The Spanish American Crónica Modernista, Temporality & Material Culture

Modernismo's Unstoppable Presses

Andrew Reynolds

2012
220 pages
ISBN 9781611484687
Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory

This study explores how Spanish American modernista writers incorporated journalistic formalities and industry models through the crónica genre to advance their literary preoccupations. Through a variety of modernista writers, including José Martí, Amado Nervo, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera and Rubén Darío, Reynolds argues that extra-textual elements - such as temporality, the material formats of the newspaper and book, and editorial influence - animate the modernista movement's literary ambitions and aesthetic ideology. Thus, instead of being stripped of an esteemed place in the literary sphere due to participation in the market-based newspaper industry, journalism actually brought modernismo closer to the writers' desired artistic autonomy. Reynolds uncovers an original philosophical and sociological dimension of the literary forms that govern modernista studies, situating literary journalism of the movement within historical, economic and temporal contexts. Furthermore, he demonstrates that journalism of the movement was eventually consecrated in book form, revealing modernista intentionality for their mass-produced, seemingly utilitarian journalistic articles. The Spanish American Crónica Modernista, Temporality, and Material Culture thereby enables a better understanding of how the material textuality of the crónica impacts its interpretation and readership.

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About the author:

Andrew Reynolds received his PhD in Hispanic literatures from Indiana University in 2009 and is currently an assistant professor of Spanish at West Texas A&M University. He investigates Spanish American modernismo, literary journalism, and material textuality in Spanish American letters in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His research seeks to understand how textual formats and print technologies impact cultural production and literary history in nineteenth and twentieth century Spanish America. He has recently published articles on these themes in Latin American Literary Review, A Contracorriente and Confluencia. Reynolds is currently preparing a book edition titled Global Modernisms and Modernities: On Masks and Maskings, which explores regional, national and transitional modernisms as they are represented through literature, art, history, architecture, drama, and cultural studies through the lenses of masks and maskings.

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eBook: 9781611484694