a poet, and the death of his wife Ana Cecilia Luisa Daillez, just 11 years after marriage. His early studies were at the Colegio San Luis Gonzaga, located in Jacona, after graduation, he began studying at the Roman Catholic Seminary in nearby Zamora. His studies at the seminary included science, philosophy and the first year of law and it was here, that Nervo cultivated an interest in mystical theories, which were reflected in some of his early works. While Nervo had early plans to join the priesthood, economic hardship led him to accept a job in Tepic. He later moved to Mazatlán, where he worked in the office of a lawyer. He went on to become a poet, journalist. In 1894, Nervo continued his career in Mexico City, where he became known and appreciated, working in the magazine Azul, with Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera. It was during this time that he was introduced to the work of Luis G. Urbina, Tablada, Dávalos, Rubén Darío, José Santos Chocano, and Campoamor. His background in journalism and news reporting flourished during these years, as he continued writing for El Universal, El Nacional and he maintained a formal partnership with El Mundo through June 1897. In October 1897, El Mundo launched a supplement called La Comedia del Mundo, in January 1898, the supplement was established independently from El Mundo and changed its name to La Comedia. Nervo gained a reputation in the literary community after the publication of his novel El bachiller and his books of poetry. In 1898, Nervo founded, along with Jesús Valenzuela, La Revista Moderna, the magazine was the successor to Azul. He was the cousin of the renowned artist Roberto Montenegro Nervo and his cousins first illustrations were produced for La Revista Moderna magazine. In 1902, Nervo wrote La Raza de Bronce in honor of Benito Juárez, in 1919, Bolivian writer Alcides Arguedas used the term in his novel, Raza de Bronce. In 1925, the term was used by Mexican luminary José Vasconcelos in his essay, Nervo spent the first years of the twentieth century in Europe, particularly in Paris
10.
Mesoamerica
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It is one of six areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently, and the second in the Americas along with Norte Chico in present-day northern coastal Peru. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures, while Mesoamerican civilization did know of the wheel and basic metallurgy, neither of these technologies became culturally important. Among the earliest complex civilizations was the Olmec culture, which inhabited the Gulf coast of Mexico and extended inland, frequent contact and cultural interchange between the early Olmec and other cultures in Chiapas, Guatemala and Oaxaca laid the basis for the Mesoamerican cultural area. All this was facilitated by considerable regional communications in ancient Mesoamerica and this Formative period saw the spread of distinct religious and symbolic traditions, as well as artistic and architectural complexes. In the subsequent Preclassic period, complex urban polities began to develop among the Maya, with the rise of such as El Mirador, Calakmul and Tikal. Mesoamerica is one of three regions of the world where writing is known to have independently developed. Upon the collapse of Teotihuacán around AD600, competition between several important political centers in central Mexico, such as Xochicalco and Cholula, ensued. During the early period, Central Mexico was dominated by the Toltec culture, Oaxaca by the Mixtec. Towards the end of the period, the Aztecs of Central Mexico built a tributary empire covering most of central Mesoamerica. The distinct Mesoamerican cultural tradition ended with the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, over the next centuries, Mesoamerican indigenous cultures were gradually subjected to Spanish colonial rule. The exact geographic extent of Mesoamerica has varied through time, as the civilization extended North and South from its heartland in southern Mexico, Mesoamerica is recognized as a near-prototypical cultural area, and the term is now fully integrated in the standard terminology of pre-Columbian anthropological studies. Conversely, the sister terms Aridoamerica and Oasisamerica, which refer to northern Mexico, 10° and 22° northern latitude, Mesoamerica possesses a complex combination of ecological systems, topographic zones, and environmental contexts. A main distinction groups these different niches into two categories, the lowlands and the altiplanos, or highlands. In the low-lying regions, sub-tropical and tropical climates are most common, as is true for most of the coastline along the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The highlands show much more diversity, ranging from dry tropical to cold mountainous climates. The rainfall varies from the dry Oaxaca and north Yucatan to the humid southern Pacific, several distinct sub-regions within Mesoamerica are defined by a convergence of geographic and cultural attributes. These sub-regions are more conceptual than culturally meaningful, and the demarcation of their limits is not rigid, the Maya area, for example, can be divided into two general groups, the lowlands and highlands. The lowlands are further divided into the southern and northern Maya lowlands, the southern Maya lowlands are generally regarded as encompassing northern Guatemala, southern Campeche and Quintana Roo in Mexico, and Belize
11.
