Bruzual, Alejandro
(2007)
Narrativas contaminadas. Tres novelas latinoamericanas: El tungsteno, Parque industrial y Cubagua.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
This thesis examines the Latin American avant-garde movements of the 1920s and 1930s not through the usual focus, poetry, but through narrative fiction. I am working here with three 1930's novels that portray profound ideological concerns that had not often been considered in earlier Latin American avant-garde narratives. El tungsteno, by Peruvian César Vallejo, is a mining novel that includes indigenous issues. Parque industrial, by Brazilian Patrícia Galvao, is a gender-based novel with urban and proletarian themes. And Cubagua, by the Venezuelan Enrique Bernardo Núñez, is an historical novel, confronting the trauma of neo/colonization with the beginning of the populist modernization project.The beginning of the 1930s provides an important perspective from which to focus on the literary development of the continent. This is because it was not only a powerful world-changing moment but also, as I argue, an opportunity for a rupture within the institutions of literature. After the world political, social, and economic crises of 1928-1929, the Latin American avant-garde had to search for other ideological and aesthetic tactics to participate in the debates about national configurations in the international context, that reflect the emerge of definitive new social forces. My proposal is to explore the literary tensions of these Latin-American narratives, suggesting that it is possible to identify in them concerns such as the influences of mass movements within "peripheral" societies. I argue that despite their different responses to the literary-historical conjuncture, each of the texts chosen exhibited conflictive components which I call "contaminatory": that is to say, an unstable (even contradictory) mixture of political as well as literary elements from very different origins. One of the means of accomplishing this, after a review and critique of some key avant-garde concepts, is through an analysis of the relationship between Vallejo's cultural essays (including his USSR travel books) and El tungsteno. Then, in the case of Parque industrial, I evaluate the links with other Brazilian works and "female voices" of the time. Finally, I assess the relationships between Cubagua and some of his historical works, before summing up the different "contaminatory" strategies of the era in my conclusion.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
30 January 2007 |
| Date Type: |
Completion |
| Defense Date: |
29 November 2006 |
| Approval Date: |
30 January 2007 |
| Submission Date: |
5 December 2006 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| 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: |
Avant-garde in Latin-American; Cesar Vallejo; Enrique Bernardo Nunez; Latin-American 20th century novels; Patricia Galvao |
| Other ID: |
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12052006-172521/, etd-12052006-172521 |
| Date Deposited: |
10 Nov 2011 20:08 |
| Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 13:53 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/10064 |
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