Latin American Literature - Research Paper Example

This paper is discusses the diverse aspects that are associated with Latin American literature. Latin American literature, in the early 20th century, was inspired by a literary movement, which was known as “Modernismo”. It also became a reality when the European’s domination of South America diminished because of the disastrous First World War. The weakening domination by the Europeans was a gateway towards liberation in the field of art especially, in literature. The strong nature of Latin American literature was evident when it inspired writers to have common political ideologies and joined in the Spanish Civil war.

In addition, more Poetry and fiction writers were inspired by World War I, Mexican and Soviet revolutions. “The Boom” was also a very crucial movement during the Cuban Revolution that inspired Latin American fiction literature (Echevarria 4). Some of the literature writers who made Latin American literature recognized in different parts of the world are Jorge Luis Borge, Julio Cortazar, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz and Pablo Neruda. The above individuals are not only writers, but also translators.

They have assisted in translating various literary works that have been done by different latin writers, and they have also translated their own works. Other Latin writers such as; Antonio Candido, Davi Arrigucci, Emir Rodriguez, Angel Rama, Raul Antelo and Haroldo de Campos have been instrumental in the process of bridging cultural literature existing in different parts of the larger Latin American region. In particular, the writer and translator, Haroldo de Campos, from Brazil has been referred to as the best theorist of translation.

De Campo’s involvement in translation is either direct, through translating various works, or indirect, through educating translators (Ocasio 14). His contribution in literature includes his writings on translation whereby he has provided various lessons to translators on the essence of translation. Latin American literature has also benefitted from De Campos’ indirect contributions in that a lot of works, which at first were written in Spanish have been translated by other translators to different languages, especially English.

Another writer come translator who is highly influential in Latin American literature is Octavio Paz. In Paz’s opinion, translation is a different creative activity, which is original on its own way (Balderston & Schwartz 4). Early poetry in Latin American literature entailed adapting various advances of symbolism to Latin poetry. Poetry was not limited to reflecting on nature, composing exquisite verses or expressing personal feelings, but it incorporated a desire of searching for truth and achieving beauty in poetic language (McGuirk 45).

The common way in which poetry in Latin America was spread through newspapers, magazines and popular songs. However, some poets looked for novelty and originality by spreading their art through other avenues. These poets found there breakthrough in the 1920s after embracing the “avant-garde movements”. In essence, the movement marked the graduation from modernismo to modernism. Modernism in poetry eliminated the aspect of traditional prosody (Echevarria 50). In conclusion, Latin American literature developed, from a yearning among numerous writers, to develop literary works th