Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and exercises for Latin for Baccalaureate

The Generation of '98: Context and Identity

The Generation of '98 was a group of writers, thinkers, scientists, and artists who were deeply affected by the crisis of late nineteenth-century values. They believed that the 1898 war and the loss of the last remnants of what was the Spanish Empire presented an appropriate time for moral regeneration, as well as social and cultural development.

Literary Style and Language Renewal

The writers of the Generation of '98 were interested in the formal renewal proposed by modernist art, but they differed from them because they sought a simple and anti-rhetorical style. They aimed to renew and enrich the language with neologisms, yet they preferred to recover traditional Castilian lexical forms.

Core Themes:

Origins of the Narrative

Fernando III establishes Latin and Castilian as languages of rule. During the 13th century, collections of stories or enxiemplos emerged, intended to provide religious material.

Kalila and Dimna

A collection of tales of Indian origin, emphasizing morality based on sagacity, cunning, and emotional mastery.

Sendebar

A collection of Indian fables focusing on love, women, and greed.

Alfonso X, son of Ferdinand III, promoted Castilian as a unifying language between Christians, Jews, and Arabs. He aimed to document everything of political, social, economic, and scientific importance.

Themes

His work covers a wide variety of themes:

Rights

He endowed the people with clear and reasonable rules of law based on Roman law and contemporary...

The October Revolution and Birth of the USSR

Between September and November, the Bolsheviks emerged as the primary alternative to the Provisional Government. The Petrograd Soviet, headed by Leon Trotsky, along with the Moscow Soviet and other urban centers, sided with the Bolsheviks.

Prelude to Revolution: Russia in Crisis

Conditions of life notably worsened in Russia due to widespread shortages and administrative chaos.

Lenin's Return and Bolshevik Strategy

Lenin took advantage of this chaos to return to Petrograd from his exile. The Bolshevik leadership convinced their comrades to adopt the principle of armed insurrection. The Petrograd uprising was strategically deferred to coincide with the opening of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets...

Miguel de Unamuno: Philosophy and Literature

Unamuno cultivated various genres, including the essay, the novel, lyric poetry, and drama.

1. The Meaning of Life and the Hereafter

Composed of The Agony of Christianity and The Tragic Sense of Life. These works address problems of God and existentialism, where his ideas stand out for their originality. He did not believe in progress, arguing it does not serve to discover the existence of God.

2. The Concern for Spain

Unamuno evolved from a desire for reform and modernization of the country to a contrary stance, attempting to "Hispanize" Europe. He wrote Life of Don Quixote and Sancho.

Novels and Internal Conflict

Unamuno was interested in the internal conflict of his characters, often avoiding traditional...

General Characteristics of Roman Sculpture

Roman sculpture primarily preserved marble and stone statues, though materials like terracotta, plaster, wood, gold, silver, bronze, and ivory were also used. Sculptures were often polychromed; artists painted the lips, eyebrows, beard, hair, eyelashes, iris, and clothing.

The Roman sculptural expression focused mainly on two fields: the historic relief and the portrait. Most Roman sculptures of heroes and gods are copies of Greek prototypes.

The Role of Sculpture in Roman Society

In Roman cities, statues and sculptures were widely erected. The role of sculpture was interpreted as a testament to the political and social order that rested upon the Roman Empire.

Public buildings featured more profuse decoration...

Literature: The Building of America

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• He was one of America's greatest poets.
• He was born in Portland, Maine, and lived near the coast.
• The Battle of Lovell's Pond was his first poem.
• He graduated from Bowdoin College and later worked there as a teacher; he also traveled through Europe.
• He married Mary Potter, but she died.
• He later married Frances Appleton, and they had six children. She subsequently died when her dress caught on fire.
• He translated Dante's Divine Comedy.
• He was received by Queen Victoria.
• His topics were based on the history of America, family, translations, teaching, and philosophy.
• He was the author of The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls, The Children's Hour, The Cross of Snow, and A Psalm of Life.
• His work is characterized

Traditional Lyric

Traditional lyrics were sung and danced to. They were anonymous and their main theme was parallelism. They were simple.

• Alba: Songs at dawn, about the beloved woman.
• Songs of Mowing: Songs sung by workers during their workday.
• Serranillas: Lyrical and narrative compositions in verse, singing of the meeting with a loving *serrana* (mountain woman).
• Villancicos: Songs with rhyme that began to be sung in churches and were associated with Christmas.

Cult Lyric

Elaborate poetry, they were borne by minstrels.

• Jarcha: Written in Mozarabic. Loving theme, from a female perspective.
• Cantigas: Written in the prestigious Galician language.

Alfonso X: Cantigas to the Virgin Mary

420 compositions that tell of the Virgin Mary's miracles. They are divided...

Social and Political Commitment

In Madrid, Miguel Hernández experienced the coup against the Second Republic. He solidified his socio-political stance by joining the Communist Party. This commitment crystallized in his works Wind Village and The Man Stalks. Hernández was passionately rooted in solidarity with humanity. His poetry leans more towards social commentary than political rhetoric. Inspired by the 'winds of the people,' he engaged in solidarity actions and spoke out against injustice and exploitation. Until the war broke out, he wasn't strictly a revolutionary poet. The ballad form became his vehicle to encourage the fight. As time progressed, his vision of reality grew starker.

Wind Village (1937)

Wind Village is a thematically unified...

Love life and death: The poetry Hernández Miguel include three main themes: love, life and death. These three thematic issues will be found in its poetry and its treatment will evolve over the work of MH

In his first book, Expert in Lunas, love is closely linked to sensuality and sex, as the love theme is treated more carnal, and images and symbols that evoke the sexual elements are common. Examples of these references are "snake" when speaking of the penis or "nacre hostile" making the female body. Perito en Lunas In spite of the continuity of themes vitalita to nature, get a melancholic tone that pervades the landscape of sadness. This can be seen in the poem of Granada, which looks like an open wound. However, in the lightning that this...

Miguel Hernández: A Literary Journey

Early Influences and the Echo of Góngora

In 1927, the 300th anniversary of Luis de Góngora y Argote's death was commemorated. Poets across the nation paid tribute to him, much like they had for Lope, Quevedo, and Calderón. For Miguel Hernández, a newcomer to literary circles, this event solidified his vocation. Many analysts observe a temporary influence of Góngora in Hernández's early work, *Perito en Lunas*. However, Hernández did not merely imitate. He discovered a profound resonance with the richness of the Baroque language. Like Góngora before him, he amplified the meaning of words, lending even greater power to his writing. During this period, Hernández achieved success where his contemporaries...