Confronting History and Modernity in Mexican Narrative

• Author(s): Elisabeth Guerrero,
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Pages: 180
• ISBN_10: 0230606377
  ISBN_13: 9780230606371
  
• Language: en
• Categories: History / Historiography , Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General , Literary Criticism / General , Literary Criticism / American / General , Literary Criticism / Caribbean & Latin American , Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory , Political Science / Globalization , Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social , Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Caribbean & Latin American Studies , Social Science / Ethnic Studies / American / General ,

Description:...

Two motifs of an angel of history, one European and one Mexican, provide a theoretical framework for this book. The first is Walter Benjamin's interpretation of the Klee painting angelus novus, a figure that gazes upon the ruins of the past, powerless to repair the broken pieces as it keels into the future. Although Benjamin envisions history as catastrophe piled upon catastrophe, he also sees in this angel the possibility for redemption in divine destruction. Mexico City's key monument, the Angel of Independence, also embodies redemption and destruction through history, marking moments of staggering transformation beyond the conquest. Drawing from these two theoretical angels, the study delineates three major narrative tendencies in contemporary historical novels from Mexico. First, these novels humanize canonized heroes and bring them down to earth. Secondly, they demonumentalize the European legacy, renegotiating Europe's five hundred year bequest of conquest and colonialism. Thirdly, the novels have begun to recover secondary figures previously lost to history, particularly women and people of color. While these three tendencies apply throughout Latin America, they are particularly pronounced in Mexican literary production.