Showing papers in "Hispania in 1976"

The Judaism of Galdos' Daniel Morton

Abstract: I that in Gloria the religion of Daniel T HAS OFTEN BEEN CLAIMED Morton is merely a superficial pastiche that neither defines nor determines the character's ideology or behavior.1 Yet, in this work, for perhaps the first time in Hispanic letters, a Spanish novelist seeks to vindicate the image of the Jew, to explain his suffering and his moral position, and to present him in a manner that redeems him from the unjust rejection of Christian society. Thus, it is difficult to believe that Gald6s gave little thought to Morton's religious orientation2 and was content to present not a genuine Jew, but one that was so in name only. In order to appreciate the dramatic departure that the author initiates in the character of Morton, it is necessary to remember that in the classic interpretation of Christian theology the Jew is associated with values and ideas that are no longer relevant. Because he adheres to the Old Covenant and renounces the New, he is seen as obdurate, evil and dangerous. In Gloria, however, Gald6s intentionally reinstates the Jew to a position of moral and intellectual dignity. Daniel Morton's principles are all admirable and respectable; furthermore, they are never in conflict with Christian teachings. The Jew is promoted as the exponent of a simple monotheistic religion that is still valid and appropriate. However, in order to present this revised image of the Jew to his Spanish audience, the novelist has to camouflage the character's identity for the entire first half of the novel. There is no doubt that, conscious of ancient Christian and Spanish prejudices toward the Jew, Gald6s felt that, had he divulged his hero's identity at the outset, the unprecedented acceptance of Morton would have been rendered implausible. To understand the nature of Morton's religious commitment we must realize that G ld6s based his research on Judaism almost entirely on the Bible, particularly the later prophetic writings of the Old Testament.3 He hoped to present a Jew who was intimately involved with the vital and always pertinent aspects of his religious heritage: the concern for justice, for reason, and for moral righteousness. In the process the novelist wished to contrast the stark in-

"La Voragine": Circling the Triangle

Abstract: ria and Frutos de mi tierra, La vordgine (1924) by Jose Eustasio Rivera (18881928) has often been wrongly faulted for its apparent lack of unity,x and for having spawned a whole series of geographical novels.2 La vordgine, however, should not be compared with the many unsophisticated telluric novels that followed in its footsteps. In addition to being a strong novel of social protest, La vordgine is also a complex pessimistic Christian vision of man's fall from Paradise and his punishment and ultimate death in the concentric circles of Hell. In realistic and historical terms,3 Rivera's Hell is located in thie rubber-producing Colombian jungle, but this does not preclude its identification with the "dark wood" of Dante's Inferno or with the black whirlpool of Vergil's Aeneid: "By the Stygian stream of his brother, by banks full of pitch, / And that whirlpool so black. . . ."4 In a kind of rebuttal to Dante's Divine Comedy in which the pilgrim-poet starts his journey in the Inferno and gradually works his way up through the concentric circles to Paradise, Arturo Cova descends from the Paradise of the cordillera, ambiguous as it may be, and does not stop spinning downward until he falls unredeemed into the bottomless pit of the infernal jungle, personified by Zoraida Ayram, the Jungian prototype of the Terrible Mother. If Dante is saved with the aid of his poet-guide Vergil and his idealized Beatrice, Arturo and his alteregos are condemned precisely because of women, while poets are considered utterly helpless in dealing with the problems of reality: "Pobre fantasia de los poetas que s6!o conocen las soledades domesticadas."5 The importance of The Divine Comedy to the basic structure of La vordgine, as well as the clear presence of The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid,6 Orlando Furioso, and Don Quixote belie the regionalistic label often applied disparagingly to Rivera's novel.

Demythologizing the Impersonal "Se" in Spanish

Abstract: In such a case subject seems to be defined on purely semantic grounds. Chomsky (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965) showed that grammatical functions, such as subject, can be best expressed indirectly by the rewriting rules of the base phrase marker which provide the deep structure of sentences, so that subject is a syntactic function defined as [NP,S] (NP under S). If we adhere to Chomsky's definition of subject, then it is easy to show that se is not a subject, because it does not behave syntactically like one. Some evidence to this effect is provided by Negative Particle Placement which in Spanish places the negative particle directly in front of the verb and its clitics (if any are present). One such example is: 2. Juan no habla mucho. John doesn't talk a lot. 3. *Se no habla mucho. 4. No se habla mucho. One doesn't talk a lot.

