Статті в журналах з теми "Spanish baroque literature"

During the Baroque period, Luis De GÓngora y Argote (1561–1627) wrote the first Spanish-language closeted literature. Some three hundred years later, the challenging originality of his closet verse, openly studied and appreciated by a cultured, intellectual elite, played a pivotal role in the development of homosexual literature in the early-twentieth-century avant-garde movements of Spain and Latin America. This essay will briefly explore how twentieth-century Mexican avant-garde writers expressed the closet using baroque models. The thesis is that the rhetorical strategies of obscuritas provided Góngora an ideal instrument for representing the closet, which in literature is defined as a symbolic space that allows writers to represent and readers to recognize homosexuality in a heterosexual context. The pertinent OED definition of closet as an adjective reads, “secret, covert, used esp. with reference to homosexuality” (“Closet”). This recognized use of obscuritas is validated further in the observations of the Peruvian colonial writer Espinosa Medrano, one of Góngora's seventeenth-century commentators, who epitomizes the consolidation of baroque aesthetics in Hispanic America by the criollo elite. The final chapter in this tour of the baroque closet will examine how the Mexican avant-garde became aware of obscuritas through Federico García Lorca's Gongorine lectures and poetry.

At the end of the middle eras, began in Spain an era of literary integration called it the (Golden era) Unlike political events which was prevalent there, Spain was from the side political lives he situation is stressed and internal divisions, but from the literary side She reached the peak of her relationship. The term Baroque refers to a movement of art, literature and culture, spread in Spain since the end of the sixteenth century until the end of the seventeenth century, In the seventeenth century began Literary productions from theater, novel, poetry and prose reach its grandeur, and there appeared prominent writers They knew in Spain and the world as well such as (Luba de Veca) and his style in theater and literary currents, Who followed his approach. The current study consists of two chapters: Chapter one refers to the beginning and prosperity and the end of baroque style in Spanish literature. The second chapter explains it operation evolution of the method (baroque) especially in lyric poetry of the baroque, We spoke in it about the most prominent figures in the field of poetry during the golden era.

Seventeenth-century literature in the Holy Roman Empire has rarely been discussed in general cultural histories about the European Baroque. The dramatic achievements of Shakespeare, Calderon, and Corneille, the inimitable poetry of the Metaphysicals and Marino and the mischievous adventures of the Spanish picaro have long overshadowed the literary accomplishments of the German Baroque. Even today many scholars are still content to dismiss the German seventeenth century as derivative while, in the opposite camp, loyal Germanists currently defend its uniqueness. As is generally known, literary developments in the Empire were slowed by a number of unfortunate circumstances. Geographical, confessional, and linguistic disunity strongly contributed to the parochialism of German Baroque letters. Local literary societies were widely scattered throughout the Empire from Silesia to the Rhine and communication between them was greatly hampered. The lack of a main cultural center similar to the artistic hubs of Paris or London further isolated the writers from each other. In addition, confessional differences not only segregated Catholic and Protestant poets, but also resulted in the simultaneous development of a Batoque Latin and German literature.

The article provides an analysis of the “Spanish code” inscribed in the text of Lesia Ukrainka’s drama Kaminnyi hospodar (The Stone Host). The constituents of the code include: 1) conventions of 17th century Spanish baroque drama, in particular, use of the dialectics of the concepts of dignity and reputation as a driving mechanism for confl ict throughout Lesia Ukrainka’s play and transformation within the classical scheme of characters suggested by Lope de Vega and his followers; 2) stereotypes of “Spanishness” through which the playwright produced a heteroimage of Spain. Lesia Ukrainka’s variant of the famous legend of Don Juan is a sophisticated modernist drama. The “Spanish code” serves as a prism through which the playwright examines the world. Lesia Ukrainka created an astonishing modernist tragicomedy of dishonesty, full of the spirit of uncertainty.

The present article analyses some of the features that characterize the city as theme, especially regarding its expression in Spanish literature. First of all, it focuses on the relations between this theme and textuality, relevant objectives of its configuration, properties along with literary proceedings. Next, it deals with the main topics of description, laudation and vituperation. Finally, two fragments appearing out of its plot context of the medieval Libro de Alexandre and the baroque El burlador de Sevilla are presented with an attempt of their justification and interpretation.

AbstractThe silva to “Roma antigua y moderna” by Francisco de Quevedo is a complex rewriting of Joachim Du Bellay's Antiquitez de Rome. The Spanish author makes an archeological study of his model, identifying the sources, and, through intertextual dialogue with the classical and humanistic descriptions of Rome, creates a symbolic space of memory where different stages of history are represented. In this manner, Quevedo produces a Baroque reading of the Renaissance.

Abstract The Dissimulated Excellence. Courtly Contradictions in Academic Application Procedures A standardized perfection is required from the perfect candidate in order to successfully compete for the best academic positions or scholarships. But what does excellence mean? This question will be examined in the article by means of the courtly literature of the Spanish Baroque. Courtly contradiction of any academic competition thus consists in presenting oneself as an excellence, which is considered inelegant and careless in terms of court culture, as it exaggerates one’s skills instead of critically examining them.

El texto que sigue aprovecha el trabajo que he publicado sobre el barroco y, en especial, mi ensayo “Lírica colonial,” que aparece en la Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana, que Gredos publicó en el 2006, y que había aparecido en su versión original inglesa en la Cambridge History of Latin American Literature, de 1996. También retomo algunas de las ideas de Celestina´s Brood: Continuities of the Baroque in Spanish and Latin American Literature, que se publicó en España como La prole de Celestina. Pero aquí aspiro a ir más lejos al concentrarme en un solo poema de Sor Juana, “Primero sueño”, y utilizar ideas que he ido desarrollando en los últimos diez o quince años. Las más recientes forman parte de un libro en marcha sobre el infinito y la improvisación del que ya han aparecido algunos adelantos sobre Cervantes y Calderón. Hay otro sobre Lope en camino.

This article focuses on highlighting the application of discourse analysis in the Spanish Language Teaching as a Foreign Language. Especially, it does emphasize the importance of the conceptual fluency acquisition, as a strategic competence in particular, and as a communicative competence in general for non-native speakers of other languages enrolled in Spanish courses as a foreign language. That is, it does draw attention to Metaphorical Competence (MC), which can be defined as the ability to acquire, create, and interpret metaphors in the target language. For this purpose, we have chosen a Golden Age poet, Gongora, considered by most literary critics as the most influential and important poet in Spanish-language poetry, whose works represent the most admirable literary masterpieces in the western classical literature and Baroque poetry. In the same way, we would like to bring to light his literary value, excellent, and didactic potential for teaching poetry in the second language classroom, underpinned by a Task-based Learning methodology.

