The Art of the Contemporary Anti-Racist American Poem: ‘In-Between Spaces,’ Exploding Conventions, and Listening as Form

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Female Exiles in Language: Reading for New Poetic Subjects in Modern and Contemporary Feminist Experimental Poetry

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Poesía y mercado cultural:la poesía española y sus antologías

The increase in the publication of anthologies of Spanish poetry that had begun during Franco´s dictatorship as a way of creating a literary canon reaches its high point during the democratic period, especially between 1995 and 2008. This essay examines the proliferation of anthologies of contemporary Spanish poetry from 1976 to present from the perspective of the different cultural policies deployed by individual governments and from the theoretical framework of cultural capital. Issues such as reading habits and the symbolic value of books and anthologies, the process of canonization of poets, and poetry prizes, among others, constitute the focus of this study.

Mujer y poesía:la inscripción de la subjetividad femenina y la conciencia creativa del lenguaje poético

This article explores the place of Spanish women poets within the Spanish cultural space at the end of the 20th century. In clear opposition to the arguments presented by the editors and many of the articles included in this volume, Raquel Medina sees in the most recent poetry written by women an evolution towards a new and independent female poetic voice which clearly fights against the supremacy of male poetic voices and their manipulative poetic language. No longer stealing the male poetic word is necessary for the last generation of Spanish women poets. On the contrary, these women poets create their own language, their own poetic universe, and demolish a long tradition of male poetry which situated the female subject as a dead object of male poetry.

The role of social agents in the translation into English of the novels of Naguib Mahfouz

This research investigates the field of translation in an Egyptain context around the work of the Egyptian writer and Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz by adopting Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological framework. Bourdieu’s framework is used to examine the relationship between the field of cultural production and its social agents. The thesis includes investigation in two areas: first, the role of social agents in structuring and restructuring the field of translation, taking Mahfouz’s works as a case study; their role in the production and reception of translations and their practices in the field; and second, the way the field, with its political and socio-cultural factors, has influenced translators’ behaviour and structured their practices. In this research, it is argued that there are important social agents who have contributed significantly to the structure of the field and its boundaries. These are key social agents in the field namely; the main English language publisher in Egypt, the American University in Cairo Press (AUCP); the translators: Denys Johnson-Davies, Roger Allen and Trevor Le Gassick; and the author, Naguib Mahfouz. Their roles and contributions are examined and discussed through the lens of Bourdieu’s sociology. Particular focus is given to the author Mahfouz and his award of the Nobel Prize, and how this award has influenced the field of cultural production and its social agents. Also, it is argued that socio-cultural factors in the field, in the period between 1960s and 2000s, affected the translators’ practices in terms of modes of production of Mahfouz’s works. To investigate the influence of these factors on translators’ practices in the field, empirical examination is conducted, at the textual level, on a corpus of six translated novels written by the same author, Mahfouz. It is shown that the translators have an increased tendency, over time, towards applying a foreignising approach in their translations of culture-specific items. The translators’ behaviour, which is a result of their habitus, is correlated to political and socio-cultural factors in the field of translation. That is, based on interviews conducted with the translators, it has been found that there are particular factors influenced their translational habitus and, thus, their practices during the production process of the translations.

Alberto Girri, or poetry as hermeneutic reason

One of the main factors that makes the poetry of the Argentine Alberto Girri (1919–1991) a whole world of its own is my argument that in a fragmentary world like the present, poets search for a formal integrity which in the act of reading creates not only their own inner world but also the readers'. It is important to insist on this turning point in which most of the Symbolist work is circumscribed. Later, this would be of capital importance for the avant-garde as well as for the post-avant-garde: Mallarmé's Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard would make poetry something absolutely modern. An original distribution of the white and black opened a new space for the text, shifting the then dominant phonocentrism. My close reading of this author as well as the given theoretical frame avoids the failure into an instrumental use either of the page or of the writing but ignoring physical reciprocity. What follows is, that this “shift” privileged heightened vision over audition of the “musical score”. Thus, an intense materialization of the language is achieved that increases the anonymity of the text. ^ Following this new arrangement of words, so to speak, Girri's poetic work now drives deeply inside words in order to lend them dignity from meaning. I conclude that the best way to “render” this poetry with religious aim (L. “re-ligare” to bind the fragmented) is by way of the philosophy of language. I also propose that Girri's task as a translator, mainly from English poetry, represented—with Jorge Luis Borges—a paradigmatic shift in the Spanish American horizon which had been under “logocentric” French rule since the time of Independence. This seismic change of perspective in late Modernism and post-Modernism is represented by a radical screening of Romance rhetoric, it was a shift not only over the inherited mother tongue but over his own work which was increasingly moving towards transcendent and/or metaphysical poetry. ^ Therefore, I did find that Girri's poem was constructed as a mirror closely related to that which was represented in the angelological tradition. ^