Spanish literature
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Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain. The literature of Spanish America is an important branch of Spanish literature, the Roman conquest and occupation of the Iberian peninsula beginning in the 3rd century BC brought a Latin culture to Spanish territories. The arrival of Muslim invaders in 711 CE brought the cultures of the Middle, in Medieval Spanish literature, the earliest recorded examples of a vernacular Romance-based literature mix Muslim, Jewish, and Christian culture. One of the works is the epic poem Cantar de Mio Cid. Spanish prose gained popularity in the mid-thirteenth century, lyric poetry in the Middle Ages includes popular poems and the courtly poetry of the nobles. During the 15th century the pre-Renaissance occurred and literary production increased greatly, in the Renaissance important topics were poetry, religious literature, and prose. In the Baroque era of the 17th century important works were the prose of Francisco de Quevedo, a notable author was Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, famous for his masterpiece Don Quixote de la Mancha. In Romanticism important topics are, the poetry of José de Espronceda and other poets, prose, the theater, with Ángel de Saavedra, José Zorrilla, in Modernism several currents appear, Parnasianism, Symbolism, Futurism, and Creationism. The destruction of Spains fleet in Cuba by the U. S. in 1898 provoked a crisis in Spain, a group of younger writers, among them Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja, and José Martínez Ruiz, made changes to literatures form and content. Poets were closely tied to formal academia, Novelists such as Benjamín Jarnés, Rosa Chacel, Francisco Ayala, and Ramón J. Sender were equally experimental and academic. The Spanish Civil War had a impact on Spanish writing. Among the handful of war poets and writers, Miguel Hernández stands out. During the early dictatorship, literature followed dictator Francisco Francos reactionary vision of a second Spanish golden age, by the mid-1950s, just as with the novel, a new generation which had only experienced the Spanish civil war in childhood was coming of age. By the early 1960s, Spanish authors moved towards a restless literary experimentation, when Franco died in 1975, the important work of establishing democracy had an immediate impact on Spanish letters. Originally, these songs would have been closely associated with fertility rites. Later, primitive love ballads and heroic tales would have arisen and these popular, vernacular forms would have rarely if ever been written down. The Roman conquest and occupation of the peninsula, spanning from the 3rd century BC to the year 409 A. D, the Roman philosopher Seneca was born in Spain as were the poets Martial, Quintilian, and Lucan. While the invasion of Germanic tribes in the fifth century A. D, outstanding amongst the works produced is Saint Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, an attempted summa of all classical knowledge
12.
New Spain
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New Spain was a colonial territory of the Spanish Empire, in the New World north of the Isthmus of Panama. It was established following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, after 1535 the colony was governed by the Viceroy of New Spain, an appointed minister of the King of Spain, who ruled as monarch over the colony. The capital of New Spain was Mexico City and it developed highly regional divisions, which reflect the impact of climate, topography, the presence or absence of dense indigenous populations, and the presence or absence of mineral resources. The areas of central and southern Mexico had dense indigenous populations with complex social, political, silver mining not only became the engine of the economy of New Spain, but vastly enriched Spain, and transformed the global economy. New Spain was the New World terminus of the Philippine trade, although New Spain was a dependency of Spain, it was a kingdom not a colony, subject to the presiding monarch on the Iberian Peninsula. Every privilege and position, economic political, or religious came from him and it was on this basis that the conquest, occupation, and government of the New World was achieved. The Viceroyalty of New Spain was established in 1535 in the Kingdom of New Spain and it was the first New World viceroyalty and one of only two in the Spanish empire until the 18th century Bourbon Reforms. The Spanish Empire comprised the territories in the north overseas Septentrion, from North America, to the west of the continent, New Spain also included the Spanish East Indies. To the east of the continent, it included the Spanish West Indies and this was not occupied by many Spanish settlers and were considered more marginal to Spanish interests than the most densely populated and lucrative areas of central Mexico. To shore up its claims in North America starting in the late 18th century, Spanish expeditions to the Pacific Northwest explored and claimed the coast of what is now British Columbia and Alaska. The indigenous societies of Mesoamerica brought under Spanish control were of unprecedented complexity, the societies could provide the conquistadors, especially Hernán Cortés, a base from which the conquerors could become autonomous, or even independent, of the Crown. As a result, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, since the time of the Catholic Monarchs, central Iberia was governed through councils appointed by the monarch with particular jurisdictions. Thus, the creation of the Council of the Indies became another, the crown had set up the Casa de Contratación in 1503 to regulate contacts between Spain and its overseas possessions. A key function was to gather information about navigation to make trips less risky and they were accompanied by maps of the area discussed, many of which were drawn by indigenous artists. The Francisco Hernández Expedition, the first scientific expedition to the New World, was sent to gather information medicinal plants, an earlier Audiencia had been established in Santo Domingo in 1526 to deal with the Caribbean settlements. That Audiencia, housed in the Casa Reales in Santo Domingo, was charged with encouraging further exploration, management by the Audiencia, which was expected to make executive decisions as a body, proved unwieldy. Therefore, in 1535, King Charles V named Don Antonio de Mendoza as the first Viceroy of New Spain. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 opened up the vast territories of South America to further conquests, the Crown established an independent Viceroyalty of Peru there in 1540
13.