The paper recounts about the first and still the only attempt to present Ukrainian literature in the Spanish language which was undertaken by Dmytro Buchynskyi, Petro Kluk, Dmytro Chyzhevskyi, and Yuriy Shevelov. They tell their Spanish readers about the key phenomena and names of Ukrainian literature and interpret the latter as reflection of the Ukrainian identity produced by combination of national spirit and European values. D. Buchynskyi and P. Kluk, who lived in Spain and wrote Spanish, focused on analysis of Spanish imagery in the works of Ivan Franko, Lesia Ukrainka, Spyrydon Cherkasenko, and Natalena Koroleva. The hermeneutics of D. Chyzhevskyi and Y. Shevelov, whose essays were translated into Spanish for the special issue of the journal Oriente Europeo dedicated to Ukraine (1957), reflect a broader European perspective. All Ukrainian emigrant intellectuals, whose essays are studied in the paper, reject models of understanding Ukrainian literature which were imposed by the official Soviet literary studies. D. Buchynskyi and P. Kluk embody this trend by emphasizing religious and humanistic values in the works of Ivan Franko and Lesia Ukrainka. D. Chyzhevskyi argues that the baroque Ukrainian literature, which was prohibited in the USSR, was a mediator in exchange of ideas, including theology, between West and East. Y. Shevelov plays a special role in undermining the Soviet version of the Ukrainian literary canon of the first half of the 20th century. He declares the Soviet regime a mortal threat to literary imagination. The researcher restores the list of writers deleted from the Ukrainian cultural memory by the Stalinist terror and provides examples of original reading of the works of Pavlo Tychyna, Mykhail Semenko, Mykola Kvyliovyi, Mykola Kulish and others. The essays about Ukrainian literature published in Spain is a dramatic episode of the cultural war of the Ukrainian diaspora against the Soviet version of the Ukrainian literary canon.

This study explores the function of several types of narrative fiction utilized by three of the most distinguished political emblematists of the Hispanic Baroque: Diego Saavedra Fajardo, Andrés Mendo (who borrows liberally from the work of Solórzano Pereira) and the expressly anti-Machiavellian works of Francisco Garau. We consider the rationale behind choosing the emblem as a vehicle to express Counter-reformation political thought and we trace an evolution that leads to one of the books of Garau, which reveals itself to be a highly original work that propagates traditional rhetorical procedures and at the same time it conceals a radical skepticism affecting both the form and content of the work.Keywords: Emblems, Spanish Political Literature, Golden Age Literature, Narrative Fiction

The article explores the genre specificity of the postmodern novel, “The Amazing Journey of Pomponius Flat” by the contemporary Spanish writer Eduardo Mendoza. The novel is based on the principles of a ludic literature tradition, one of the manifestations of which is a sophisticated interplay of various ‘high’ and ‘low’ genres in neo-baroque fashion. The novel develops an ironic detective story, but also represents different genre markers of the travel novel, the picaresque and historical novels, whose traditions and cliches are introduced in an ironic way. The journey of the heronarrator, which is mentioned at the beginning and at the end of the novel, in fact, has no significance for the plot. The image of the protagonist combines two archetypical figures, keys to Spanish literature – the trickster and Don Quixote. In accordance with the tradition of a historical novel, E. Mendoza’s work creates the illusion of historical reconstruction, but there is no true historicism in the novel, since reliable facts are interspersed with speculations and fantastic elements that question the reliability of the whole story.

The subject of this article is to discuss the penetration of influences of Spanish mysticism, in particular, the works of Saint Teresa of Ávila, on the literature and culture of the Polish Baroque. The intercultural influence of Spanish mysticism on Polish artists is reflected in the translations of the writings of Saint Teresa of Ávila. The considerations focus on the influence of the mysticism of Saint Teresa on mystical autobiographies and anonymous poetry of Carmelite nuns from Krakow from the 17th and 18th centuries. The reflection also covers the centres of the veneration of the saint in Poland, in services and prayer books, and her popularisation through art. Mystical influences are also visible in the poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries, including poetry by Kasper Twardowski, Sebastian Grabowiecki, Stanisław Grochowski, Mikołaj Mieleszko, Zbigniew Morsztyn, Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, Elżbieta Drużbacka, and Konstancja Benisławska. The Polish-Spanish ties situate the research issues undertaken in a comparative context, without which the studies on post-Tridentine spirituality would not have produced real achievements.

This article explores contemporary digital literary genres and the complex negotiations they undertake with earlier moments of literary experimentation. Exploring digital literary genres as works on a continuum, the article addresses in particular the ways in which authors of digital works in the Hispanic world speak back to rich Hispanic tradition of literary experimentation. In order to do so, the article takes three case studies from different countries: firstly, the hypermedia novela negra of Colombian author Jaime Alejandro Rodríguez; secondly, the blog aphorisms of US-Salvadoran artist and writer Eduardo Navas; and the electronic poetry of Spanish-Argentine author Belén Gache. The article traces their response to prior literary experimentation, and their engagement – often critical – with the discourses of contemporary digital technologies. In their different ways, these three authors make sustained intertextual references to prior generations of literary experimentation at the same time as making frequent metatextual references to the process of their works’ own (digital) creation. The article argues that, in so doing, their overt references to digital technologies themselves often play with, and yet question or thwart, key notions of interactive literature.

Resum: L’objectiu d’aquest estudi és proposar una visió sobre el tòpic de la mort en la poesia catalana pels segles XVII i XVIII. El punt central és la projecció pública de les composicions poètiques, tot apropant-nos a la literatura des d’un punt de vista cultural per presentar certs aspectes d’un tema clau en l’art barroc: el final de la vida. La primera part del text introdueix dos dels escriptors del barroc català, Francesc Fontanella i Agustí Eura. La segona secció recerca l’ús de la poesia catalana en les exèquies reials al voltant de la figura del monarca hispànic Carles II. Un cop presentades públicament les poesies en 1701, les edicions impreses són les que ens permeten una lectura contemporània. Publicacions d’altres gèneres poètics són la darrera part de l’article. Els Desenganys de l’Apocalipsi és una coneguda obra barrejant poesia i imatges amb una vessant didàctica per explicar el purgatori, l’infern, la glòria i el paradís als fidels lectors. Paraules clau: mort, poesia, barroc, exèquies Abstract: The aim of this study is a global vision about the topic of death in Catalan poetry throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Focusing on the public use of poetical compositions, we want to approach literature from a cultural point of view in order to present some aspects about a typical subject in baroque art: the end of life. The first part of the text introduces two main Catalan baroque writers, Francesc Fontanella and Agustí Eura. Moving to the second section, the paper researches the use of poetry in royal obsequies around the figure of the Spanish monarch Charles the Second. After the public presentation of the texts in 1701, the printed publication of them is how we can still read them. The printed copies for other kind of poetry creations is the last part of this article. Desenganys de l’Apocalipsi is a well-known text mixing poetry and images with a didactical purpose: to explain the Purgatory, the Hell, the Glory and the Heaven to faithful readers. Keywords: death, poetry, baroque, obsequies

Buried in the miscellaneous writings of Capuchin abbess Sor María Ángela Astorch (1592-1665) is a curious spiritual exercise the author calls ‘teatro santo’. In it, Sor María, never herself investigated by the Inquisition, imagines herself as a priest being sentenced to death in an auto de fe. The exercise is practised in total solitude, but also requires props and costume. Sor María inhabits various identities and voices in her account, moving freely between genders and roles, as well as between her embodied identity and her imagined ones. This article argues that the ‘teatro santo’, while singular in its particulars, may give insight into how a female public reacted to the diverse genres of performance that characterize the Spanish Baroque. Sor María’s identification with multiple ‘characters’, and her creative self-insertion into the narrative, shows how early modern women could cultivate creative freedom within, and without disturbing, the most restrictive spaces.

This essay presents Jay Wright’s play Lemma as a historiographical challenge and also as a piece of idiorrhythmic American theater. Consonant with his life’s work of poetry, dramatic literature, and philosophical writing, Lemma showcases Wright’s expansive intellectual framework with which he constructs vivid, dynamic, and complex visions of American life. The “America” conjured here is steeped in many traditions, traditions typically kept distinct by academic discourse, such as West African cosmology, Enlightenment philosophy, jazz music theory, Ancient Greek theater, neo-Baroque modifications of Christian theology, pre-Columbian indigenous ways of knowing, etymological connections between Spanish and Gaelic, the materiality of John Donne’s poetry, and the lives of enslaved Africans in the New World. What is the purpose of Wright’s theatrical conjuration? How do we approach a text with such a diverse body of intellectual and literary sources? The author answers these questions and ends with a call to treat Lemma as a much needed point of view that opens lines of sight into Black and American theater far outside the well-worn territory of the Black Arts Movement.

