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Zamora - Barroco
Zamora - Barroco
Baroque
Author(s): LOIS PARKINSON ZAMORA
Source: PMLA , May 2013, Vol. 128, No. 3 (May 2013), pp. 690-697
Published by: Modern Language Association
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theories and
methodologies
Eccentric
Periodization:
Comparative
There is no classification of the universe that is not arbitrary and con
Perspectives on the jectural. ... But the impossibility of penetrating the divine scheme of
the universe cannot dissuade us from outlining human schemes, even
Enlightenment and though we are aware that they are provisional.
the Baroque —Jorge Luis Borges, "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" (104)
created their precursors, Borges-d'Ors style, concern is how periodization supports and ar
it
and viewers were encouraged to create tradi- enriches comparison. In this context, he ad 0
"*
have influenced its banishment as a category fers tQ the style whkh came after the Renais,
from Anglo-Protestant literary studies, de- sanee but preceded actual neoclassicism. For a
spite obvious comparabilities of styles and history of English literature the concept seems
themes in, say, Jacobean and Golden Age especially important since there the very ex
theater or the culteranismo of Francisco de istence of such a style has been obscured by
Quevedo and John Donne or the baroque the extension given to the term Elizabethan
coincidencia oppositorum and the metaphysi- and by the narrow limits of the one compet
cals' impulse to "amalgamate disparate expe- ing traditional term: "metaphysical." ... The
rience" (247).3 The phrase is T. S. Eliot's. Eliot indubitable affinities with contemporary Con
and his contemporary Mario Praz revived tinental movements would stand out more
interest in English baroque poetry during the clearly if we had a sYstematic stud7 of the
. , j enormous mass of translating and paraphras
1920s. Eliot doesn t use the term baroque, and , , ,
, , , _ , ing from Italian, French, and Spanish which
although Praz does, most notably in his later , , , ,rr ,
° ' was going on throughout the [English] seven
essay Baroque in England, the category re- teenth century £y£n
mains largely beyond the pale of English lit- Continental poets. B
erary and cultural studies. aesthetic term which has
The rarity of comparative studies of sev- stand the literature of
enteenth- and eighteenth-century English and help us to break the
Spanish literary cultures may be incidental to ary history from per
the nonalignment of their systems of peri- political and soc
odization, but, as I have said, periodic denom
inators are powerful; they accrue weight over Wellek's concern with
time as they are defined, developed, and ap- ("periodisations deriv
plied, and thus they come to organize knowl- social history") dem
edge in their areas. This assertion is amply purpose of periodizatio
demonstrated in René Wellek's landmark raneous styles and in
essay "The Concept of Baroque in Literary relation. Without co
Scholarship." Wellek is rigorously historical parative study will be
and geographic; his subject is the European So Wellek's essay c
baroque in the seventeenth century, and his of eccentric periodizat
2 one we have seen in our Latin American mata. See the essays in Pomper, Elphick, and Vann, in
.2
particular Green's.
m theorists. For Wellek the challenge is not to
3. See Kaup on Eliot as a neobaroque poet and theorist.
"J discover diverse cultural products operating
4. In 1962 Wellek added a postscript to his 1945 essay,
q under an identical periodic label, as in the in which he repeated and intensified his call for greater
5 New World baroque, but rather to discover recognition of the baroque in English literary studies.
g similar products operating under different
•a periodic labels, as in the case of the English
a seventeenth century. The baroque is attrac Works Cited
2 tive to him not because it offers the fluidity
Borges, Jorge Luis. "The Analytical Language of John Wil
£ and diversity of Carpentier's "proliferating kins." Other Inquisitions (1937-1952). Trans. Ruth L. C.
Jj nuclei" but rather because "it is a term which Sims. Austin: U of Texas P, 1965.101-05. Print.
** prepares for synthesis" (108). Born in Vienna Carpentier, Alejo. "The Baroque and the Marvelous
and educated in Prague, Wellek published his Real." Trans. Tanya Huntington and Lois Parkinson
Zamora. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Commu
study of the baroque six years after immigrat
nity. Ed. Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham: Duke
ing to the United States, having left Europe UP, 1995. 89-108. Print.
after the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in
. "Lo barroco y lo real maravilloso." 1975. La novela
1939. His first teaching job was at the Univer latinoamericana en vísperas de un nuevo siglo y otros
sity of Iowa, where he would have written this ensayos. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1981. 111-35. Print.
essay while watching Europe burn. He went . "City of Columns." Trans. Michael Schuessler. Za
from Iowa to Yale in 1946, where he was to mora and Kaup 244-58.
—. "La ciudad de las columnas." Tientos y diferencias.
become so central to our academic discipline
1964. Ensayos. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1990. 61-73.
that we tend to forget his eccentric trajectory. Print. Vol. 13 of Obras completas.
We shouldn't, because it enriches our under Celorio, Gonzalo. "Del barroco al neobarroco." Ensayo
standing of this exiled scholar's attention to de contraconquista. Mexico City: Tusquets, 2001.
75-105. Print.
the unifying capacity of baroque periodiza
. "From the Baroque to the Neobaroque." Trans.
tion and to the inclusive potential of compar
Maarten van Delden. Zamora and Kaup 487-507.
ative literary study as such.
d'Ors, Eugenio. "The Debate on the Baroque in Pontigny."
Wellek's synthetic European baroque, Car Trans. Wendy B. Faris. Zamora and Kaup 78-92.
pentier's and d'Ors's transhistorical baroque, . "La querella de lo barroco en Pontigny." Lo bar
Celorio's enlightened Mexican baroque—each roco. 1944. Madrid: Tecnos, 2002. 63-101. Print.
. Tres horas en el Museo del Prado. 1922. Madrid:
of these baroques reflects particular cultural
Tecnos, 1989. Print.
and historical imperatives, and together they
Eliot, T. S. "The Metaphysical Poets." Selected Essays:
provide comparative challenges and oppor ¡917-1932. New York: Harcourt, 1932. 241-50. Print.
tunities, along with the cultural products Green, William A. "Periodizing World History." Pomper,
to which they refer. They are provisional, as Elphick, and Vann 53-65.
Borges noted in "The Analytical Language of Guido, Ángel. "América frente a Europa en el arte." Re
descubrí miento de América en el arte. Rosario: Im
John Wilkins," and they are also necessary.
prenta de la U del Litoral, 1940. 15-36. Print.
. "America's Relation to Europe in the Arts." Trans.
Patrick Blaine. Zamora and Kaup 183-97.
Kaup, Monika. Neobaroque in the Americas: Alternative
Modernities in Literature, Visual Art, and Film. Char
Notes
lottesville: U of Virginia P, 2012. Print.
1. See, e.g., the essays in PMLA's Theories and Meth Lezama Lima, José. "Baroque Curiosity." Trans. María Pé
odologies section titled "The Long and the Short: Prob rez and Anke Birkenmaier. Zamora and Kaup 212-40.
lems in Periodization" (127.2 [2012]: 301-56). . "La curiosidad barroca." La expresión americana.
2. With the growth of world history as a discipline, 1957. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica,
historians are also interrogating received periodic sche 1993. 79-106. Print.
p
*2.
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