Inmanencia mistica en la obra de Federico Garcia Lorca

The purpose of this dissertation was to analyze the works of Federico García Lorca within the mystic context that dominates their very genesis. The problematic definition of mysticism was explored lest it be confused with traditional mysticism, which implies union with the divine. The historiography of literature speaks of the Mystic Genre, yet it does not address the mystic mode of artistic creation due to its inability to adhere to rational measure. This mode of conception was explored through Lorca's poetic discourse: ‘Lorquian mysticism’ is the result of the poet's cultivation of an innate spiritual potential enhanced by external influences and technical mastery. ^ There is visible influence of Fray Luis of León in Lorca's early Libro de poemas and El maleficio de la mariposa, as well as of Saint John of the Cross in the later Diván del Tamarit, Sonetos de amor and Yerma. However, definitive echoes of poets from the Sufi and other Eastern mystic traditions were also illustrated in these late works. A persistent longing to elide the physical condition, the greatest obstacle of the transcendental quest, is the essence of Lorca's poetic voice. ^ The object of this analysis was Lorca's language, which reaches levels removed from conventional thought. His dazzling metaphors and his particular use of symbols and of paradox compare equitably with those of great mystic poets. Like them, Lorca was faced with the same limitations of language to describe an ineffable experience; he embraced what Octavio Paz describes as ‘sacred language’: there is a linguistic frugality as well as an ambiguity in Lorca's poetic art that result from his realization of supercognitive states. Yet such an interpretation is rejected by the rationalist approach, invoking the age-old debate between faith and reason and signaling the application of psychoanalytical theory. This limited approach was disputed on the basis of reader-response theory. Lorca was truly an eclectic and a modification of the conventional reader's preestablished horizon of expectations is essential in order to seal the gaps in his late works. This innovative perspective placed Lorca within the framework of a new mysticism in the modern world. ^

La ciudad, el poeta y su familia melancolica (Poesia Chilena de los ultimos 50 anos)

This dissertation explored the relationship among poets, cities, and the construction of nation-ness. It was an interpretive reading of Chilean poetry and Chilean-ness as a way of inventing the nation from its very origins, starting with the colonial epic poem La Araucana and the founding of Santiago, its capital city. In this dissertation, poetry not only dealt with cities or "city poets" but also with the very conception, drafting, and systematic invention of cities as a "dream of order". The construct of a "community" of Chileans has maintained family ties with "Melancholy" in the collective imagination. This structure of melancholy reinforced the idea of "an order and a community" passed along by poets through generations. This dissertation also explored the moment when this melancholic family was fractured, divided, and Santiago was darkened by the events of September 11, 1973 and the rise of dictatorship, brutality, and censorship. ^ The methodology employed to examine different aspects of the construction of the city-nation included theoretical approaches such as Benedict Anderson's idea of nations as "imagined communities," Ángel Rama's analysis of Latin American urban rationality in his book The Lettered City , and the idea of the poet as an urban seer or visionary, the "flâneur" studied by Walter Benjamin in Charles Baudelaire's poetry. A central finding was that this "imagined community" have been severely transformed since 1950. In Chilean poetry, two works served as major referents: Pablo Neruda's Canto General, a totalizing idea of collective identity carved from the stones of the ruins of Machu Picchu, and Nicanor Parra's Poemas y Antipoemas (1954), which begun to illustrate the slow "decomposition" of the "The Lettered City." Among such conflicting images of (post-)modernity, poet Enrique Lihn became the central counter-figure who put an end to a long tradition of producing canonical nation-building cultural artifacts. His book El paseo Ahumada (1983) impacted the new generations of Chilean poets. The conclusion brought together the five-century history and diverse poetic experiences of the traditional Lettered City with the latest currents of marginalized urban poetry (1987-2003), the so-called "barbarians," flâneurs who were (re)inventing Chilean-ness in the globalized, and anti-Utopian city of "Sanhattan." ^