Este artículo ofrece un comentario textual de El amar su propia muerte, comedia en tres actos de Juan de Espinosa Medrano, en relación tanto con sus modelos dramáticos peninsulares como con sus preocupaciones particulares como intelectual peruano consciente de su posición secundaria frente a la centralidad cultural española. Siguiendo las prácticas de la imitatio barroca, Espinosa Medrano logró combinar los múltiples convenciones y subgéneros de la comedia nueva, no solo demostrando su asimilación totalizadora de sus modelos sino también poniendo en tela de juicio sus respectivas estructuras lógicas. El resultado es una alegoría del ingenio quese vincula al conjunto de la obra del autor, en particular el celebrado Apologético en favor de Góngora, en el que revindica la intelectualidad criolla. -- This article offers a close reading of Juan de Espinosa Medrano’s three-act play El amar su propia muerte in relation both to the author’s theatricalmodels in Spain and to his particular preoccupations as a Peruvian intellectual aware of his secondary position vis-à-vis Spanish cultural centrality. Following the practices of baroque imitatio, Espinosa Medrano succeeded in bringing together the multiple conventions and subgenres of the comedia nueva in such a way that he not only demonstrated a totalizing assimilation of his models but also interrogated their underlying logical structures. The result is an allegory of ingeniousness linked to the author’s overall project, made more explicit in such works has his famous Apologético en favor de Góngora, of Creole intellectual vindication.

Resum: Durant el setge borbònic de Barcelona de l’any 1706, es produí una contraofensiva dels barcelonins per recuperar la fortalesa de Montjuïc en la qual les dones de la ciutat tingueren un paper molt destacat. Aquesta participació va ser lloada en una relació en vers que va circular a través un plec solt intitulat Proeses que les barceloneses dones han ostentat en este siti de l’any 1706. L’obra és coneguda dins l’àmbit de la historiografia, però fins ara no disposàvem de cap acostament al text que proporcionés al lector una edició filològicament fiable, actualitzada i comentada del poema complet, de manera que aquest és l’objectiu del present treball. Per assolir-lo, l’article s’estructura en tres parts: 1) l’enquadrament del text dins el seu context històric i cultural; 2) la seva descripció i interpretació a la llum de les eines metodològiques i conceptuals de la teoria literària i de la comparatística; i 3) l’establiment del text a partir de l’acarament crític de tots els testimonis disponibles i la seva edició, amb l’adaptació ortogràfica i els aparats crítics corresponents. Paraules clau: Poesia catalana, literatura barroca, dones, setge de Barcelona, Guerra de Successió Espanyola Abstract: During the Bourbon siege of 1706, the inhabitants of Barcelona launched a counter-offensive in order to recover the fortress of Montjuïc. The women of the city played a significant role in this actions and their participation was praised in an account of events written in verse that circulated through a libel entitled Proeses que les barceloneses dones han ostentat en este siti de l’any 1706 (Feats that Barcelona women have shown in this site of the year 1706). This work is well known in the field of historiography, but nonetheless, until this moment, no approach has been proposed providing the reader with a philologically reliable, updated and commented edition of the complete poem. Therefore this is the objective of the present work. To achieve this objective, the article is structured in three parts: 1) the framing of the text in its historical and cultural context; 2) its description and interpretation in the light of the methodological and conceptual tools of literary theory and comparative literature; and 3) the establishment of the text based on the critical comparison of all the available printed testimonials and its edition, with the spelling adaptation and the corresponding critical apparatus.. Keywords: Catalan poetry, baroque literature, women, siege of Barcelona, War of the Spanish Succession

Este artículo estudia la construcción teórica del barroco y el neobarroco, y argumenta que estos conceptos juegan un papel inquietante en la crítica hispánica actual: más allá de su capacidad denominativa, sirven para perpetuar la marginación internacional de la literatura española y latinoamericana. Eso es, su función consiste, entre otras cosas, en reinterpretar la literatura hispánica moderna como fruto de una supuesta identidad o sensibilidad atemporal e intransferible. Hoy se tiende a creer, en efecto, que el barroco es una estética de algún modo arraigada en España y América Latina, signo de un desfase cultural frente al resto del mundo. Pero este hecho resulta irónico, porque la historia del concepto revela todo lo contrario: la participación activa del mundo hispánico en los principales debates estéticos del siglo xx. En su origen el barroco fue uno de los temas más discutidos de la literatura comparada, y sólo poco a poco fue adquiriendo resonancias identitarias. Reconocer esta historia nos llevaría a cuestionar el supuesto carácter barroco de España y América Latina y a insistir en su centralidad en la modernidad estética global.

Resum: Aquest article incorpora un nou poeta al panorama de la literatura barroca valenciana: Melcior Febrer (Vinaròs, 1578 – Traiguera, ? 1648). La major part del corpus d’aquest autor es conserva al manuscrit 3895 de la Biblioteca Nacional de España. El volum recull tant composicions pròpies, majorment en castellà, com també d’altres del gust de l’autor, tot conformant un cançoner molt representatiu dels gustos literaris del primer Barroc hispànic. Paral·lelament a aquest autors emblemàtics, el cançoner aplega una sèrie de composicions generades a l’àrea valenciana per Melcior Febrer i altres literats amb els quals estava en contacte, com ara Marc Antoni Ortí, Vicent Esquerdo i Francesc Cros. Editem en apèndix l’epístola en vers, Resposta mia a una carta en valencià escrita per el señor y amich March Antoni Ortí tant per l’interès intrínsec com per les observacions metaliteràries que hi conté. Paraules clau: Melcior Febrer, Cosme Gómez de Tejada, barroc valencià, Maestrat Abstract: This paper incorporates a new name to the list of Valencian Baroque poets: Melcior Febrer: (Vinaròs, 1578 – Traiguera, ? 1648). The main part of the corpus of his works, unattended by the critics, is preserved in the manuscript 3895 (Biblioteca Nacional de España). This volume contains his own compositions, mainly written in Spanish, as well as others of his favourite poets, thus creating a highly representative collection of the poetical taste of the time. Besides this group of referential pan-Hispanic writers, the volume also contains a series of works generated in the Valencian area due to Febrer and some of his literary friends and acquaintances, such as Marc Antoni Ortí, Vicent Esquerdo or Francesc Cros. Due to its metaliterary interest, an edition of the poem Resposta mia a una carta en valencià escrita per el señor y amich March Antoni Ortí is provided in appendix. Keywords: Melcior Febrer, Cosme Gómez de Tejada, valencin barroque, Maestrat