Spanish Renaissance literature
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Spanish Renaissance literature is the literature written in Spain during the Renaissance. The political, religious, literary, and war relations between Italy and Spain since the second half of the 15th century caused a cultural interchange between these two countries. The papacy of two illustrious Valencians, Calixto III and Alejandro VI narrowed the cultural relations between Castile, Aragón, Catalonia and Rome, the Spanish literary works of greatest relief were published or translated in Italy. The same thing happened in Spain to Italian works, among them, the Freed Jerusalem, of Torcuato Tasso. These Hispanic-Italian relations were important, since they brought to the Peninsula the restlessness. The Spanish Renaissance begins with the unification of Spain by the Catholic Monarchs and includes the reigns of Carlos I, because of that, it is possible to distinguish two stages, Reign of Carlos I, New ideas are received and the Italian Renaissance is imitated. Reign of Felipe II, The Spanish Renaissance withdraws into itself, with respect to ideology, the Renaissance mentality is characterized by, The valuation of the Greco-Latin world, in which a new scale of values for the individual is looked for. The man is the center of the universe, he is able to dominate the world, reason is put in front of feelings, and balance, moderation and harmony prevail. The new ideal of man is courtesan, capable as a poet, a new ideal of beauty that describes the world not as it is, but as it should be, nature, the woman, love. Classically,1492 is spoken of as the beginning of the Renaissance in Spain, nevertheless it is complex to consider a date, due to the multiple circumstances that happened. The situation of Spain was always very complex but even so the humanism managed to maintain its innovating characteristics, later, the period was characterized by its vitality and renovation. The Inquisition became an organ which also depended on the State, one can speak of erudition since the Catholic Monarchs. Within this period the first important author is Antonio de Nebrija, in 1492, he published the first book of grammar in the Spanish language, which was the first grammar produced by any Romance language. At this time, Castilian became Spanish, the language of Spain. He thought that the reform had to be the fruit of an educational reform, in 1498 he founded the University of Alcalá de Henares, that surpassed in prestige and influence all the others except the University of Salamanca, its greatest rival. The direction of his reform agreed partly with the ideas of Erasmo in a moment in which these were the doctrines in Europe. During this time a work like the one by Pedro Mexía was common, within the idealism and the humanism of the Renaissance the controversies of the colonial activity of Spain in the New World are very well represented. He was among the first to establish the basic concepts of the international law
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Baroque literature
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The style began around 1600 in Rome and Italy, and spread to most of Europe. The aristocracy viewed the dramatic style of Baroque art and architecture as a means of impressing visitors by projecting triumph, power, Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases, and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. However, baroque has a resonance and application that extend beyond a reduction to either a style or period. It is also yields the Italian barocco and modern Spanish barroco, German Barock, Dutch Barok, others derive it from the mnemonic term Baroco, a supposedly laboured form of syllogism in logical Scholastica. The Latin root can be found in bis-roca, in informal usage, the word baroque can simply mean that something is elaborate, with many details, without reference to the Baroque styles of the 17th and 18th centuries. The word Baroque, like most periodic or stylistic designations, was invented by later critics rather than practitioners of the arts in the 17th, the term Baroque was initially used in a derogatory sense, to underline the excesses of its emphasis. In particular, the term was used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of details, although it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music. Another hypothesis says that the word comes from precursors of the style, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and he did not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Long despised, Baroque art and architecture became fashionable between the two World Wars, and has remained in critical favour. In painting the gradual rise in popular esteem of Caravaggio has been the best barometer of modern taste, William Watson describes a late phase of Shang-dynasty Chinese ritual bronzes of the 11th century BC as baroque. The term Baroque may still be used, usually pejoratively, describing works of art, craft, the appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th-century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work of Michelangelo. Even more generalised parallels perceived by some experts in philosophy, prose style, see the Neapolitan palace of Caserta, a Baroque palace whose construction began in 1752. In paintings Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures, less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of opera, Baroque poses depend on contrapposto, the tension within the figures that move the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. Baroque is a style of unity imposed upon rich, heavy detail, Baroque style featured exaggerated lighting, intense emotions, release from restraint, and even a kind of artistic sensationalism. There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from Caravaggio to Cortona, the most prominent Spanish painter of the Baroque was Diego Velázquez. The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more decorative Rococo, while the Baroque nature of Rembrandts art is clear, the label is less often used for Vermeer and many other Dutch artists. Flemish Baroque painting shared a part in this trend, while continuing to produce the traditional categories