A geração de 27 e o barroco: la mirada exuberante

From the context of the degree‘s creation of Spanish literature and language‘s course, at UFRN, came the motivation to make this research, that presents a literary study of a poet‘s group known as Generación del 27, that came in to light at Spain, on 1920. A lot of aspects of this study are themes of many others disciplines, of this degree (Spanish Literature II, IberianAmerican Literature, Spanish Culture, Translation in Spanish Language). This work will also serve as inspiration to new reflections and proposes of translations, as bridges between the language that goes and the other that comes. It is the Translation as comprehension‘s negotiation between languages, it is the decir casi lo mismo, here in poem‘s form (ECO, 2007), in the attempt to conclude new learning, that will be shared with undergraduate and graduate students, being at teaching area, extension or new researches. To contextualize this generation‘s studies, were elected the anthologies organized by Gerardo Diego, called Poesía Española (Antologías), published on 2007, by Ediciones Cátedras, and the Antología Comentada de La Generación del 27, wrote by Víctor García de La Concha, published on 2006, by Editorial Espasa Calpe. The research took Generacion Del 27 as their object of research and - from many others critical reading about the poetry made by those young poets, their creative vocation of aesthetics and vanguard – wanted to understand the context of literary‘s creation of those poets del 27. We form our foundation with contributions by Antonio Maravall (2009), Eugenio D‘ors (s.d) Severo Sarduy (1999), Lezama Lima (2011), Alfonso Reyes (1958) e Deleuze (2005) among others that brought the comprehension of the baroque‘s language, giving emphasis to pluridirectional movement, deconstructing it‘s linearity, creating others new forms, as returns, circles, spirals favoring encounters, detachment or equal points of departure and arrivals. In this way, the poets del 27 approached the baroque of six hundred on a re-reading, and made of the third centenary‘s celebration of the Góngora‘s a Mirada exuberante death, to the return of baroque‘s spirit. Alfonso Reyes e Rubén Darío said that real lights highlighted the paths of this poets generation: The light that desdobra scintillates on García Lorca, Jorge Gullén, Dámaso Alonso, Gerardo Diego and the bullfighter Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, poets that expressed tributes in big style to Soledades author, at Madrid‘s Caffe and all Spain.

Terra de charneca erma e de saudade: a construção simbólica do Alentejo português na obra de Florbela Espanca (1916-1930)

In this work, we investigate the symbolic construction of a particular spatiality, starting from the theoretical assumption that spaces are subjective constructions guided by different cultures, feelings and rationales, but mostly spaces are human constructs driven by social relations, as a result of the material investment and symbol that reflects the needs of a particular society at a given time of historical development. Accordingly, we analyze the construction and symbolic imagery of the central region of Portugal, the Alentejo, from the literary production (1916 – 1930) the English poet Florbela Espanca D'Alma Conception Espanca. Thus, we propose to analyze the florbelian work not only from its internal relations, but also external, emphasizing the link between history, space and literature. Thus, we propose to inquire about the symbolic dimension – the meanings of images and representations – which prompted one of the most controversial Portuguese poets of the early twentieth to look into the poetic construction of space Alentejo century, questioning not only the senses brokered by speech literary Florbela Espanca to invent your Alentejo, adorned with memories, pain and longing, but investigate how the socio-cultural environment influenced your work, in your life and ways to feel and live the Alentejo. To better understand how the poet means the Alentejo spatiality, throughout this work we question three categories of space in the work of Florbela Espanca: the region, the countryside and the landscape of the Alentejo. Thus, this research falls within the field of cultural history in the medical we will work with the entire literary output Florbela Espanca, letters, diaries, photos and biographical and literary criticism, by establishing the time frame of 1916 – beginning of intellectual activity Florbela Spank – the 1930 – publication of Blossom Heath (posthumous) and the suicide of the poet. Therefore, a constant symbolic exercise of words crossed by more subjective feelings of the subject, all the time our work will be guided by the question of what would be the Alentejo for the poet, who senses and meanings across this spatiality that marked so sovereignly happiest memories and sad life Florbela Espanca.

Narrativas poéticas e trajetórias dos poetas em Mossoró/RN

The city of Mossoro/RN has showed up as a “cultural capital” in the state of Rio Grande do Norte due to a politic of events that enhance historical facts occurred in that region. These actions evoke researches about a construction of a self-identity of the city and attract many tourists that provides a boost to local economy. Considering this, this paper aims to understand the insertion of poets in this cultural context, analyzing the cultural performances that they participate and their personal narratives. Semi-structured interviews and participant observation in cultural events were employed to get this aim, privileging the observation of popular poets, whose presentations are more frequent. This overview took to the approximation with two artists associations, of which the interviewed poets were selected: “POEMA – Associação de Poetas e Prosadores de Mossoró” and “Casa do Cantador”. The relationship observed among the artists of these institutions – writers, improvisers, cordel makers, musicians and “emboladores de coco” – raised questions about the complexity of popular culture and the social connections among the artists of the city, discussed in this study.

Women of the year award recipients, from left to right: Cicely Tyson, Pearl Bailey, and Maya Angelou

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Poet May Sarton

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.