RARA-AVIS: Re: Bloom and Shakespeare

From: jacquesdebierue (jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com)
Date: 02 Mar 2009

  • Next message: Ron Clinton: "RE: RARA-AVIS: Best noir novel (was Red Right Hand)"

    On the subject of Shakespeare, there was huge cross-fertilization
    (stealing, imitating, getting inspiration from) between the Italians, the Spaniards and the English. These guys were very aware of what the others were doing. An age of tremendous creativity, no question. The great Spanish century was followed by fussiness and a Baroque style that eventually became ridiculous (Baltasar Gracián, for example), and then from bad to worse until the late nineteenth century and then a couple of great generations of poets and novelists. By then, in fact since long before, the influence of France was overwhelming on Spanish literature, and there was also a fair amount of German influence. Literary ties with England were pretty much nonexistent. The spectacular rebirth in the twentieth century of literature in Spanish happened in Latin America, where most of the great writers were and are from. And those guys were heavily influenced by Faulkner and Hemingway, not so much by European or even Spanish models (there are notable exceptions, like Borges, Bioy and Alejo Carpentier).

    An interesting early noir writer is Argentinean Roberto Arlt, despised in his day for "writing ugly" but later considered a classic, with his reputation growing.

    Best,

    mrt



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