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Bernardo de Balbuena
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Bernardo de Balbuena was a Spanish poet. He was the first of a series of Latin American poets who extolled the special beauties of the New World. Born in Valdepeñas, Spain around 1561, Balbuena came to the New World as an adult and lived in Guadalajara, Jalisco and Mexico City. In 1606 he returned to Spain and earned the degree of Doctor of Theology, despite his priestly duties, he found time to write long and elegant verses which are excellent examples of the Baroque tendency to heavily load poetry with highly detailed descriptions. Unfortunately, many of his manuscripts and his library were burned by Dutch pirates during a 1625 attack on Puerto Rico. Perhaps his best work is Grandeza mexicana, in which he replies in elegant, Balbuena takes advantage of this opportunity to present a detailed inventory of the complicated, luxurious and beautiful city as he knew it almost 100 years after the arrival of Hernán Cortés. The details he provides include physical geography, the climate, the surroundings, the architecture, the vegetation, the different human types, the animals, all in great detail. The poem is high-sounding, but at the same simple, it is direct, but also contains complicated metaphors, word plays, majestic adjectives. Balbuenas works represent some of the best of the Baroques love of color, detail, ornamentation and it also stands as a monument to the pride in the New World that many transplanted Spaniards shared with the criollo. Saad Mauras edition also includes Balbuenas treaty on poetry, in 2007, well known Spanish translator, Margaret Sayers Peden collected Mexican literature including that of Bernardo de Balbuenas in order to combine and edit the book Mexican Writers on Writing. Mexicos Grandeur by Bernardo de Balbuena Grandeza mexicana, Saad Maura, Asima, ed. Madrid, borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature, Rodríguez Monegal, Emir, ed. New York, Knopf,1988, pp. 83–90, introduction to Latin American Literature, a Bilingual Anthology. Lanham, University Press of America,1994, pp. 91–96, an Outline History of Spanish American Literature. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts,1965, pp. 25–26, texto y vida, introducción a la literatura hispanoamericana. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1992, p.53, Grandeza mexicana, Saad Maura, Asima, ed. Madrid, Cátedra,2011
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Francisco Javier Alegre
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Francisco Xavier Alegre was a Jesuit scholar, translator, and historian of New Spain. Alegre was born in Veracruz, New Spain and he studied philosophy in the Royal College of San Ignacio in Puebla, then canon and civil law in Mexico City and theology in Angelópolis. On March 19,1747 he entered the novitiate with the Company of Jesus in Tepozotlán, according to his own account, he learned Italian, Greek, Hebrew and Náhuatl. He was able to preach in Náhuatl and he was a dedicated scholar of theology, history, mathematics, and especially classical literature. He later taught grammar in Mexico City, and during those years he learned French, for reasons of health he returned to Veracruz, where he taught for two years. He then returned to Mexico City to take an examination in theology and he was sent to Havana, where he taught rhetoric and philosophy for seven years. On leaving Havana, he went to Mérida, to the Jesuit college there and he took over the work on the Historia de la provincia begun by Father Francisco de Florencia. He continued work on this history when he moved to the Royal College, in less than three years, he finished the Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en Nueva España. This work was on the point of being published when the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish dominions, when he left New Spain, the manuscript and his sources remained behind. Alegre died of apoplexy near Bologna, Italy, in 1788, some of his works remained unpublished at his death. In exile, he established himself in Bologna, Italy, and there he rewrote his Historia from memory and it was published in Mexico in 1841-1842. He also wrote 18 books, published together under the title Instituciones teológicas and his literary works included Alexandrias, a short epic poem about the conquest of Tyre by Alexander the Great and a Latin eclogue entitled Nysus. He also published a Latin translation of the Iliad, at Bologna in 1776 and, after revisions and he translated the first three cantos of Nicolas Boileaus LArt poétique into Spanish. He left quite a number of works, mostly translations of classics. But the work for which he is noted is his History of the Society of Jesus in New Spain. He published Carta geográfica del hemisferio mexicano, which introduced some information about New Spain previously unknown to European scholars, in 1889, Joaquín García Icazbaleta published his lyrical works under the title Opúsculos inéditos latinos y castellanos del P. Francisco Xavier Alegre. His Latin writing style was pure and classical, comparing well with theologians of the Renaissance and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles, ed. article name needed. Alegre, Francisco Javier, Enciclopedia de México, v.1, gonzález Peña, Carlos, Historia de la literature mexicana
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Servando Teresa de Mier