Recently published by the Madrid publishing house Sequitur, La Escuela Universalista Española del siglo XVIII is an introductory work to a study of the so-called Universalist School. Its author, Pedro Aullón de Haro from the University of Alicante, Spain, and Head of the Research Group “Humanism-Europe” since 1994, has coordinated various volumes whose main objective is the historical reconstruction of the Late Spanish Enlightenment Period, which was truncated by Charles III of Spain’s expulsion of the Jesuits, affecting a great many of its members. This Enlightenment Period, in contrast to the victorious French Enlightenment, offered not a political, but a scientific and humanistic view of knowledge, taking a comparative and universalist approach, but, due to the aforementioned expulsion of the Jesuits, the authors dispersed, leaving their work unfinished; and it is only now, under the label of the Universalist School, coined by Prof. Aullón de Haro, that they have been gathered together furthering the possibility of recovering their meaning and systematic cohesion. This volume serves as an introduction to the publications that the author has announced for 2018, in which the detailed study of the main authors within this scientific community will be undertaken following an encyclopaedic structure, which will finally give recognition to the Universalist School movement, and whose stand out authors include: Juan Andrés, creator of the Universal History of the Humanities and Sciences; Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, creator of Universal and Comparative Linguistics; and Antonio Eximeno, creator of a universal aesthetic concept of music as language and expression.The common thread of the School is precisely the "universalist ideation" that assumes the unity of knowledge in a harmonious integration of experimental sciences, fine arts and human sciences within a humanistic epistemological framework, and consequently, comparativism as a methodology of study, based on the unity of its object: the destiny of man, with his knowledge integrated into a unitary vision of the universe and the world. All this is ultimately based on the work of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, historically rooted in the process of Greco-Roman cultural parallels, and with the main figures of Macrobius, Scaliger and Morhof.Furthermore, 2017 is the second centenary of the death of Juan Andrés, commemorated by an international Congress held at the Complutense University of Madrid and featuring an important bibliographical exhibition in the History Library of this Madrid University, titled "Juan Andres y la Escuela Universalista Española" (2017).The great scientific and thematic scope of the School means that it is possible to discern several sectors or "sub-schools", although the authors often practice several disciplines: the linguistic sub-school (Hervás and his extensive circle of collaborators), bibliographical (Miguel de Casiri, Diosdado Caballero…), botanical-naturalist (Antonio José Cavanilles, Pedro Franco Dávila, Juan José Ruperto de Cuéllar, José Celestino Mutis, Eduardo Romeo…), musicological (Antonio Eximeno, Josef Pintado, Vicente Requeno, Buenaventura Prats, Joaquín Millás…), Americanist-Mexicanist (Francisco Javier Clavijero, Juan Bautista Muñoz, Miguel del Barco González, José Lino Fábregas, Juan Nuix y Perpiñá…), on the Philippines (Juan de la Concepción, Antonio de Tornos, Bernardo Bruno de la Fuente…), meteorology (Andrés, Viñes, Faura…), studies on translation (Carlos Andrés, Juan Bautista Colomés, Pedro Cantón…) etc.The work is divided into three sections: "Teoría general", "Textos de y sobre autores de la Escuela", and "Bibliografía fundamental y selecta".The first section begins with an introductory chapter in which the conceptual principles of the School are explained in relation to the particularity of the Hispanic cultural history, where both its antecedents and theoretical limits are determined. Next comes a description of the sequence of milestones, historical circumstances and accidents that resulted in the formation of the School, as well as an in-depth explanation of the concept of "universalist ideation". Finally, "La ideación del primer programa epistemológico", is a necessary exposition of the important and almost inaccessible Prospectus Philosophiae Universae, a work that was written and directed by Juan Andrés. It is a general and pluridisciplinary programmatic text published in 1773 in Ferrara, and access to it for consultation is hard to come by. That is, it is a kind of program that intends to carry out a radical overcoming of the culture and thought of the Baroque era, through the integration of empiricist science and philosophy with classical humanism and its evolution through a historically founded and revisable concept of progress. The fourth chapter, entitled "La Ilustración universalista: creación de la Comparatística moderna y Literatura Universal", lists the conceptual keys to understanding the particularity of this late Spanish age of Enlightenment of Hispanic-Italian roots, Christian, integrative, international, intercontinental, founded on a unitary vision of the universe and the world. The fifth chapter, "La clasificación de las ciencias, la universalidad tematológica y la estética de la expresión", analyses the variables of the Enlightenment Period, the various types of European illustrations and their internal conceptual sectors, in an attempt to bring to light the lack of historical and intellectual homogeneity of a process of great relevance, and analyses the universalistic classification of scientific disciplines by comparison with the classification of the French illustration, showing the flagrant reduction of the French classification, and also includes a revealing study on the concept of "expression" elaborated by Antonio Eximeno, which was later also recovered by Benedetto Croce, although without him acknowledging the precedence of Eximeno’s work.The second part, "Textos de y sobre autores de la Escuela", presents a series of documents as a critical support of the School and its authors. This is especially true of the textual references from the three main authors with respect to the other members of the School, which provides an account of the indisputable existence of a productive and active scientific community.The last part records essential bibliographical sources and information intended to enable a continuation of the study by the authors of this School, a bibliographic selection of the most important works of all the members of the School, and another selection of general and monographic studies on relevant theoretical, historical and cultural issues.In short, this work succeeds in refuting one of the most important historical and intellectual fallacies of our time: the absence of a Spanish Enlightenment Period, and consequently, proves the existence of an original and consistent modern Hispanic thought. In this way, it opens up a field of study that demands new research that will bring to light better-informed reinterpretations of both Spanish and Hispanic America pasts in general, which will lead to a search for unity, not in political and economic terms, as seems to be the objective of economic globalization, but on the basis of the concept of universality. For this purpose, the Research Group Humanismo-Europa has affiliated itself with the Instituto Juan Andrés de Comparatística y Globalización, as well created links to its online network Biblioteca HumanismoEuropa, where all the information about the authors of the School and their texts has been gathered and made available to the general public.

AbstractEarly Modern Spanish literature, also known as Golden Age Spanish literature, is a well-established period in the History of Spanish literary tradition, covering from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century, from Renaissance to Baroque works. In the case of poetry, the stylistic change from one aesthetic to the other has been examined from a historical point of view, with some scholars considering a transitional group of poets between both stylistic movements, and many pointing to the writer Fernando de Herrera (1534–1597) as a bridge between the Renaissance style of Garcilaso de la Vega (1501–1536) and the Baroque of Luis de Góngora (1561–1627). This paper examines the stylistic change from Renaissance to Baroque in Spanish poetry and Herrera’s place on it from a quantitative, computational point of view, applying a methodology which combines Stylometry and Network Analysis to a big corpus of poems and authors writing in this period. The resulting stylometric network for Renaissance and Baroque poetry proves there is a computationally measurable chronological evolution in the texts of this period, as well as a change of style from Renaissance to Baroque, and supports the existence of a transitional group of poets between these two literary movements, one of which is Fernando de Herrera.

