Study Guide for LTNS 679
First Exam, Fall 2017
This guide is designed to lead you through a general review of class lectures, assigned videos, and
assigned readings, in preparation for the exam scheduled for Monday 9, October.
It is organized chronologically. Each section includes the major historical, political and cultural
events; and the intellectual, literary, and aesthetic issues that shaped the chronological period.
I. Cultural and Literary Legacy from the Pre-Hispanic Period (Before 1492)
(Review your notes on class lectures, videos, and assignments posted on ILearn)
1. Concept of Mesoamérica: A cultural region sharing a number of common characteristics
throughout most of pre-Hispanic history; its various cultures and main languages, and its
geographical location in the Western hemisphere.
2. The legacy of Mesoamerican cultures: A different view of the world and a different set of
values.
3. Mesoamerican cultures:
▪ Náhuatl (Teotihuacana, Olmeca, Tolteca, Mexica, Nicarao)
▪ Maya (Quiché, Cachiquel, Otomí, Mixteca, Tarasco, Zapoteca)
▪ Chorotega, Pipil, Mangue, etc.
4. Great subjects or themes in Mesoamerican indigenous literature.
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Myths and legends
Sacred songs (hymns)
Epic poetry, lyric poetry, religious poetry
Chronicles
History
Didactic prose
Teachings about the gods
Principles of a pre-Hispanic philosophy
5. The Creation myth, Nahua sources:
(Review your notes on class lectures, videos, and assignments posted on ILearn)
• Dual principle, dual cosmic energy: “Our Mother, Our Father,” origin of all that exists:
Ometéotl, god of duality and origin of other gods. Ome = two (dual); Teotl = cosmic
energy.
Ometéotl is also known as Ometecuhtli & Omecíhuatl or Tonacatecuhtli and
Tonacacíhuatl
• Legend of the Five Suns and the fragility of the earth
• The creation myth and role of Quetzalcóatl as a creator of humankind, redeemer, and
cultural hero
• Why the Aztecs believed that sacrifice was necessary
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6. The Creation myth in the Maya Culture: The Popol Vuh.
(Review your notes on class lectures, videos, and assignments posted on Ilearn)
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Myth of the Creation of the world and the first animals and humans
Heroic deeds: the story of Hunahpú (Hunter) and Xbalanqué (Jaguar Deer)
Philosophical and ethical questions posed in the Popol Vuh
Different elements involved in the story (religion, history, ancestry, cosmology)
Human relationships, feelings and emotions, family ties, roles of men and women, cultural
traditions, prejudices, and religious beliefs
• The relationship of humans with Nature, the earth, and the environment
• Fantastic elements; role of animals and relationship between humans and animals
7. Códices/Books (from pre-Hispanic and Colonial periods):
• The Maya Codex. (Assigned reading: “The Madrid Codex,” assigned video: Cracking the
Maya Code).
• Annals of the Cakchiquels (Memorial of Sololá) 16th Century, definite version in the
17th century. Origins of the Cakchiquel people and their struggles with the Spaniards
during the 16th Century. Heroic age.
• Titles of the Lords of Totonicapán (Títulos de los Señores de Totonicapán) Another
series of chronicles known from 1554 , translated into Spanish in 1884. This is the third
sacred book of Guatemala and also relates the exodus of the Toltecas.
• The Chilam Balam. Contents (History, Formularies with Metaphors, Myth and
Mysticism, Practical Calendars and Classifications, Medical Recipes, and Spanish
Traditions).
8. The dance drama Rabinal Achí: Combines poetry, dance, choreography, music, costumes and
masks, to transmit the Mayan history, mythology and symbolism of the community.
(Review your notes on class lectures, videos, and assignments posted on ILearn)
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Historical background
Structure of the dance drama
Characters
Plot
Its survival as a testimony of the cultural resistance against colonial domination
II. Conquest and Colonization Period (1492–1810)
The Spaniards and their view of the New World as an extension of their own empire and as
provinces of their country: A clash of two worlds and different cultures.
1. The Spanish Heritage: The various cultures that shaped the multiple Identity of Iberia (Spain),
brought by the Spaniards to the New World.
(Review your notes on class lectures, videos, and assignments posted on ILearn)
• The Americas first received the full sweep of Mediterranean tradition through Spain
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• Spain and Latin America have a conflictive relationship branded by several
traumas (the conquest of the New World and the end of the splendid ancient indigenous
civilizations)
• Who are the Spaniards and where do they come from (their history)
• The Renaissance in Europe (Humanistic education, method of study; new ideas and
religious reformation, invention of the printing press, meaning of Thomas More’s
Utopia, etc.).