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Fray Servando Teresa de Mier was a Roman Catholic priest, preacher, and politician in New Spain. He was a descendant of the Dukes of Granada and conquistadors of Nuevo León, at the age of 16, he entered the Dominican Order in Mexico City. He studied philosophy and theology in the College of Porta Coeli, by the age of 27, he had earned his doctorate and was a noted preacher. In the beginning, nobody said anything about the sermon but one later, the Archbishop Nuñez de Haro, condemned him to the excomunion, prison. This sermon, with its revision of Mexican history and identity, was seen as a provocation. In 1796, he was granted permission to present his case to the Council of the Indies, however, on his return from the Council, he took the wrong road and was arrested again. This time, he was confined to the Franciscan convent in Burgos, in 1801, he escaped and took refuge in Bayonne, France. From Bayonne, he passed to Bordeaux and later to Paris, there he was interpreter for the rich Peruvian José Sarea, Count of Gijón. Together with Simón Rodríguez, Simón Bolívars former teacher, he opened an academy in Paris to teach Spanish, Mier also wrote a dissertation against Constantin-François de Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney. In Paris, he came to know Lucas Alamán, then traveling as a student but later an important conservative politician in Mexico, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, the Duke of Montmorency, in 1802, he left the Dominican Order and became a secular priest in Rome. When he returned to Madrid, he was apprehended, this time for a satire he had written supporting Mexican independence. He was sent to the reformatory in Seville, from which he escaped in 1804, however, he was again arrested and returned to prison, where he spent three years. Then the Pope named him his domestic prelate, because he had converted two rabbis to Catholicism, in the war between France and Spain, he returned to Spain as military chaplain of the Volunteers of Valencia. He was present at many battles, in Belchite, he was taken prisoner by the French, but he was able to escape again. He presented himself to General Blake, who recommended him to the Junta of Seville for his services, the Regency in Cádiz granted him an annual pension of 3,000 pesos. He moved to London, where he collaborated with José María Blanco on El Español, in London, he met the Spanish revolutionary Francisco Javier Mina. Mina convinced him to join an expedition to New Spain to fight for its independence and they sailed for New Spain on May 15,1816. With the capture of the fort at Soto la Marina on June 13,1817, Mier was taken prisoner again
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Americas
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The Americas, also collectively called America, encompass the totality of the continents of North America and South America. Together they make up most of the land in Earths western hemisphere, along with their associated islands, they cover 8% of Earths total surface area and 28. 4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River / Great Lakes basin, Mississippi. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago, a second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is regarded as the settlement by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Ericson, however, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European powers, diseases introduced from Europe and Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonized the Americas. Mass emigration from Europe, including numbers of indentured servants. Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in 1776, the population is over 1 billion, with over 65% of them living in one of the three most populous countries. As of the beginning of the 2010s, the most populous urban agglomerations are Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, all of them megacities. The name America was first recorded in 1507 in the Cosmographiae Introductio, apparently written by Matthias Ringmann and it first applied to both North and South America by Gerardus Mercator in 1538. Amerigen means land of Amerigo and derives from Amerigo and gen, America accorded with the feminine names of Asia, Africa, and Europa. When conceived as a continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular. However, without a context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America. In some countries of the world, America is considered a continent encompassing the North America and South America subcontinents, the first inhabitants migrated into the Americas from Asia. Habitation sites are known in Alaska and the Yukon from at least 20,000 years ago, beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred during the glacial maximum
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Costumbrismo
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Costumbrismo is the literary or pictorial interpretation of local everyday life, mannerisms, and customs, primarily in the Hispanic scene, and particularly in the 19th century. It is often satiric and even moralizing, but unlike proper realism does not usually offer or even imply any particular analysis of the society it depicts, when not satiric, its approach to quaint folkloric detail often has a romanticizing aspect. Costumbrismo can be found in any of the visual or literary arts, by extension, originally found in short essays and later in novels, costumbrismo is often found in the zarzuelas of the 19th century, especially in the género chico. Costumbrista museums deal with folklore and local art and costumbrista festivals celebrate local customs and artisans, astonished by the contradictions observed around them, incapable of clearly understanding the tumult of the modern world, these writers sought refuge in the particular, the trivial or the ephemeral. Antecedents to costumbrismo can be found as early as the 17th century, all of these writers have, in at least some of their work, an attention to specific, local detail, an exaltation of the typical that would feed into both costumbrismo and Romanticism. It is not easy to draw lines around the genre, Evaristo Correa Calderón spoke of its elasticity and variety. Some of it is almost reportorial and documentary, some simply folkloric, sebastián de Miñano y Bedoya is considered by some a costumbrista, although arguably his writing is too political to properly fit the genre. According to Andrés Soria, the first incontestable costumbristas are the anonymous and pseudonymous contributors to La Minerva, El Correo Literario y Mercantil and El Censor. Later come the major figures of literary costumbrismo, Serafín Estébanez Calderón, Ramón de Mesonero Romanos, an afrancesado—a liberal child of the Enlightenment—he was not particularly