Teesid: Tartu Ülikooli maailmakirjanduse professori, luuletaja, kirjandusteadlase ja hispaaniakeelse kirjanduse spetsialisti Jüri Talveti tõlketegevuse viljade hulka kuulub luulet ja proosat nii sajandeid vanast Hispaania klassikast kui ka 20. sajandil või tänapäeval romaani keeltes või inglise keeles loodud teostest. Käesolev artikkel keskendub sellele, kuidas professor Talvet on tõlgendanud luule ja poeetika, kuid ka kirjandusajaloo, iseäranis barokk-kirjanduse alaseid küsimusi oma kirjandusteaduslikes esseedes. Vaadeldakse ka tema tõlketegevuse mahtu ja tõlketöö põhimõtteid. Jüri Talvet (born in 1945) is a poet and a scholar of comparative literature, Chair Professor of World Literature at the University of Tartu. His numerous translations of poetry and poetical fiction from the Romance languages and, to a lesser extent, from English, reflect his views on world poetry. Those views are also expressed in his theoretical writings from the years of 1977 to 2015. Having studied English literature as the main subject at the University of Tartu, he early developed an interest in Spanish, in other Iberian languages, and in the Iberoamerican literatures. His translations from that area include works from medieval and early modern literature as well as notable literary achievements from the 20th century and the contemporary era. Talvet’s interpretations of Federico García Lorca and the “Latin American boom” authors are supported by profound insights into the philosophy, aesthetics, and poetics of the 17th century Spanish Baroque literature, known as the literary Golden Age of Spain. The influence which Talvet’s activities have exerted has widened the horizons of Estonia’s literary culture: while in the early 20th century, the previous German, Russian and Finnish leanings were supplemented by orientations to, and translations from, French and Italian literatures, Talvet has helped to enrich the Estonian literary landscape with the mentality and traditions of even more distant language areas, such as Castilian (Spanish), Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, and the Latin American countries. In the section “Quevedo and Góngora” of this article, Talvet’s interpretation of some of the key issues of dispute in the Baroque literature of Spain are studied, based both on his theoretical essays and on his translations of the poetry of Francisco de Quevedo. Talvet has attempted to use the terms of the Baroque philosopher and writer Baltasar Gracián, agudeza, concepto (definable approximately as “conceit” or “wit”) and conceptismo, for the analysis of the late 20th century Estonian poetry. On that background, defnitions of conceptismo and cultismo (the other main school in Spanish Baroque poetry) are offered in this article, with implications that those definitions may have for understanding different styles and methods of poetry in general, and the characteristics of Talvet’s own poems and poetry translations in particular. To escape diffusion in pure sensuality and verbal indulgence, poetry has to rely on concepts as well as images. Talvet’s interpretations of poetry and poetical thinking are found to be close to conceptismo, or with a considerable amount of conceptuality inherent to them. The juxtaposition of paradoxical ideas from different levels of reality, social and psychic, is seen as the essential poetical method that Talvet refers to as he defines, quoting Yuri Lotman, the structural-semantic code of poetry as being “paradigmatic”. In the final section of the article, Talvet’s 23 book-length published translations are listed, including translations from Spanish, Catalan, English and French. The list does not include numerous translations of single poems or cycles of poetry that have appeared in literary journals, nor his contributions to anthologies of poetry, nor the translations from his native Estonian into a foreign language, such as Spanish or English, in which he has participated. His translations encompass lyrical works as well as fiction and plays. Talvet has translated classical European poetry, such as the sonnets of Petrarch and Quevedo and Provençal poems, as well as the rhymed poems of American poets into Estonian with complete metrical correspondence and full rhymes. However, in the latest decades Talvet has expressed scepticism in the sense and feasibility of attempting to convey the rhyming complexities of the major European literatures into Estonian, a language with a considerably smaller potential for finding full rhymes. Accordingly, his three translations of Spanish Baroque drama (by Calderón and Tirso de Molina) employ a liberal method of versification. In all his versatile activities as a poet, a translator, and a theorist of poetry, Professor Talvet has shown great devotion to developing and cultivating aesthetic values. A lot of his colleagues and students have benefited from his friendly advice. Thinking of his contributions to Estonia’s literary tradition, one may repeat and paraphrase the sentence that he used for the conclusion of his essay on the Catalan poet Salvador Espriu in 1977: “to write (and to translate) poetry is to work for the benefit of the people.”

Writing from the Hispano-Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam, Miguel de Barrios (1635–1701) used literary forms of Catholic Spain to resist the erasure of Jewish identity in Iberian lands by Inquisition tribunals that prosecuted non-Catholic practices as heretical. Our analysis of sonnets and allegorical plays by Barrios shows how, through them, this converso, or New Christian, of Jewish lineage openly exalts Judaism as a divinely chosen faith. We also argue that, by writing diasporic texts firmly adherent to Baroque Spanish literary trends, Barrios broadens the reach of this literature to include the hybrid identity of former conversos living as Jews. We demonstrate how the poet expresses this identity by examining elements that influenced its expression, including his biography and the importance of Amsterdam as a centre of Sephardic, or Iberian Jewish, settlement, and how he reworks canonical genres of Spanish literature to privilege Judaism and Hispano-Portuguese conversos returned to Judaism.

El objetivo de este trabajo es subrayar las calidades grotescas del Diccionario crítico-burlesco (1811), de Bartolomé José Gallardo: filólogo, erudito, bibliógrafo, poeta, periodista y polemista de muy singular significación en la literatura española del primer tercio del siglo XIX, e injustamente denostado debido a su famoso Diccionario. Una obra especialmente importante, pues inaugura la sátira moderna en el pensamiento y la cultura española en permanente diálogo con la estética grotesca de los grabados y las Pinturas negras de Francisco de Goya, de acuerdo también con la mejor tradición burlesca de la literatura barroca e ilustrada.The purpose of this work is to study the grotesque aesthetics on Bartolomé José Gallardo's Diccionario crítico-burlesco (1811). Gallardo was a philologist, scholar, bibliographer, poet, journalist and debater of very singular significance in the Spanish literature of the first third of the nineteenth century, and was unjustly reviled due to his famous and polemical Diccionario. A crucially important work, in that it opens the modern satire in Spanish culture and thought, the Diccionario was in permanent dialogue with the grotesque aesthetics of Francisco de Goya's Caprichos and Pinturas negras, as well as with the best burlesque tradition of baroque culture and literature of the eighteenth century. A literary work that merits masterpiece status because it represents the vision of a major writer in contact, and often in conflict, with the common beliefs and behavior of his times.

This article explores the deconstructive function of grotesque elements in contemporary Spanish and Ibero-American Literature. Starting with Tirano Banderas. Novela de Tierra Caliente (1926), a highlight in Valle-Inclan’s esperpento aesthetics, mocking what authors as Bakhtin or Foucault pointed out as “official truths”, both collective and individual. It is argued that grotesque representation establishes a subversive relation when confronted with epic or tragic modes, as established by aristotelic-horatian and dogmatic poetics. This may shed some light on the relation between grotesque structure and critical deconstruction, from the so-called Baroque era up until modernist and postmodernist essay, such as it is the case of one of the most thoroughly sophisticated contemporary writers in Brasil, Silviano Santiago, whose collection of essays O Cosmopolitismo do Pobre (2004) is the third pillar of our analysis.

Julia Barella Julia Barella es Titular de Literatura Española, Directora de la Escuela de Escritura de la Universidad de Alcalá, y poeta. Ha investigado sobre la prosa barroca, la poesía del siglo XX, las relaciones entre literatura y cine, y la ecocrítica. Ha editado obras de Lope de Vega, Antonio de Eslava, Unamuno y Pere Gimferrer. Su interés por la poesía del siglo XX se centra, actualmente, en la representación de la naturaleza y en la conciencia del paisaje como patrimonio cultural en la actual poesía.En el campo de la creación poética ha publicado: CCJ en las ciudades (Madrid, 2002). Hacia Esmeralda (Almería, 2004). Esmeralda (Madrid, 2005). Aguas profundas (Madrid, 2008). Praderas de posidonia (en prensa). Julia Barella is Associate Professor of Spanish Literature and Director of the Writing Workshop at the University of Alcalá, and she is a poet. Her research concerns Baroque prose, 20th century poets, literature and film, and ecocriticism. She has edited works on Lope de Vega, Antonio de Eslava, Unamuno and Pere Gimferrer. Her interest in 20th century poetry is centered on the representation of nature and, in contemporary poetry, the awareness of landscape as part of the cultural heritage.Her poetic publications include CCJ en las ciudades (Madrid, 2002). Hacia Esmeralda (Almería, 2004). Esmeralda (Madrid, 2005). Aguas profundas (Madrid, 2008). Praderas de posidonia (en prensa).

