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Utopia- an ideal place that does not exist in reality; pun referring to a non-existent place. Utopias are frequently depicted as places that have been lost, forgotten, or unknown to the society of the author. They are generally rediscovered by some fictitious, adventurous traveler who somehow ends up in a very distant and delightful land and then returns to tell stories about this fantastic place. (from Bedford Glossary of Critical Literary terms).
Utopia- In literature, a romance or other work describing an ideal commonwealth whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions. The word utopia first occurred in Sir Thomas More's book of that name. In Utopia More describes a pagan and communist city-state in which institutions and policies are entirely governed by reason. The order and dignity of such a state was intended to provide a notable contrast with his description of the unreasonable state of the Europe of his time, which he saw as being divided by self-interest and greed for power and riches. Utopias are far older than their name. Plato's Republic served as a model for many writers, from More to H.G. Wells. An early practical utopia was the comprehensive La citta del sole of Thomas Campanella. Francis Bacon's New Atlantis was practical in its scientific program but speculative concerning philosophy and religion. Puritanism produced many literary utopias, both religious and secular. The Common-Wealth of Oceana by James Harrington argued for the distribution of land as the condition of popular independence. G.A. Ellis' New Britain and Etinne Cabet's Voyage en Icarie were related to experimental communities in the United States that revealed the limitations of purely economic planning. Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Blithedale Romance was based party on his experiences at another such community, that of Brook Farm near Boston, Mass. Two influential utopias, however, had economic bases: Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy and Freidland by Theodore Herka. Wells in A Modern Utopia returned to speculation. Many utopias are satires that ridicule existent conditions rather than offering practical solutions for them. In this class are Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Samuel Butler's Erewhon. In the 20th century, a number of bitterly anti-utopian, or dystopian, novels appeared. Among these are The Iron Heel by Jack London, Me by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell. A recent example is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. (Meriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature).
Tropo- empleo de las palabras en sentido diferente al que habitualmente les corresponde, o sea, en sentido figurado. (Voces de Hispanoamerica).
Tropos- textos en prosa anadidos a los del oficio liturgico de la iglesia; los tropos se emplearon en la alta Edad Media y sol del origen del teatro sacro medieval. (Guia de Literatura Hispanoamericana).
Trope- a figure of speech, especially one that uses words in senses beyond their literal meaning. The theory of rhetoric has involved several disputed attempts to clarify the distinction between tropes (or figures of thought) and schemes (or figures of speech.) The most generally agreed distinction in modern theory is that tropes change the meanings of words, by a turn of sense, whereas schemes merely rearrange their normal order. The major figures that are agreed upon as being tropes are metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche, irony, personification, and hyperbole; litotes and periphrasis are also sometimes called tropes. The figurative sense of the word is sometimes called its tropological sense, tropology being the study of tropes, and especially of the spiritual meanings concealed behind the literal meanings of religious scriptures. In a second sense, the term was applied to the Middle Ages to certain additional passages introduced into church services. The most important of these, the quem quaeritis trope in the Easter Introit, is thought to have been the origin of the liturgical drama. (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms).
Trope- the use of a word or expression in a figurative sense. (Meriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature).
Positivismo- filosofía del francés Augusto Comte (1798-1857) que propone la renuncia a conocer la esencia misma de las cosas, y dirige la atención al conocimiento obtenido mediante la observación y la experiencia. (Voces de Hispanoamerica).
Positivism- A philosophical school emphasizing facts and the description of phenomena. Positivists have developed a mode of empirical investigation based on that of physical scientists pursuing factual, descriptive knowledge. Positivists also reject speculation, especially about matters of "ultimate concern," arguing that philosophy and the pursuit of knowledge ought to be concerned with humanity and its condition rather than with metaphysical issues. Positivism has its roots in the writings of the eighteenth -century philosophers George Berkley and David Hume, but its strongest proponent was the nineteenth-century Frenchman Auguste Comte, who coined the term. The positivist philosophy is pervasive in works by John Stuart Mill, such as On Liberty (1859). In the twentieth century, positivism has been further redefined and refined into a philosophy known as logical positivism, which has been championed by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein redefined the goal of positivism as the use of logic to elucidate human thought systematically. Logical positivism incorporates elements of experimental scientific and mathematical methods. Although positivism has had its most direct impact on philosophical and scientific methods, critics readily acknowledge the widespread impact it has had indirectly on literature and its analysis. The development of positivism coincided with the rise of realism and, subsequently, naturalism, literary movements whose practitioners attempted to observe, organize, and present reality logically and objectively to readers who, in turn, were expected to approach texts empirically, viewing descriptions, statements made by characters, and plot developments as evidence leading to some viewpoint or interpretive conclusion. This essentially empirical approach to texts is shared by several schools of literary criticism, most of which require interpreters to provide evidence for their analysis. Impressionistic criticism, personal criticism, and deconstruction are among the critical schools that have resisted the influence of positivism. (The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms)
Naturalismo- corriente literaria de mediados del siglo XIX que intenta presentar a la persona científicamente. Los naturalistas creían que la herencia biológica y el medio ambiente determinaban el desarrollo de cada persona; en sus escritos se destacaban lo feo y lo sórdido para mostrar la lucha por la existencia. El naturalismo tuvo un gran auge en Francia con los escritos de Emile Zola. (Voces).
