Villamizar Vasquez, Gina
(2014)
Una dialéctica compartida de enfrentamiento a la modernidad: José Félix Fuenmayor y Horacio Quiroga.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This dissertation examines the fantastic narrative of Colombian author José Félix Fuenmayor and Uruguayan author Horacio Quiroga. I outline an unmapped genealogy of this genre, arguing that, in the Latin American context, the emergence and consolidation of the fantastic have their
origins in a paradoxical experience with modernity. Not only did the introduction of a modern culture, and the formation of a bourgeois modern society, lead to a crisis over the traditional oligarchy to which Quiroga and Fuenmayor belonged, but also the first two decades of the
twentieth century were significant to them due to the arrival of many technologies such as machinery, photography, and cinematography. As a consequence, their writings constitute material evidence of the introduction of these new technologies, and the consolidation of the modern subjectivity in the Latin American literary creative space. Their fantastic narrative displays, on the one hand, these writers’ critical stances towards the new ways of cultural and social production in each of their societies at the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, this narrative imitates the reproductive nature of the technological artifacts, which create images and different scenarios that offer a critical perspective of reality. These shared views, however, are not only found in their exploration of the fantastic, but also throughout their artistic and literary trajectory. This is why I suggest a genealogy that commences with these authors’ early modernist literary work, considering it as an aesthetic engaged in the historical and social transformations of the Latin American countries. Fuenmayor’s and Quiroga’s first poems and short stories reflect on the critical conditions in each of their communities, disclosing their fears and the negative effects produced by modern culture on society. This analysis continues beyond the authors’ fantastic narratives, exploring the continuation of the fracture and anguish produced by modernity through Quiroga’s Cuentos Misioneros and Fuenmayor’s short stories. I concentrate on the themes that they explore, such as the death and the alienation of the peasant in the modern city as a signifier of the rupture that the new social order produced over the previous, more traditional sphere of society.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
| Creators | Email | Pitt Username | ORCID  |
|---|
| Villamizar Vasquez, Gina | gmv4@pitt.edu | GMV4 | |
|
| ETD Committee: |
|
| Date: |
3 February 2014 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
23 September 2013 |
| Approval Date: |
3 February 2014 |
| Submission Date: |
13 October 2013 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
221 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Hispanic Languages and Literatures |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Modernity, Fantastic narrative, Colombian Caribbean literature, Quiroga, Fuenmayor, Technology and The new media. |
| Date Deposited: |
03 Feb 2014 17:07 |
| Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 14:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19865 |
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