Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Arts and Humanities

Mendoza's Narrative Craft in The Savolta Case

Eduardo Mendoza's novel, The Truth About the Savolta Case, demonstrates a keen focus on technical literary treatment, equally valuing it alongside the compelling narrative. Mendoza champions the pleasure of storytelling, an element he feels is often forgotten in recent narrative trends.

Barcelona 1917-1919: A Tumultuous Backdrop

The novel collects the final memories of Javier Miranda, both a spectator and protagonist of events in Barcelona from 1917 to 1919. It delves into social tensions within a company headed by Lepprince, intertwined with a love plot. This narrative combines individual incidents with events characteristic of a collective historical novel.

Themes: Social, Political, and Existential

Understanding Dialogue

Dialogue is a text constructed in collaboration between several partners, sometimes acting as the issuer and other times as the receiver.

Characteristics of Everyday Dialogue

• Occurs in daily life.
• Relaxed pronunciation.
• Not prepared in advance.
• Uses common language.
• Often includes exclamatory sentences.

Setup of a Formal Dialogue

A formal dialogue (such as a discussion or interview) includes a moderator who directs and governs the conversation, and one or more participants who are experts in the field.

Literary Dialogues

Literary dialogues appear in literary works, including narratives, where they may be presented directly or indirectly.

Direct Speech

In direct speech, the narrator interrupts their narrative and uses a verb (e.g.,... Continue reading "Understanding Dialogue, Exposition, Argumentation & Linguistics" »

Radio: Characteristics and Functions

Radio is a medium that allows the transmission and reception of sound via electromagnetic waves. Its key characteristics include:

• Direct and personal connection: It fosters a unique bond with the listener.
• Multitasking: It allows audio elements—voice, music, and sound effects—to be combined with other activities.
• Flexibility: It offers rich content and immediate, continuous time perception.

Radio Formula

Radio formula refers to broadcasters that dedicate their programming to a specific topic. While most utilize music-based formats, others focus on specialized content such as health, sports, or news.

The Role of Music in Radio

• Structural element: Serves as background to fill neutral spaces and facilitate smooth

Masterpiece of the Contarelli Chapel

The Calling of St. Matthew (1598–1600) by Caravaggio is a monumental oil on canvas measuring 3.22 x 3.40 m, located in the Church of St. Louis of the French in Rome. Cardinal Contarelli commissioned Caravaggio to decorate a chapel in the church with three paintings depicting scenes from the life of Saint Matthew. On the altar is St. Matthew and the Angel, while the sides feature The Calling of St. Matthew on the left and The Martyrdom of St. Matthew on the right.

Commission and Biblical Inspiration

The artist illustrates the Gospel passage describing the conversion of Saint Matthew:

"Jesus passed by, he saw a man sitting at the tax office, named Matthew, and said follow me. And he arose and followed him" (

Novecentism: The Generation of 1914

In the early decades of the twentieth century, a new movement of liberal thinkers, known as the Novecentists (or the Generation of 1914), emerged. They championed a project of reform and transformation for Spain, aiming to modernize the country. Their influence spanned economic and social contexts, manifesting strongly in literary, journalistic, scientific, and artistic fields. This was an elite group characterized by notable public activity.

Salient Features of Novecentism

• Europeanization: They believed renewal required fighting scientific backwardness, opposing the traditionalism and patriotism of the fin de siècle intellectuals (Generation of '98). They understood that national regeneration was inseparable

The Aesthetic Experience and Its Features

The work of art is driven by the intuition of beauty. Intuition is a living experience, both intellectual and emotional. Empiricist psychology tends to reduce aesthetic emotion to mere sensation or feeling. According to others, it reaches such complexity that it is accessible only to technical experts or selected spirits. It is the subject as a whole that is moved; deep powers of the self are fulfilled. The aesthetic seems to lie in the ability of objects to command our attention.

The aesthetic experience provides us with different pleasures. Each person, culture, and generation has privileged specific tastes, as the aesthetic experience is always a constructed one.

Key Features of Aesthetic Experience

• Amazement

Minimalism: From Revolutionary Russia to Today

The origins of minimalism can be traced back to the Russian artists of the revolutionary period, particularly through movements like Constructivism and Suprematism. A prime example is White on Black (1917) by Malevich. At first glance, minimalist works may appear simple, but ambiguities complicate their perceptual reception, making them reflexively complex. This contradicts Morris's assertion that "what you see is what you see."

Key Figures and Their Perspectives

• Greenberg viewed minimalism as innovative, mistaking it for bizarre, strange effects rather than recognizing the essential qualities of art, particularly its exploration of three-dimensionality.

• Wollheim saw minimalism as having a minimum

Introduction to Semantics

Semantics: As we have seen in studying the linguistic sign, words consist of a signifier (significante) and a signified (conceptual meaning), which are the qualities and actions associated with the signifier. In the same way that morphology studies the signal, the changes and evolution of meanings are studied by the linguistic discipline of semantics.

Denotation and Connotation

Denotation is the common meaning and purpose that words have for all speakers, which is collected and explained in dictionaries. This meaning is independent of context. We call connotation the subjective and particular meaning that a word (palabra) acquires in a given context.

Semantic and Associative Fields

A semantic field is a set (conjunto) of... Continue reading "Linguistic Semantics: Meaning, Context, and Evolution" »

Pío Baroja: Life and Style

Pío Baroja, the impressionistic novelist, was born in San Sebastián in 1872 and died in Madrid in 1956.

Pessimism

He was pessimistic, seeing life as a blind, uncontrollable force dominated by instincts, where the cruelty of the strong is imposed upon the weak. This pessimistic conception leads to distrusting everything, avoiding speaking or acting so as not to create 'idols,' and becoming closed off, which prevents communication with others, leading to misanthropy.

Impressionist Style

His style is impressionistic: he does not construct his narratives with solid, closed arguments, but everything is outlined, using impressionist techniques. He describes spaces and environments quickly, with vague sensations. The psychology... Continue reading "Pío Baroja and the Generation of '98" »

Features of the Narrative Genre

Event and Plot

The events are the occurrences, past or present, in the story. These events form the plot.

• Closed Linear Structure: Has a beginning, middle, and end.
• Open Non-linear Structure: Episodes accumulate without following a strict timeline.

Characters

Characters develop the narrative action and intervene in the story.

• The protagonist is the principal character.
• The antagonist is the character who opposes the hero.
• Some works feature collective characters, involving many characters where none stand out above the others.

Based on characterization, characters can be:

• Archetypal: Representing universal patterns.
• Psychological Models: Described with multiple features and evolving throughout the work.

Time

Time is another... Continue reading "Narrative Genre: Elements, Structure, and Forms" »