Baroque New Worlds: Representation, Transculturation, Counterconquest
Edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora
and Monika Kaup
2010, Duke University Press
671 pages, plates
THIS key text on Latin American culture examines the Baroque through the work both of classic thinkers and writers – the essays of some of whom are translated here for the first time – as well as more contemporary analytical research. In 29 substantive contributions, many of which will prove to be key points of reference, the contributors explore the Baroque aesthetics and ideology in the regions colonised by Catholic Europe, and how in the New World these were radically inverted to become what is referred to as Neobaroque. The anthology includes essays that re-evaluate the European Baroque by Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin and Eugenio d’Ors. Revisionist approaches include the work of such notable Latin American writers as Alejo Carpentier, José Lezama Lima and Severo Sarduy. There are some gems throughout this collection, but among others Carlos Fuentes’ “The Novel as Tragedy: William Faulkner” is a tour de force. – GJ
