Title At face value : autobiographical writing in Spanish America / Sylvia Molloy

Published Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, ©1991

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 273 pages) Series Cambridge studies in Latin American and Iberian literature ; 4 Cambridge studies in Latin American and Iberian literature ; 4. Contents Machine derived contents note: Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I. The Scene of Reading: 1. The reader with the book in his hand -- 2. From serf to self: the autobiography of Juan Francisco Manzano -- 3. The theatrics of reading: body and book in Victoria Ocampo -- Part II. Childhood and Family Tales: 4. Childhood and exile: the Cuban paradise of the Countess of Merlin -- 5. A school for life: Miguel Cane's Juvenilia -- 6. The search for Utopia: Picn̤ Salas looks forward to the past -- 4. A game of cutouts: Norah Lange's Cuadernos de infancia -- Part III. Memory, Lineage and Representation: 8. Autobiography as history: a statue for posterity -- 9. Shrines and labyrinths: a place to remember -- 10. First memories, first myths: Vasconcelos' Ulises criollo -- Endnotes -- Bibliography -- Index Summary This study of Spanish American autobiography from its beginnings in the post-colonial nineteenth century to the present day concentrates mainly on cultural and historical issues. Spanish American autobiographies are fascinating hybrids, often wielding several discourses at once. They aspire to documentary status while unabashedly exalting the self, and dwell on personal experience while purporting to be exercises in historiography, the founding texts of a national archive. Professor Molloy examines a wide range of texts, from Sarmiento's Recuerdos de provincia to Victoria Ocampo's Autobiografia. She analyses their textual strategies, the generic affiliations they claim, their relationship to the European canon, and their dialogue with precursor texts, as well as their problematic use of memory and the ideological implications of their repressive tactics. This method enables her to identify perceptions of self and tensions between self and other, thus shedding light on the fluctuating place of the subject within a community.--Publisher description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 256-266) and index Notes English Print version record Subject Spanish American prose literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism Spanish American prose literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism Biography as a literary form. Autobiography. Self in literature. Biography. Biographies as Topic Autobiographies as Topic biographies (literary works) autobiography (genre) biography (general genre) Autobiography Biography as a literary form Self in literature Spanish American prose literature Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Form Electronic book LC no. 90001731 ISBN 9780511553844 0511553846 9780521022804 0521022800

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