enamored of the Spanish society that he nonetheless observed minutely. Costumbrismo was by no means without foreign influences, the work of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele nearly a century earlier in The Spectator had influenced French writers, who in turn influenced the costumbristas. Furthermore, Addison and Steeles own work was translated into Spanish in the early 19th century, still, an even stronger influence came by way of Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy, Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Charles Joseph Colnet Du Ravel, and Georges Touchard-Lafosse. While Estébanez Calderón, Mesonero Romanos, and Larra were the major costumbrista writers, much as literary costumbrismo had been influenced by English models, often by way of France, the same occurred with the equivalent in the visual arts, but with far more recent models. In a period when physiognomy was in vogue, Heads of the People or Portraits of the English was serialized in London starting in 1838 and was published in its entirety in 1840–41. It combined essays by distinguished writers as William Makepeace Thackeray. This was followed in France by a work first serialized as Les Français, Moeurs Contemporaines, the Spanish soon followed with Los españoles pintados por sí mismos serialized from 1842 and published in a volume in 1843. A collective and hence, necessarily, uneven anthology of types, Los españoles… was a mixture of verse and prose, illustrators included Leonardo Alenza, Fernando Miranda, Francisco Lameyer, Vicente Urrabieta y Ortiz, and Calixto Ortega. Andrés Soria remarks that, except for the Andalusian types, everything was from the point of view of Madrid, unlike later costumbrismo, the focus remained firmly on the present day. Still, the material is strong on ethnological, folkloric, in an epilogue to Los españoles…, Contrastes
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Modernism
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Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief, the poet Ezra Pounds 1934 injunction to Make it new. Was the touchstone of the approach towards what it saw as the now obsolete culture of the past. In this spirit, its innovations, like the novel, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, others focus on modernism as an aesthetic introspection. While J. M. W. Art critic Clement Greenberg describes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-Modernists, There the proto-Modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites actually foreshadowed Manet, with whom Modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, rationalism has also had opponents in the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and later Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom had significant influence on existentialism. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was The Crystal Palace, the huge cast-iron, Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals in London, such as Paddington Station and Kings Cross Station. These technological advances led to the building of structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. The latter broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be and these engineering marvels radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, the philosopher Schopenhauer called into question the previous optimism, and his ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including Nietzsche. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the idea of human uniqueness, in particular, the notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as lower animals proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued that there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system, historians, and writers in different disciplines, have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Everdell also thinks modernism in painting began in 1885–86 with Seurats Divisionism, the poet Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, and Flauberts novel Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. In the arts and letters, two important approaches developed separately in France, the first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors. Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, the school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention
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Mexican Revolution
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The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle c. 1910–1920 that radically transformed Mexican culture and government. Although recent research has focused on local and regional aspects of the Revolution and its outbreak in 1910 resulted from the failure of the 35-year long regime of Porfirio Díaz to find a managed solution to the presidential succession. This meant there was a crisis among competing elites and the opportunity for agrarian insurrection. Madero challenged Díaz in 1910 presidential election, and following the rigged results, armed conflict ousted Díaz from power and a new election was held in 1911, bringing Madero to the presidency. The origins of the conflict were broadly based in opposition to the Díaz regime, with the 1910 election, elements of the Mexican elite hostile to Díaz, led by Madero, expanded to the middle class, the peasantry in some regions, and organized labor. In October 1911, Madero was overwhelmingly elected in a free, Huerta remained in power from February 1913 until July 1914, when he was forced out by a coalition of different regional revolutionary forces. Then the revolutionaries attempt to come to a political agreement following Huertas ouster failed, Zapata was assassinated in 1919, by agents of President Carranza. The armed conflict lasted for the part of a decade, until around 1920. Revolutionary forces unified against Huertas reactionary regime defeated the Federal forces, although the conflict was primarily a civil war, foreign powers that had important economic and strategic interests in Mexico figured in the outcome of Mexicos power struggles. The United States played a significant role. Out of Mexicos population of 