This Companion provides a chronological survey of Latin American poetry, analysis of modern trends and six succinct essays on the major figures.

The Cambridge Companion to Latin American Poetry provides historical context on the evolution of the Latin American poetic tradition from the sixteenth century to the present day. It is organized into three parts. Part I provides a comprehensive, chronological survey of Latin American poetry and includes separate chapters on Colonial poetry, Romanticism/modernism, the avant-garde, conversational poetry, and contemporary poetry. Part II contains six succinct essays on the major figures Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Gabriela Mistral, César Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and Octavio Paz. Part III analyses specific and distinctive trends within the poetic canon, including women's, LGBT, Quechua, Afro-Hispanic, Latino/a and New Media poetry. This Companion also contains a guide to further reading as well as an essay on the best English translations of Latin American poetry. It will be a key resource for students and instructors of Latin American literature and poetry.

Publisher Description

This Companion covers American literary history from European colonization to the early republic. It provides a succinct introduction to the major themes and concepts in the field of early American literature, including new world migration, indigenous encounters, religious and secular histories, and the emergence of American literary genres. This book guides readers through important conceptual and theoretical issues, while also grounding these issues in close readings of key literary texts from early America.

A COMPANION TO LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE “The work contains a wealth of information that must surely provide the basic material for a number of study modules. It should find a place on the library shelves of all institutions where Latin American studies form part of the curriculum.” Reference Review “In short, this is a fascinating panoply that goes from a reevaluation of pre-Columbian America to an intriguing consideration of recent developments in the debate on the modem and postmodern. Summing Up: Recommended.” CHOICE A Companion to Latin American Literature and Culture reflects the changes that have taken place in cultural theory and literary criticism since the latter part of the twentieth century. Written by more than thirty experts in cultural theory, literary history, and literary criticism, this authoritative and up-to-date reference places major authors in the complex cultural and historical contexts that have compelled their distinctive fiction, essays, and poetry. This allows the reader to more accurately interpret the esteemed but demanding literature of authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, and Diamela Eltit. Key authors whose work has defined a period, or defied borders, as in the cases of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, César Vallejo, and Gabriel García Márquez, are also discussed in historical and theoretical context. Additional essays engage the reader with in-depth discussions of forms and genres, and discussions of architecture, music, and film This text provides the historical background to help the reader understand the people and culture that have defined Latin American literature and its reception. Each chapter also includes short selected bibliographic guides and recommendations for further reading.

This book offers a comprehensive introduction to studying the diversity of American poetry in the twenty-first century.

The diverse countries of Latin America have produced a lively and ever evolving tradition of novels, many of which are read in translation all over the world. This Companion offers a broad overview of the novel's history and analyses in depth several representative works by, for example, Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez, Machado de Assis, Isabel Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa. The essays collected here offer several entryways into the understanding and appreciation of the Latin American novel in Spanish-speaking America and Brazil. The volume conveys a real sense of the heterogeneity of Latin American literature, highlighting regions whose cultural and geopolitical particularities are often overlooked. Indispensable to students of Latin American or Hispanic studies and those interested in comparative literature and the development of the novel as genre, the Companion features a comprehensive bibliography and chronology and concludes with an essay about the success of Latin American novels in translation.