The Classics in South America: Five Case Studies

Description

This volume examines the long and complex history of the Greco-Roman tradition in South America, arguing that the Classics have played a crucial, though often overlooked, role in the self-definition in the New World. Chronicling and theorizing this history through a detailed analysis of five key moments, chosen from the early and late colonial period, the emancipatory era, and the 20th and 21st centuries, it also examines an eclectic selection of both literary and cinematographic works and artefacts such as maps, letters, scientific treatises, songs, monuments, political speeches, and even the drafts of proposals for curricular changes across Latin America. The heterogeneous cases analysed in this book reveal cultural anxieties that recur through different periods, fundamentally related to the ‘newness’ of the continent and the formation of identities imagined as both Western and non-Western – a genealogy of apprehensions that South American intellectuals and political figures have typically experienced when thinking of their own role in world history. In tracing this genealogy, The Classics in South America innovatively reformulates our understanding of well-known episodes in the cultural history of the region, while providing a theoretical and historical resource for further studies of the importance of the Classical tradition across Latin America. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Plus Ultra Prospective Classicisms on Latin America The Class of the Classics Greek and Latin America? A Summary of the Chapters Note on the Translations 1 Avatars Preliminaries Acosta, the Elder The Antarctic Ovid The Austral Muse Conclusions: Culling, Cultivation, and Culture 2 Chorographers Preliminaries The Borders of the New World: Pedro Nolasco Mere’s Maps of the Walls of Lima The Language of the New World: Rodrigo de Valdés’s Fundación y Grandezas Conclusions 3 Personae Preliminaries Hypermetric History: José Joaquínde Olmedo’s Victoria de Junín An Ides of March in September: The 1828 Conspiracy Against Bolívar Conclusions: History, Impersonation, Prosopopoeia 4 Mythographers Preliminaries The Other Asterion The Creation of a Carioca Orpheus Orpheus in Color Confi rmations, Rebuttals, and Antitheses Conclusions 5 Coda: Pedagogues Preliminaries Monuments to the Origin Back to Erice Bibliography Index