Introduction «I have never worked in the technocratic exaltation, solving a constructive problem and that’s it. I’ve always tried to interpret the space of human life» (Vittorio Garatti). Vittorio Garatti (Milan, April 6, 1927) is certainly one of the last witnesses of one “heroic” season of Italian architecture. In 1957 he graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic of Milan with a thesis proposing the redesign of a portion of the historic centre of Milan: the area between “piazza della Scala”, “via Broletto”, “via Filodrammatici” and the gardens of the former Olivetti building in via Clerici. These are the years in which Ernesto Nathan Rogers established himself as one of the main personalities of Milanese culture. Garatti endorses the criticism expressed by Rogers to the approval of the Rationalist “language” in favour of an architecture that recovers the implications of the place and of material culture. The social responsibility of architecture and connections between architecture and other forms of artistic expression are the invariants of all the activity of the architect, artist and graphic designer of Garatti. It will be Ernesto Nathan Rogers who will offer him the possibility of experiencing these “contaminations” early: in 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffaella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, he designs the preparation of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. The temporary installations will be a privileged area in which Garatti will continue to experiment and integrate the qualities of artist, graphic designer and architect with each other. Significant examples of this approach are the Art Schools in Cuba 1961-63, the residential complex of Cusano Milanino in 1973, the Attico Cosimo del Fante in 1980, the fittings for the Bubasty shops in 1984, the Camogli residence in 1986, his house atelier in Brera in 1988 and the interiors of the Hotel Gallia in 1989. True architecture generates itself1: an approach that was consolidated over the years of collaboration with Raúl Villanueva in Venezuela and is fulfilled in Cuba in the project of the Art Schools, where Garatti makes use of a plurality of tools that cannot be rigidly confined to the world of architecture. In 1957, in Caracas, he came into contact with Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi. Ricardo Porro, who returned to Cuba in 1960, will be the one to involve Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi in the Escuelas Nacional de Arte project. The three young architects will be the protagonists of a happy season of the architecture of the Revolution, they will be crossed by that “revolutionary” energy that Ricardo Porro has defined as “magical realism”. As Garatti recalls: it was a special moment. We designed the Schools using a method developed in Venezuela. We started from an analysis of the context, understood not only as physical reality. We studied Cuban poets and painters. Wifredo Lam was a great reference. For example, Lezama Lima’s work is clearly recalled in the plan of the School of Ballet. We were pervaded by the spirit of the revolution. The contamination between knowledge and disciplines, the belief that architecture is a “parasitic” discipline are some of the themes at the centre of the conversation that follows, from which a working method that recognizes architecture as a “social transformation” task emerges, more precisely an art with a social purpose. Garatti often cites Porro’s definition of architecture: architecture is the poetic frame within which human life takes place. To Garatti architecture is a self-generating process, and as such it cannot find fulfilment within its disciplinary specificity: the disciplinary autonomy is a contradiction in terms. Architecture cannot be self-referencing, it generates itself precisely because it finds the sense of its social responsibility outside of itself. No concession to trends, to self-referencing, to the “objectification of architecture”, to its spectacularization. Garatti as Eupalino Valery shuns “mute architectures” and instead prefers singing architectures. A Dialogue of Luigi Alini with Vittorio Garatti Luigi Alini. Let’s start with some personal data. Vittorio Garatti. I was born in Milan on April 6, 1927. My friend Emilio Vedova told me that life could be considered as a sequence of encounters with people, places and facts. My sculptor grandfather played an important role in my life. I inherited the ability to perceive the dimensional quality of space, its plasticity, spatial vision from him. L.A. Your youth training took place in a dramatic phase of history of our country. Living in Milan during the war years must not have been easy. V.G. In October 1942 in Milan there was one of the most tragic bombings that the city has suffered. A bomb exploded in front of the Brera Academy, where the Dalmine offices were located. With a group of boys we went to the rooftops. We saw the city from above, with the roofs partially destroyed. I still carry this image inside me, it is part of that museum of memory that Luciano Semerani often talks about. This image probably resurfaced when I designed the ballet school. The idea of a promenade on the roofs to observe the landscape came from this. L.A. You joined the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic in May 1946-47. V.G. Milan and Italy were like in those years. The impact with the University was not positive, I was disappointed with the quality of the studies. L.A. You have had an intense relationship with the artists who gravitate around Brera, which you have always considered very important for your training. V.G. In 1948 I met Ilio Negri, a graphic designer. Also at Brera there was a group of artists (Morlotti, Chighine, Dova, Crippa) who frequented the Caffè Brera, known as “Bar della Titta”. Thanks to these visits I had the opportunity to broaden my knowledge. As you know, I maintain that there are life’s appointments and lightning strikes. The release of Dada magazine provided real enlightenment for me: I discovered the work of Kurt Schwitters, Theo Van Doesburg, the value of the image and three-dimensionality. L.A. You collaborated on several projects with Ilio Negri. V.G. In 1955 we created the graphics of the Lagostina brand, which was then also used for the preparation of the exhibition at the “Fiera Campionaria” in Milan. We also worked together for the Lerici steel industry. There was an extraordinary interaction with Ilio. L.A. The cultural influence of Ernesto Nathan Rogers was strong in the years you studied at the Milan Polytechnic. He influenced the cultural debate by establishing himself as one of the main personalities of the Milanese architectural scene through the activity of the BBPR studio but even more so through the direction of Domus (from ‘46 to ‘47) and Casabella Continuità (from ‘53 to ‘65). V.G. When I enrolled at the university he was not yet a full professor and he was very opposed. As you know, he coined the phrase: God created the architect, the devil created the colleague. In some ways it is a phrase that makes me rethink the words of Ernesto Che Guevara: beware of bureaucrats, because they can delay a revolution for 50 years. Rogers was the man of culture and the old “bureaucratic” apparatus feared that his entry into the University would sanction the end of their “domain”. L.A. In 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, all graduating students of the Milan Polytechnic, you designed the staging of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. V.G. The project for the Exhibition of Musical Instruments at the Milan Triennale was commissioned by Rogers, with whom I subsequently collaborated for the preparation of the graphic part of the Castello Sforzesco Museum, together with Ilio Negri. We were given a very small budget for this project. We decided to prepare a sequence of horizontal planes hanging in a void. These tops also acted as spacers, preventing people from touching the tools. Among those exhibited there were some very valuable ones. We designed slender structures to be covered with rice paper. The solution pleased Rogers very much, who underlined the dialogue that was generated between the exhibited object and the display system. L.A. You graduated on March 14, 1957. V.G. The project theme that I developed for the thesis was the reconstruction of Piazza della Scala. While all the other classmates were doing “lecorbusierani” projects without paying much attention to the context, for my part I worked trying to have a vision of the city. I tried to bring out the specificities of that place with a vision that Ernesto Nathan Rogers had brought me to. I then found this vision of the city in the work of Giuseppe De Finetti. I tried to re-propose a vision of space and its “atmospheres”, a theme that Alberto Savinio also refers to in Listen to your heart city, from 1944. L.A. How was your work received by the thesis commission? V.G. It was judged too “formal” by Emiliano Gandolfi, but Piero Portaluppi did not express himself positively either. The project did not please. Also consider the cultural climate of the University of those years, everyone followed the international style of the CIAM. I was not very satisfied with the evaluation expressed by the commissioners, they said that the project was “Piranesian”, too baroque. The critique of culture rationalist was not appreciated. Only at IUAV was there any great cultural ferment thanks to Bruno Zevi. L.A. After graduation, you left for Venezuela. V.G. With my wife Wanda, in 1957 I joined my parents in Caracas. In Venezuela I got in touch with Paolo Gasparini, an extraordinary Italian photographer, Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi, who came from Venice and had worked in Ernesto Nathan Rogers’ studio in