15 million, the losses were high, perhaps 1.5 million people died, nearly 200,000 refugees fled abroad, especially to the United States. Politically, the promulgation of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 is seen by scholars as the end point of the armed conflict. The period 1920–1940 is often considered to be a phase of the Revolution, during which power was consolidated, after the presidency of his ally, General Manuel González, Díaz ran for the presidency again and legally remained in office until 1911. The constitution had been amended to allow presidential re-election, Díazs re-election was ironic, since he had challenged Benito Juárez on the platform no re-election. During the Porfiriato there were regular elections although there were contentious irregularities, the contested 1910 election, was a key political event that led to the Mexican Revolution. As Díaz aged, the question of succession became increasingly important. In 1906, the office of president was revived, with Díaz choosing his close ally Ramón Corral from among his Cientifico advisers to serve in the post. By the 1910 election, the Díaz regime had become highly authoritarian and he had been a national hero, opposing the French Intervention in the 1860s and distinguishing himself in the Battle of Puebla on 5 May 1862
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Mariano Azuela
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Mariano Azuela González was a Mexican author and physician, best known for his fictional stories of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He wrote novels, works for theatre and literary criticism and he is the first of the novelists of the Revolution, and he influenced other Mexican novelists of social protest. His first novel, Maria Luisa, was written in 1907, followed by Los fracasados in 1908, the theme of his beginning novels are about fate. He wrote of the life of Mexicans during the Díaz dictatorship. After experiencing the Mexican Revolution first-hand, his style became sarcastic. His first novel with the Revolution theme is Andrés Pérez, maderista in 1911, followed by Sin Amor in 1912 and he continued to write short works and novels influenced by the Revolution. It includes El camarada Pantoja in 1937, Regina Landa in 1939, La nueva burguesía in 1941 and these works mainly depicts the satirical picture of life in post revolutionary Mexico sharply and angrily stigmatizing demagoguery and political intrigue. Azuela was born in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco to a small and he grew up in a small farm owned by his father, which later influences the settings in many of his fictional works. He was first admitted to a Catholic seminary at the age of fourteen and he studied medicine in Guadalajara, Jalisco. He received his M. D. in 1899, practicing medicine first in his town of Lagos de Moreno. In 1900, he married Carmen Rivera, niece of Agustín Rivera, priest and he went to have five sons and five daughters. Like most young students, Azuela was opposed to the dictatorship of the Díaz regime, during his days in the Mexican Revolution, Azuela wrote about the war and its impact on Mexico. When Porfirio Díaz was overthrown, Azuela was made Chief of Political Affairs of Lagos de Moreno in 1911, after Maderos assassination, he joined the Constitutionalist cause that sought to restore the rule of law. He traveled with the forces of Julián Medina, a follower of Pancho Villa. His participation in the conflict gave him ample material to write Los de abajo and he later was forced for a time to emigrate to El Paso, Texas when the counterrevolutionary forces of Victoriano Huerta were temporarily triumphant. It was there that he wrote Los de abajo, which was his description of combat during the Mexican revolution. It was first published as a serial in the newspaper El Paso del Norte from October 1915 to December 1915, the book did not receive general recognition until 1924, and it was hailed as a novel of the Revolution. Los de abajo depicts the futility of the Revolution, the opportunists in power, and he fought for a better Mexico, and he believed the Revolution corrected some injustices, but it has given rise to others equally deplorable
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Rosario Castellanos
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Rosario Castellanos Figueroa was a Mexican poet and author. Along with the members of the Generation of 1950, she was one of Mexicos most important literary voices in the last century. Throughout her life, she wrote eloquently about issues of cultural and gender oppression, though she died young, she opened the door of Mexican literature to women, and left a legacy that still resonates today. Born in Mexico City, she was raised in Comitán near her familys ranch in the state of Chiapas. She was a young girl, who took notice of the plight of the indigenous Maya who worked for her family. According to her own account, she felt estranged from her family after a soothsayer predicted that one of her mothers two children would die shortly, and her mother screamed out, Not the boy. The familys fortunes changed suddenly when President Lázaro Cárdenas enacted a land reform, at fifteen, Castellanos and her parents moved to Mexico City. One year later, her parents were dead and she was left to fend for herself, although she remained introverted, she joined a group of Mexican and Central American intellectuals, read extensively, and began to write. Ironically, the Institute had been founded by President Cárdenas, who had taken away her familys land and she also wrote a weekly column for the newspaper Excélsior. She married Ricardo Guerra, a professor of philosophy, in 1958, the birth of their son Gabriel in 1961 was an important moment in Castellanos’ life, prior to his birth, she suffered from depression after several miscarriages. However, she and Guerra divorced after thirteen years of marriage, in addition to her literary work, Castellanos held several government posts. In recognition for her contribution to Mexican literature, Castellanos was appointed ambassador to Israel in 1971, on 7 August 1974, Castellanos died in Tel Aviv from an unfortunate