COURSE OUTLINE FOR 270-H, “Honors in Spanish Seminar”

Dr. Pilar Alvarez-Rubio

Requirements: Admission to Spanish Honors Program.

Texts: Cervantes y Saavedra, Miguel. One of the “Exemplary novels”

García Márquez, Gabriel. Cien años de soledad

Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary

Theory. Latest edition.

Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Páramo

Course Reader:

Part I: related works to primary texts by theorists and critics from/about Latin America and Spain: A. Rama, A. Cornejo Polar, Fernández Retamar, M. Benedetti, C. Fuentes, O. Paz, J. Franco, J. Ludmer, B. Pastor, A.M. Garibay, G. Gutiérrez, J. Marías, Ortega y Gasset, G.G. Brown, A. Deyermond, M. León Portilla, etc.

Part II: selection of primary texts that will include prose, poetry, essay, and drama.

Evaluation: One research paper (15 pages). This paper will eventually become the Honors Thesis, which is to be completed as an independent study in the following semester (min. 30 pages), 30%

Two take-home midterm exams, 30%

Participation in assigned discussion pannels, 15%

Individual presentation on research, 25%

Tentative Schedule

Week 1: Medieval Literature

Introduction to the course. Primary texts: El Cid (selection). Partial screening of El Cid by TVE.

Week 2: Golden Age Prose

Primary texts: El Cid (selection), Jarchas, Sem Tob, La Celestina

Critical and theoretical readings: E.R. Curtius, “Heroes and Rulers”

Week 3: Golden Age Prose

Cervantes, La gitanilla.

Lazarillo de Tormes (Part I)

Critical and theoretical readings: Américo Castro, “El pensamiento de Cervantes”

Reader-oriented theories

Week 4: Golden Age Poetry and Drama

Theatre - Lope de Vega: “Fuente Ovejuna”, and Calderón: “La vida es sueño” (selección)

Barroque poetry: Góngora, Quevedo

Critical and theoretical readings: J. A. Maravall, “La cultura del Barroco: una estructura histórica”

Week 5: Pre-Columbian Literatures

Theatre: Ollantay (selection)

Poetry: quechua and náhuatl

Critical and theoretical readings: J. M. Arguedas, Introduction to Ollantay

Structuralism - Metaphor and mentonimy

Week 6: Colonial Literature I

American Barroque - Sor Juana: sonetos and “La respuesta”

Crónicas - Inca Garcilaso de la Vega: Comentarios reales (selection)

Critical/theoretical readings: A. Cornejo Polar, “El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega o la armonía imposible”. Feminist theories

Week 7: Colonial Literature II

Colonial Chronicles: Guamán Poma de Ayala (selection)

Bernal Díaz del Castillo (selection)

Critical and theoretical readings:Jean Franco, Plotting Women (Chapter on Sor Juana)

Week 8: XIX Century Spain

Romanticism: G.A. Bécquer, poetry and prose.

J. de Zorrilla, Juan Tenorio (selection)

Critical and theoretical readings: D.L. Shaw, Hist. de la lit. española, Cap. 7

Psychoanaytic theories

Week 9: XIX Century Latin America

J. F.Lizardi: El periquillo sarniento (selection)

J. Martí: “Nuestra América”

Critical and theoretical readings: Fernández Retamar on Martí. Marxist theories

Week 10: Spain’s Prose, XX Century

Generación del 98 - Unamuno: “Del sentimiento trágico de la vida”

Critical and theoretical readings: Ortega y Gasset: “España invertebrada”

Week 11: Spain’s Prose, XX Century

Civil War & Exile - R. Sender: Requiem por un campesino español

Critical and theoretical readings: G.G. Brown, “La novela del exilio”

New Historicism

Week 12: Spain’s Poetry, XX Century

Antonio Machado

García Lorca

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Critical and theoretical readings: Devoto and Spitzer, “Tradiciones y técnicas en la poesía de Lorca”

Week 13: Latin America’s Prose, XX Century

Novel of the Mexican Revolution - M. Azuela: Los de abajo

The Vanguard - Borges: “El Aleph”

Post-Boom: Rosario Ferré, “Amalia”

Critical and theoretical readings: Rama, Angel. “Transculturación literaria”

Postcolonial theories

Week 14: Latin America’s Prose, XX Century

Magic Realism and the “Boom” - García Márquez: Cien años de soledad

Critical and theoretical readings: Carpentier, Alejo. “Prólogo” a El reino de este mundo

Week 15: Latin America’s Prose, XX Century

García Márquez: Cien años de soledad

Critical and theoretical readings: Josefina Ludmer, Cien años de soledad: una interpretación (selection)

Week 16: Latin America’s Poetry, XX Century

Darío, Neruda, Mistral, Storni, Vallejo, Guillén, Cardenal, Paz

Critical and theoretical readings: Benedetti, Mario. Los poetas comunicantes (selection)