• The Spanish Renaissance (the Reconquista or unification of the longed-for
Christian kingdom, the official discovery of the Western Hemisphere, the
publication of the first grammar of the Castilian language, the flourishing of the
arts and literature, etc)
2. Chronicles and Relaciones of the Conquest: During the Spanish conquest, the only valid
narrative art is the “Relaciones” and letters of the chroniclers, mainly of those who, without
following a specific historical interest, give a fresh and vivid vision of things.
• Chronicles of Conquest (epic)
• Chronicles of Exploration (mythic)
• Chronicles of Colonization (contradictory)
Chroniclers:
a) Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492-1581) who, in old age while retired in Antigua
Guatemala, wrote with a prodigious memory about the events that he witnessed as a soldier
in the conquest of Mexico and pacification of Central America.
b) Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1478-1557) Records of events and traditions he
witnessed or learned of directly from the indigenous people, which are not only the news of
places and battles, but fantasy mixed with narration, some of them have all the elements of
a true short story.
c) Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474 or 1484-1566) a historian, social reformer, and
Dominican missionary who was the first to expose the atrocities committed by the
colonizers against the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and to call for the abolition of
slavery there.
3. The Baroque
• The Baroque period in Europe (Meaning of the word baroque, characteristics of the
Baroque, use of the Baroque art by the Catholic Church, etc.)
• The Baroque in Spain (the Golden Age of Spanish literature)
• The Baroque Culture Of The New World or Barroco de Indias (The Baroque as a shifting
art used by the people of the New World to express their self-doubts and their constant
changing identity)
• Sincretismo (Spanish/indigenous/African) in the New World culture
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4. Review of the video When Worlds Collide: Indigenous, European and African cultures in the
New World. The Baroque of the New World as expression of the cultural and religious syncretism
of mestizaje. The Colonial society: system of castes. The subject of identity in the mestizo
population.
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The great indigenous cultures of the Americas
The history of Spain and the role of the Catholic Monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand
How contact changed the Old World and the New World
Religious syncretism in the New World
The caste system created by the Spanish in the New World, and its failure
African (Black) culture and its legacy in the Americas
Who was Bartolomé de Las Casas, and what did he accomplished?
What caused the fall of the Spanish Empire?
Who was the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and what does he represent?
What is mestizo culture.
5. The Colonial Era in Central America: The Kingdom of Guatemala and provinces of Central
America, a baroque society of Spaniards, Criollos, Mestizos, Indians and Africans, based on a system
of castes: the roots of cultural syncretism and cultural resistance.
Rigid Religious Beliefs:
The cultural imprint of Colonial times before the independence of Central America, is a religious
one, a world view directly linked to obscure and rigid beliefs.
• Instead of creating a rich literature, a process of annihilation began, enforced by the
Holy Inquisition.
• From the beginning of the XVI century, the Spanish crown ruled to forbid the circulation
of books in the Kingdom of Guatemala, and persecution was aimed precisely against
fiction.
• With this open war against imagination, narrative literature could hardly be developed.
• Considering the narratives an “accursed thing,” religious poetry was encouraged due to its
“gift” of lyric communication with God, unlike the novels and stories, which were about
earthly things, and most of the time contained subjects related to the devil and not
heaven.
• The opportunity to create a valid literature―inside a very important cultural process
where mestizaje was taking place at the same time―was lost.
• Poetry was always present throughout the period.
The Güegüence (or Macho Ratón):
(Review your notes on class lectures, videos, and assignments posted on ILearn)
A satirical dance/drama which brings together indigenous and Spanish cultural traditions
combining theater, music, dance, costumes and masks. A forceful expression of protest
against colonial rule, the satirical narratives account the humorous adventures of a roguish
hero (pícaro) who tricks and outwits the Spanish authorities.
• Parallel elements and differences between the Rabinal Achí and The Güengüence
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• First drama that represents the socio-cultural resistance of the indigenous and mestizo
population
• An expression of Baroque art
• An integral play
• Plot is secular, not religious
• The style is mestizo
• A play of analysis and synthesis
• A precursor of modern plays
Most important literary figures of the Colonial Era:
▪ Rafael Landívar; wrote in Latin the Rusticatio Mexicana that evokes the homeland lost
forever, in fifteen books and an annex.
▪ Sor Juana de Maldonado y Paz.
Cuentos de Camino (Stories from the Road):
Colonial literary tradition only consisted of indigenous oral narrations, Cuentos de camino―in which
animals appear as characters, and whose liveliness, tricks and shrewdness are the source of
popular didactics (or the origin of popular teachings).
• Human passions and weakness are recreated under the skin of an innocent rabbit or a
fierce tiger in a naïve and lively world of orchards and shortcuts told by an anonymous
narrator.
• This anthropomorphic-zoological world constitutes the mirror of the Colonial rural
society which still existed with these characteristics at the outset of the 19th century
and republican ideas.