Milan. Ricardo Porro worked in the office of Carlos Raúl Villanueva. The Cuban writer and literary critic Alejo Carpentier also lived in Caracas at that time. L.A. Carlos Raul Villanueva was one of the protagonists of Venezuelan architecture. His critical position in relation to the Modern Movement and the belief that it was necessary to find an “adaptation” to the specificities of local traditions, the characteristics of the places and the Venezuelan environment, I believe, marked your subsequent Cuban experience with the creative recovery of some elements of traditional architecture such as the portico, the patio, but also the use of traditional materials and technologies that you have masterfully reinterpreted. I think we can also add to these “themes” the connections between architecture and plastic arts. You also become a professor of Architectural Design at the Escuela de Arquitectura of the Central University of Caracas. V.G. On this academic experience I will tell you a statement by Porro that struck me very much: The important thing was not what I knew, I did not have sufficient knowledge and experience. What I could pass on to the students was above all a passion. In two years of teaching I was able to deepen, understand things better and understand how to pass them on to students. The Faculty of Architecture had recently been established and this I believe contributed to fuel the great enthusiasm that emerges from the words by Porro. Porro favoured mine and Gottardi’s entry as teachers. Keep in mind that in those years Villanueva was one of the most influential Venezuelan intellectuals and had played a leading role in the transformation of the University. Villanueva was very attentive to the involvement of art in architecture, just think of the magnificent project for the Universidad Central in Caracas, where he worked together with artists such as the sculptor Calder. I had recently graduated and found myself catapulted into academic activity. It was a strange feeling for a young architect who graduated with a minimum grade. At the University I was entrusted with the Architectural Design course. The relationships with the context, the recovery of some elements of tradition were at the centre of the interests developed with the students. Among these students I got to know the one who in the future became my chosen “brother”: Sergio Baroni. Together we designed all the services for the 23rd district that Carlos Raúl Villanueva had planned to solve the favelas problem. In these years of Venezuelan frequentation, Porro also opened the doors of Cuba to me. Through Porro I got to know the work of Josè Martì, who claimed: cult para eser libre. I also approached the work of Josè Lezama Lima, in my opinion one of the most interesting Cuban intellectuals, and the painting of Wilfredo Lam. L.A. In December 1959 the Revolution triumphed in Cuba. Ricardo Porro returned to Cuba in August 1960. You and Gottardi would join him in December and begin teaching at the Facultad de Arcuitectura. Your contribution to the training of young students took place in a moment of radical cultural change within which the task of designing the Schools was also inserted: the “new” architecture had to give concrete answers but also give “shape” to a new model of society. V.G. After the triumph of the Revolution, acts of terrorism began. At that time in the morning, I checked that they hadn’t placed a bomb under my car. Eisenhower was preparing the invasion. Life published an article on preparing for the invasion of the counterrevolutionary brigades. With Eisenhower dead, Kennedy activated the programme by imposing one condition: in conjunction with the invasion, the Cuban people would have to rise up. Shortly before the attempted invasion, the emigration, deemed temporary, of doctors, architects, university teachers etc. began. They were all convinced they would return to “liberated Cuba” a few weeks later. Their motto was: it is impossible for Americans to accept the triumph of the rebel army. As is well known, the Cuban people did not rise up. The revolutionary process continued and had no more obstacles. The fact that the bourgeois class and almost all the professionals had left Cuba put the country in a state of extreme weakness. The sensation was of great transformation taking place, it was evident. In that “revolutionary” push there was nothing celebratory. All available energies were invested in the culture. There were extraordinary initiatives, from the literacy campaign to the founding of international schools of medicine and of cinema. In Cuba it was decided to close schools for a year and to entrust elementary school children with the task of travelling around the country and teaching illiterate adults. In the morning they worked in the fields and in the evening they taught the peasants to read and write. In order to try to block this project, the counter-revolutionaries killed two children in an attempt to scare the population and the families of the literate children. There was a wave of popular indignation and the programme continued. L.A. Ricardo Porro was commissioned to design the Art Schools. Roberto Gottardi recalls that: «the wife of the Minister of Public Works, Selma Diaz, asked Porro to build the national art schools. The architecture had to be completely new and the schools, in Fidel’s words, the most beautiful in the world. All accomplished in six months. Take it or leave it! [...] it was days of rage and enthusiasm in which all areas of public life was run by an agile and imaginative spirit of warfare»2. You too remembered several times that: that architecture was born from a life experience, it incorporated enthusiasm for life and optimism for the future. V.G. The idea that generated them was to foster the cultural encounter between Africa, Asia and Latin America. A “place” for meeting and exchanging. A place where artists from all over the third world could interact freely. The realisation of the Schools was like receiving a “war assignment”. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara selected the Country Club as the place to build a large training centre for all of Latin America. They understood that it was important to foster the Latin American union, a theme that Simón Bolivar had previously wanted to pursue. Il Ché and Fidel, returning from the Country Club, along the road leading to the centre of Havana, met Selma Diaz, architect and wife of Osmany Cienfuegos, the Cuban Construction Minister. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara entrusted Selma Diaz with the task of designing this centre. She replied: I had just graduated, how could I deal with it? Then she adds: Riccardo Porro returned to Cuba with two Italian architects. Just think, three young architects without much experience catapulted into an assignment of this size. The choice of the place where to build the schools was a happy intuition of Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara. L.A. How did the confrontation develop? V.G. We had total freedom, but we had to respond to a functional programme defined with the heads of the schools. Five directors were appointed, one for each school. We initially thought of a citadel. A proposal that did not find acceptance among the Directors, who suggest thinking of five autonomous schools. We therefore decide to place the schools on the edge of the large park and to reuse all the pre-existing buildings. We imagined schools as “stations” to cross. The aim was to promote integration with the environment in which they were “immersed”. Schools are not closed spaces. We established, for example, that there would be no doors: when “everything was ours” there could not be a public and a private space, only the living space existed. L.A. Ricardo Porro recalled: I organised our study in the chapel of the former residence of the Serrà family in Vadado. It was a wonderful place [...]. A series of young people from the school of architecture came to help us […]. Working in that atmosphere, all night and all day was a poetic experience (Loomis , 1999). V.G. We felt like Renaissance architects. We walked around the park and discussed where to locate the schools. Imagine three young people discussing with total, unthinkable freedom. We decided that each of us would deal with one or more schools, within a global vision that was born from the comparison. I chose the Ballet School. Ivan Espin had to design the music school but in the end I did it because Ivan had health problems. Porro decided to take care of the School of Plastic Arts to support his nature as a sculptor. Gottardi had problems with the actors and directors, who could not produce a shared functional programme, which with the dancers was quite simple to produce. The reasons that led us to choose the different project themes were very simple and uncomplicated, as were those for identifying the areas. I liked hidden lands, I was interested in developing a building “embedded” in the ground. Ricardo, on the other hand, chose a hill on which arrange the school of Modern Art. Each of us chose the site almost instinctively. For the Classical Dance School, the functional programme that was provided to me was very meagre: a library, a deanery, an infirmary, three ballet classrooms, theoretical classrooms and one of choreography. We went to see the dancers while they were training and dancing with Porro. The perception was immediate that we had to think of concave and convex spaces that would welcome their movements in space. For a more organic integration with the landscape and to accommodate the orography of the area, we also decided to place the buildings in a “peripheral” position with respect to the park, a choice that allowed us not to alter the nature of the park too much but also to limit the distances to be covered from schools