Globalizing Hispanic Modernism Nelson R. Orringer University of Connecticut, Professor Emeritus No body of literature shows greater disagreement between artists and critics than Hispanic modernism. Even in the twenty-first century, critics from the twenty-one Castilian-speaking countries see modernism as merely a literary movement of art for art's sake practiced by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío and widely imitated in Spain and Spanish America around the turn of the twentieth century. Yet this view excludes from consideration (1) the modernism practiced in non-Castilian Iberian literatures like the Catalan and the Luso-Brazilian, (2) the modernism present in all main spheres of cultural creativity, including literature in all genres, all the fine arts, religion, philosophy, medicine, and architecture, and extending to five continents, and (3) the broadly cultural conception of modernism held by great Castilian-writing modernists themselves, like Rubén Darío and Nobel winner Juan Ramón Jiménez. The purpose of this presentation would consist of broadening understanding of Hispanic modernism to bring it into harmony with world cultural criticism. To that end, Professor Orringer would attempt to redefine modernism in theory and practice in much Iberian and Ibero-American culture from 1858 to about 1936 by giving the concept greater breadth, depth, and precision. Moreover, this would be clarified by introducing examples from a wide variety of cultural areas, including religion and architecture. Modernism, as Professor Orringer redefines it, consists of an attitude towards cultural creativity in all media. This attitude implies (1.) appreciation of newness for its own sake, and subordination of cultural tradition to innovation, (2.) a crisis of religious (and later of all cultural) traditions brought about by Darwinian evolutionism as of 1858 and diffused by writers like H. Spencer and T. H. Huxley, (3.) with traditional religions in a state of crisis, cultural innovators make a religion of creativity itself. To prove as much, Dr. Orringer would draw upon poetry and prose of writers like Rubén Darío, José Martí, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Santiago Rusiñol, Pedro Salinas, and Federico García Lorca; the architecture of Antonì Gaudì, the philosophy of religion of Miguel de Unamuno, the music of Manuel de Falla, and the medicine of Pedro Laín Entralgo. This lecture will take place on Wednesday December 2, 2009, from 5-6 pm at Knott B03 |
|