• The Cuentos de camino are one of the richest sources of Central American narrative
surviving in the form of oral tradition during the 20th and 21st centuries.
• Contemporary writers have taken subjects from these Cuentos de camino, recreating
them so that they don’t disappear.
More literary genres produced during the colonial time:
• Street poetry, specially Romances (Ballads)
• Baroque popular theatre (for example, The Güegüence)
• Religious poetry, songs and plays (Loas, Posadas, Pastorelas)
The Caribbean coast of Central America
• Various indigenous cultures of South American (Colombian) and Caribbean ethnolinguistic origin (not of Mesoamerican root)
• Arrival of British (and other European powers), plus a population of African origin
• British influence on its Central American Caribbean coast possessions (cultural, linguistic,
and religious)
• Syncretism of Mesoamerican, Caribbean and African oral traditions, and religious beliefs
within the dominant European culture
• A multiple cultural legacy in the Caribbean coast from immigrants (end of 17th century
through 18th century): Sephardic Jews, Chinese, Hindus, and Arabs from the Ottoman
Empire (mainly Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians)
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III. Independence Period in Spanish America, and U.S. Expansionism and Annexation Period
(1810–1898) In literary and artistic terms, the Romantic Era
(Review your notes on class lectures, and readings on ILearn)
Independence from Spain in the 19th century: The Federal Republic of Central America. Beginning
of The Independent Period in Central America
The Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny. The U.S.–Mexican war and its consequences. The
strategic importance of Nicaragua during the California Gold Rush, and the changes it brought to
the region. Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Steamship Transit Company, and the Walker affair in
Nicaragua.
End of the 19th century: The triumph of separatism. The political weight of a social elite with a
colonial mentality, and the Catholic Church’s political, ideological, and economic influence. The
consolidation of the Nation-States, and the transformation of Liberal ideology from romantic
utopianism into positivist pragmatism.
Narrative and poetry from 1821 on
First Independent authors and first works of narrative in Central America. European influences and
European styles.
Romantic Novels/historical sagas)
• Characteristics of Realism and Naturalism (novels of manners [customs] and
naturalist novels)
• From Realism to Regionalism
• From Naturalism to Social Narrative
• Realistic and Naturalistic elements characterizes Central American narrative and
dominate the first half of the 20th century
Authors (narrative)
• Antonio José de Irrisari
• José Milla
Authors (poetry)
• José Batres Montúfar
• Juan Diéguez Olaverri
IV. Modernismo (1888-1918 approx)
(Review your notes on class lectures, and readings on ILearn. All the information is there)
By the end of [the Romantic era], a new literary movement had swept through Latin America,
Modernismo, the first since the Barroco de Indias to have a distinctly New World inflection. Its
founder and chief advocate was Rubén Darío. The Nicaraguan (1867-1916) was the first major
poet in the language since the seventeenth century, the end of the Golden Age of Spanish literature
(whose masters included Garcilaso, Saint John of the Cross, Fray Luis, Luis de Góngora, Francisco de
Quevedo and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz). The poetic revolution led by Darío spread across the
Spanish-speaking world and extended to all of literature, not just poetry. In Spanish, there is poetry
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before and after Rubén Darío, whose stature as a classic writer remains unequaled and is now
beyond dispute.
• Modernismo as a literary response to the modernization of Latin America in the last
decades of the 19th century, and the reason why Darío gave it that name.
• What made Darío’s Azul... so influential, and how long has this influence lasted
• Most prominent characteristics of the Modernista movement. Influence of the Modernista
Movement in Latin America and Spain. How did Modernismo establish Latin America’s
literary independence from Spain by articulating a Latin American identity, and how was
this identity.
• Modernismo as a rupture with the early Romantic’s optimism about the U.S. as a potential
ally and model to be imitated. Modernista writers of Latin America feared U. S.
expansionism not only in politics but, even more important, in culture. Latin American
countries that traced their cultural and religious roots to the ancient indigenous cultures, as
well as to Iberia, Rome and Greece, would not be taken over by a colonial power that was
Anglo-Saxon and Protestant, with a pragmatic approach to material progress that was
dangerously at odds with their culture.
• The political role of Darío and other writers and intellectuals in Latin America. Meaning
of Darío’s poem “To Roosevelt”. The importance of José Enrique Rodó’s essay “Ariel”.
• Literary and poetic innovations achieved by Rubén Darío, and themes and topics he wrote
about. Characteristics of a Modernista poem.
• The “Roosevelt Corollary” of the Monroe Doctrine, a new “Manifest Destiny” to justify U.S.
intervention in Central American affairs at the beginning of the 20th Century. U.S.
Government determination to end the Liberal Revolution in Nicaragua through the downfall
of President Zelaya.
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