Naturalism- A theory that art or literature should conform exactly to nature or depict every appearance of the subject that comes to the artist's attention; specifically, a theory in literature emphasizing the role of heredity and environment upon human life and character development. This theory was the basis of a late 19th and early 20th century aesthetic movement that, in literature, extended the tradition of realism, aiming at an even more faithful, unselective representation of reality, presented without moral judgment. Naturalism differed from realism in its assumption of scientific determinism, which led naturalistic authors to emphasize the accidental, physiological nature of their characters rather than their moral or rational qualities. Individual characters were seen as helpless products of heredity and environment, motivated by strong instinctual drives from within, and harassed by social and economic pressures from without. Naturalism originated in France, where the leading exponent of the movement was Emile Zola, whose essay "Le Roman experimental" became the literary manifesto of the school. With Zola's example the naturalistic style became widespread and affected to varying degrees most of the major writers of the period. Despite their claim to complete objectivity, the naturalists were handicapped by certain biases inherent in their deterministic theories. They depicted nature as "red in tooth and claw," portrayed simple characters dominated by strong, elemental passions, and documented oppressive environments, often in dreary and sordid detail. Finally, they were unable to suppress an element of romantic protest against the social conditions they described. In American literature, naturalism had a delayed booming in the work of Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Jack London, and reached its peak in the novels of Theodore Dreiser. (Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature).
Civilización y barbarie-en La Vida de Juan Facundo Quiroga, no es una historia, ni biografía, ni novela, ni sociología: es la visión de un país por un joven ansioso de actuar desde dentro como fuerza transformadora. Las ciudades son islotes de la civilización: la pampa rodea y engulle como un mar de barbarie. De las campañas vienen los gauchos, cuchillo en mano: son meras manifestaciones bravías de la naturaleza, sin iniciativa histórica. Los hombres de la ciudad son los que suscitan fases progresivas en el correr de la civilización. En tal escenario, con tales actores, el drama político desde 1810 ha transcurrido en dos actos: 1) la revolución de Mayo y la independencia significaron el combate de las ideas europeas y liberales que se asentaban en las ciudades contra el absolutismo de una España que ya no creaba valores espirituales pero que regía con su peso tradicional; 2) luego sobreviene la anarquía, porque de las llanuras inmensas del país se sueltan hordas resentidas contra las ciudades cultas. La Argentina, dice Sarmiento, está dominada por figuras tan sombrías como Juan Facundo Quiroga y Juan Manuel de Rosas. Muerto Facundo, hay que derribar a Rosas. Pero eso no bastaría. Después de todo Rosas es sólo una encarnación de la realidad bárbara. Es la realidad misma la que debe transformarse. Y ahora el autor avanza hasta el público y propone un programa político de reconstrucción nacional: la educación pública, la inmigración europea y el progreso técnicoeconómico. Esta dialéctica era tan simple que el mismo Sarmiento la encontró insuficiente y, a lo largo del libro, tuvo que complicarla con paradojas, saltos y salvedades que llegan a contradecir su tesis. Las campañas no eran tan bárbaras; las ciudades no eran tan civilizadas. Además, Sarmiento simpatizaba estéticamente con las costumbres gauchas que desdeñaba en nombre de sus principios políticos. Dentro del esquema dinámico con que Sarmiento dió sentido a su percepción del país- civilización contra barbarie- la sombra terrible de Facundo cobró una pujante realidad artística porque no era un tema retórico, sino una patética presencia de sus entrañas. (Literatura Hispanoamericana - Tomo 1).