electrical accident. Some have speculated that the accident was in fact suicide, Mexican writer Martha Cerda, for example, wrote to journalist Lucina Kathmann, I believe she committed suicide, though she already felt she was dead for some time. There is no evidence to such a claim, however. Despite being a ladino – of mestizo, not indigenous descent – Castellanos shows considerable concern, Cartas a Ricardo, a collection of her letters to her husband Ricardo Guerra was published after her death as was her third novel, Rito de iniciación. Rosario Castellanos said of her letters in Cartas a Ricardo that she considered them to be her autobiography, Rito de iniciación is in the bildungsroman tradition about a young woman who discovers her vocation of a writer. Ciudad Real is a collection of stories published in 1960. Castellanos’ main focus in these stories are the differences between distinct groups, namely, the whites and the indigenous people, but she also addresses the differences between men and women
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Indigenous peoples of Mexico
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The number of indigenous Mexicans is judged using the political criteria found in the 2nd article of the Mexican constitution. The Mexican census does not report racial-ethnicity but only the cultural-ethnicity of indigenous communities that preserve their indigenous languages, traditions, beliefs and cultures. It can also be defined broadly to all persons who self identify as having an indigenous cultural background. The indigenous peoples in Mexico have the right of free determination under the article of the constitution. Mesoamerica was densely populated by indigenous ethnic groups which, although sharing common cultural characteristics, spoke different languages. One of the most influential civilizations that developed in Mesoamerica was the Olmec civilization, evidence has been found on the existence of multiracial communities or neighborhoods in Teotihuacan. The capital of the empire, Tenochtitlan, became one of the largest urban centers in the world, while the alliances were decisive to the Europeans victory, the indigenous peoples were soon subjugated by an equally impressive empire. Indigenous communities were incorporated as communities under Spanish rule and with the power structure largely intact. Such a written tradition likely took hold because there was a tradition of pictorial writing found in many indigenous codices. Scholars have utilized the colonial-era alphabetic documentation in what is called the New Philology to illuminate the colonial experience of Mesoamerican peoples from their own viewpoints. Indigenous officials in their communities were involved in maintaining this system, there was a precipitous decline in indigenous populations due to the spread of European diseases previously unknown in the New World. Pandemics wrought havoc, but indigenous communities recovered with fewer members, the Spanish crown recognized the existing ruling group, gave protection to the land holdings of indigenous communities, and communities and individuals had access to the Spanish legal system. Mendicants of the Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian orders initially evangelized indigenous in their own communities in what is called the spiritual conquest. Later on the northern frontiers where nomadic indigenous groups had no fixed settlements, the Jesuits were prominent in this enterprise until their expulsion from Spanish America in 1767. Catholicism with particular local aspects was the only religion in the colonial era. As the New Spain became independent from Spain, the new country was named after its capital city, Mexico declared the abolition of black slavery in 1829 and the equality of all citizens under the law. Indigenous communities continued to have rights as corporations to maintain land holdings until the liberal Reforma, some indigenous individuals integrated into the Mexican society, like Benito Juárez of Zapotec ethnicity, the first indigenous president of a country in the New World. As a political liberal, however, Juárez supported the removal of protections of indigenous community corporate land holding, the greatest change came about as a result of the Mexican Revolution, a violent social and cultural movement that defined 20th century Mexico
25.
Xavier Villaurrutia
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Xavier Villaurrutia was born in Mexico City in 1903. He studied in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and in the Escuela de Jurisprudencia, during that time, he felt a certain affinity to writing so he decided to dedicate his life to writing literature. In 1928, he joined the grupo de los Contemporáneos, in 1935, he received a scholarship to study theatre at Yale University. Returning to Mexico in 1937, he started working for the local newspaper, along with Salvador Novo, they founded the magazine Ulises in 1927. Professionally, Villaurrutia worked for the Mexican literary review, Contemporáneos, Villaurrutia would later found the first experimental theater in Mexico. Villaurrutias notable works include his writings, beginning with Reflejos in 1926. Villaurrutias writing becomes darker in his poetic works, Nostalgia de la muerte in 1938. It is unclear if this change was due to the turmoil in Europe that would lead to World War II or simply due to Villaurrutias increasing age. Xavier Villaurrutia was greatly influenced by the work of Ramón López Velarde as well as by several other Mexican poets and he has been a major influence for many poets, including Octavio Paz and Alí Chumacero. Since 1955, there has been a Xavier Villaurrutia Award for literary works published in Mexico and this award has been sponsored by the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes since 1991. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Christopher Ramirez, mapping the Public Space of sexual Latino Men, Essay. Archived from the original on July 13,2007, dr. Watkinss book also includes extensive documentation of Villaurrutias study at Yale Universitys Drama School from 1935–36, the only time Villaurrutia left his native Mexico City
