Textual Confrontations: Comparative Readings in Latin American Literature - Hardcover

Mac Adam, Alfred J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226499901 ISBN 13: 9780226499901

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1987

Synopsis

In this masterful experiment in truly comparative literary criticism, Alfred J. Mac Adam establishes Latin America's place in the Western literary tradition. By juxtaposing Latin American and Anglo-American texts, he shows how Latin American literature has gone beyond the context of Hispanic letters to borrow from, exploit, and finally extend the Western tradition.

Mac Adam describes the changes that have taken place in Latin American literature since the time of Modernismo (roughly 1880-1920), when Spanish American writers tried to update their literary language by imitating foreign, mostly French, literature. Since then, as he demonstrates, Latin American writing has achieved a pioneering status by means of a different kind of imitation—parody—whereby it gives back to the former centers of Western culture their own writing, now distorted and reshaped into something new.

About this title

About the Author

Alfred J. Mac Adam is professor of Spanish at Barnard College.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0226499901
• ISBN 13: 9780226499901
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 211