Research and Pedagogical Materials on Spanish Intonation: A Re-Examination

Abstract: NTONATION is one of the least understood areas of Spanish phonology. There has been a paucity of basic research, and the void is reflected in the quality and scope of current pedagogical applications. Recent analytical developments in the field suggest that a re-examination of the linkage between basic research and pedagogical applications is in order, for established ideas have been challenged. Methodological advances have been made that need to be translated into intonational instruction. This article re-examines major studies of Spanish intonation which serve as source materials for pedagogical applications and also the pedagogical materials themselves. Attention is drawn to the basic approaches (methodology, theory) of the source material, as they influence the validity and utility of the Spanish pedagogical material. The various approaches are acoustic and/or perceptual, theoretical (e.g., structural), dialect, speech style, and age, sex, and socioeconomic status of informants, and transcription. Intonation usually refers to the melody or pitch (perceptual dimension), or the fundamental frequency (acoustic dimension). Along with a re-examination of the pedagogicallyoriented literature, recent acoustic research will also be discussed, for such research on Spanish intonation elucidates a number of features which perceptual analyses (the majority of extant work) may only hint at. The recent acoustically based research is not reflected in the pedagogical literature.' It has been my experience in remedial pronunciation and phonetics classes for advanced Spanish students that intonation is just about the most difficult speech habit to change. Phonetics books are limited in their presentations and often leave intonation to the end of the book and/or with the intonation section usually comprehending a small percentage of the total phonology studied. Specific information on contours, finalities, sentence-initial rise, and the like, is presented in the vaguest of terms, if at all. For example, we must interpret contours from a pitch level and juncture analysis in much of the literature. Most pedagogical materials treat Spanish intonation as a single monolithic en ity, as if there were no dialectal or style differences. Yet dialectal literature hints at striking intonational variety; there are impressionistic statements of the grave quality of Castilian as compared to the agudo quality of Spanish-American dialects.2 Navarro Tomis says that intonational differences are to be found in finalities and the main body of the phrase.3 Moreover, we have little idea about syntactic boundaries as signalled by certain intonational shapes within conversational Spanish as a whole, much less regarding dialectal differences.

Again-One or Two Subjunctives?

Abstract: subjunctive to picturing it as the mode of unreality, and when later he refers to classical tradition and adopts a dual framework he is careful to qualify it: "Tiene para nosotros caricter didictico, porque en la realidad los limites se confunden." A pedagogical rule is a rule of thumb. The question is, what is to be the rule in a linguistic analysis? The details of Lozano's new arguments can be looked at later. As an opener I keep to the main line and offer an analogy from the grammar of English. (An identical one can be drawn in Spanish.) It is the category of number, useful as a comparison because it is several degrees less complicated than the subjunctive. The family of languages from which both English and Spanish have descended originally had a dual as well as a plural. The dual (= 2) and the plural (> 2) are if anything easier to distinguish than optative and dubitative. Just as there are verbal expressions which can be classed as optative or dubitative, so there are nominal expressions that can be classed as dual (two, both, either-or, twain, pair, twosome, duo, duet, couple, brace, dyad) or as plural (three, four. . . , many, some, all, various, several). The dual has syntactic reflexes that distinguish it from the plural. For example I raised it with crowbars would be understood as probably referring to more than two; to specify two we would prefer I raised it with a couple of crowbars. If someone exclaims Look at those women! we will be surprised if we see only two-we would expect Look at those two women! (Only if "two" is expected are we free not to specify: Look at those lovers! Look at those shoes!) We would not say I squeezed it tight with pliers in the same circumstances as we would say I squeezed it tight with a wrench-pliers is dual and we would say with a pair of pliers. The syntactic evidence for dual versus plural is as solid as that for optative versus dubitative.