to homes. Selma Diaz added others to the first indications: remember that we have no iron, we have little of everything, but we have many bricks. These were the indications that came to us from the Ministry of Construction. We were also asked to design some large spaces, such as gyms. Consequently, we found ourselves faced with the need to cover large spans without being able to resort to an extensive use of reinforced concrete or wood. L.A. How was the comparison between you designers? V.G. The exchange of ideas was constant, the experiences flowed naturally from one work group to another, but each operated in total autonomy. Each design group had 5-6 students in it. In my case I was lucky enough to have Josè Mosquera among my collaborators, a brilliant modest student, a true revolutionary. The offices where we worked on the project were organised in the Club, which became our “headquarters”. We worked all night and in the morning we went to the construction site. For the solution of logistical problems and the management of the building site of the Ballet School, I was entrusted with an extraordinary bricklayer, a Maestro de Obra named Bacallao. During one of the meetings that took place daily at the construction site, Bacallao told me that in Batista’s time the architects arrived in the morning at the workplace all dressed in white and, keeping away from the construction site to avoid getting dusty, they transferred orders on what to do. In this description by we marvelled at the fact that we were in the construction site together with him to face and discuss how to solve the different problems. In this construction site the carpenters did an extraordinary job, they had considerable experience. Bacallao was fantastic, he could read the drawings and he managed the construction site in an impeccable way. We faced and solved problems and needs that the yard inevitably posed on a daily basis. One morning, for example, arriving at the construction site, I realised the impact that the building would have as a result of its total mono-materiality. I was “scared” by this effect. My eye fell on an old bathtub, inside which there were pieces of 10x10 tiles, then I said to Bacallao: we will cover the wedges between the ribs of the bovedas covering the Ballet and Choreography Theatre classrooms with the tiles. The yard also lived on decisions made directly on site. Also keep in mind that the mason teams assigned to each construction site were independent. However the experience between the groups of masons engaged in the different activities circulated, flowed. There was a constant confrontation. For the workers the involvement was total, they were building for their children. A worker who told me: I’m building the school where my son will come to study. Ricardo Porro was responsible for the whole project, he was a very cultured man. In the start-up phase of the project he took us to Trinidad, the old Spanish capital. He wanted to show us the roots of Cuban architectural culture. On this journey I was struck by the solution of fan windows, by the use of verandas, all passive devices which were entrusted with the control and optimisation of the comfort of the rooms. Porro accompanied us to those places precisely because he wanted to put the value of tradition at the centre of the discussion, he immersed us in colonial culture. L.A. It is to that “mechanism” of self-generation of the project that you have referred to on several occasions? V.G. Yes, just that. When I design, I certainly draw from that stratified “grammar of memory”, to quote Luciano Semerani, which lives within me. The project generates itself, is born and then begins to live a life of its own. A writer traces the profile and character of his characters, who gradually come to life with a life of their own. In the same way the creative process in architecture is self-generated. L.A. Some problems were solved directly on site, dialoguing with the workers. V.G. He went just like that. Many decisions were made on site as construction progressed. Design and construction proceeded contextually. The dialogue with the workers was fundamental. The creative act was self-generated and lived a life of its own, we did nothing but “accompany” a process. The construction site had a speed of execution that required the same planning speed. In the evening we worked to solve problems that the construction site posed. The drawings “aged” rapidly with respect to the speed of decisions and the progress of the work. The incredible thing about this experience is that three architects with different backgrounds come to a “unitary” project. All this was possible because we used the same materials, the same construction technique, but even more so because there was a similar interpretation of the place and its possibilities. L.A. The project of the Music School also included the construction of 96 cubicles, individual study rooms, a theatre for symphonic music and one for chamber music and Italian opera. You “articulated” the 96 cubicles along a 360-metre-long path that unfolds in the landscape providing a “dynamic” view to those who cross it. A choice consistent with the vision of the School as an open place integrated with the environment. V.G. The “Gusano” is a volume that follows the orography of the terrain. It was a common sense choice. By following the level lines I avoided digging and of course I quickly realized what was needed by distributing the volumes horizontally. Disarticulation allows the changing vision of the landscape, which changes continuously according to the movement of the user. The movements do not take place along an axis, they follow a sinuous route, a connecting path between trees and nature. The cubicles lined up along the Gusano are individual study rooms above which there are the collective test rooms. On the back of the Gusano, in the highest part of the land, I placed the theatre for symphonic music, the one for chamber music, the library, the conference rooms, the choir and administration. L.A. In 1962 the construction site stopped. V.G. In 1962 Cuba fell into a serious political and economic crisis, which is what caused the slowdown and then the abandonment of the school site. Cuba was at “war” and the country’s resources were directed towards other needs. In this affair, the architect Quintana, one of the most powerful officials in Cuba, who had always expressed his opposition to the project, contributed to the decision to suspend the construction of the schools. Here is an extract from a writing by Sergio Baroni, which I consider clarifying: «The denial of the Art Schools represented the consolidation of the new Cuban technocratic regime. The designers were accused of aristocracy and individualism and the rest of the technicians who collaborated on the project were transferred to other positions by the Ministry of Construction [...]. It was a serious mistake which one realises now, when it became evident that, with the Schools, a process of renewal of Cuban architecture was interrupted, which, with difficulty, had advanced from the years preceding the revolution and which they had extraordinarily accelerated and anchored to the new social project. On the other hand, and understandably, the adoption of easy pseudo-rationalist procedures prevailed to deal with the enormous demand for projects and constructions with the minimum of resources» (Baroni 1992). L.A. You also experienced dramatic moments in Cuba. I’m referring in particular to the insane accusation of being a CIA spy and your arrest. V.G. I wasn’t the only one arrested. The first was Jean Pierre Garnier, who remained in prison for seven days on charges of espionage. This was not a crazy accusation but one of the CIA’s plans to scare foreign technicians into leaving Cuba. Six months after Garnier, it was Heberto Padilla’s turn, an intellectual, who remained in prison for 15 days. After 6 months, it was my turn. I was arrested while leaving the Ministry of Construction, inside the bag I had the plans of the port. I told Corrieri, Baroni and Wanda not to notify the Italian Embassy, everything would be cleared up. L.A. Dear Vittorio, I thank you for the willingness and generosity with which you shared your human and professional experience. I am sure that many young students will find your “story” of great interest. V.G. At the end of our dialogue, I would like to remember my teacher: Ernesto Nathan Rogers. I’ll tell you an anecdote: in 1956 I was working on the graphics for the Castello Sforzesco Museum set up by the BBPR. Leaving the museum with Rogers, in the Rocchetta courtyard the master stopped and gives me a questioning look. Looking at the Filarete tower, he told me: we have the task of designing a skyscraper in the centre. Usually skyscrapers going up they shrink. Instead this tower has a protruding crown, maybe we too could finish our skyscraper so what do you think? I replied: beautiful! Later I thought that what Rogers evoked was a distinctive feature of our city. The characters of the cities and the masters who have consolidated them are to be respected. If there is no awareness of dialectical continuity, the city loses and gets lost. It is necessary to reconstruct the figure of the architect artist who has full awareness of his role in society. The work of architecture cannot be the result of a pure stylistic and functional choice, it must be the result of a method that takes various and multiple factors into analysis. In Cuba, for example, the musical tradition, the painting of Wilfredo Lam, whose pictorial lines are recognisable in the floor plan of the Ballet School, the literature of Lezama Lima and Alejo Carpentier and above all the Cuban Revolution were fundamental. We theorised this “total” method together with Ricardo Porro, remembering the lecture by Ernesto Nathan Rogers.