Ricardo Palma

Ricardo Palma

Ricardo Palma , actually Manuel Ricardo Palma, (born February 7, 1833 in Lima , Peru ; † October 6, 1919 ibid) was a Peruvian writer and poet and is considered the "creator of a new literary genre ", the so-called Tradición ("Tradition ").

Life

"Palma is the representative of more genuino del carácter Peru, it is the escritor represenativo de nuestros criollos."

"Palma is the most original representative of the Peruvian character, the author par excellence for our Creoles."

- José de la Riva-Aguero y Osma

Ricardo Palma was born in Lima, the capital of Peru on the Pacific coast , in 1833 . He came from a modest background and had a restless youth. He received his education, among other things, at the Royal Konvikt San Carlos in Lima, which was founded in 1770 , and it is said that he was mainly self-taught . In addition, in his youth he read Spanish, but above all French, novels and poems, which was not unusual at the time. The 19th century in Latin America was shaped by the independence movements . In their strict rejection of everything Spanish, the Latin Americans were particularly interested in French and English literature .

After attending various higher education institutions, he was hired for eight years in the Peruvian Navy and served on several ships. However, he did not spend the entire time at sea, but also stayed on land for longer periods and devoted himself to writing. His literary work began very early. In the 1850s, he wrote mostly emotional, melancholy literature. The Latin American poets found their role models in European Romanticism . Palma was influenced by the Spaniards José de Espronceda , José Zorrilla y Moral and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer as well as the French Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset . He joined the romantic movement and joined the literary club “Bohemia Romántica” in Lima.

At the age of 15 he worked for the newspaper El Diablo (1848) and later also for El Burro (1852). For many authors at the time, the journalist profession was a means of being able to write and to find a public hearing. It was customary to take turns writing for different press organs and thus making a name for oneself. Palma did just that, and in the course of his life he wrote for more than twelve different newspapers.

After his adventures at sea, Palma also became active in the political field. The "revolution" under the leadership of Ramón Castilla in 1854 led to the beginning of the nation-state consolidation of the young Republic of Peru. The abolition of slavery and the abolition of Indian tributes, the first successes of liberalism . In line with the zeitgeist of the time, the majority of Latin American writers were liberal or radical , and many authors harbored political ambitions. Palma's collaboration on the El Liberal newspaper in 1858 is therefore not surprising. In its demands for equality, however, Latin American liberalism was almost exclusively oriented towards the bourgeois-elitist Creole minority, which governed the newly formed republics that were independent of Spain . Social life was determined by the strict separation of ideological camps and, in the social sphere, between ruling and serving classes .

Palma's involvement in political disputes within the Liberals led in 1860 to his expulsion from the country and the years 1860–1863 in exile in Chile . This did not stop him from continuing to work for the political journal La Revista de Lima , for which he had been writing since 1859 , up to and including 1863 . In exile he went through an intellectual maturation process and moved away from the purely emotional romanticism towards the historicist romanticism. He was able to pursue his great interest in history primarily in the private libraries of his Chilean friends.

In 1864, Palma took a trip to Europe . As a great lover of French literature , he insisted on visiting Paris , a center of artistic creativity, as well as Venice . When he returned to Peru, he continued his political activity. In 1866 he fought with the Peruvian military in the Spanish-South American War in the defense of Callao against the Spanish troops. A little later, in 1869, he was appointed senator and received the post of personal secretary to the Peruvian President José Balta . His position as a civil servant also increased his prestige as a writer. However, from 1872 he withdrew from active political life - deterred by the turmoil connected with the bloody military coup against the president. He expanded his journalistic activities for the liberal newspaper La Campana and, from 1867, for El Constitucional , and from 1872 to 1877 also worked for El Correo del Perú .

Peruvian lore.

In 1872 his son Clemente was born, who later became a writer and journalist like his father. The year 1872 also marked an important course in Palma’s life for another reason: It was the year of the publication of the first series of his now famous Tradiciones peruanas (“Peruvian Lore”). From then on, Palma published with a certain regularity new stories in the historical-literary narrative form of Tradiciones he had created in the press, especially in El Correo del Perú , for which he himself worked as an editor. In 1876 he married Cristina Román, with whom he had a daughter named Angélica in 1878. Like her father, she too later became a writer and developed into a well-known novelist. At that time Ricardo Palma began to write again for the newspaper La Broma and a year later for La Revista Peruana .

The first Tradiciones reflect the growing national consciousness of the Creole elite of Peru, which was fundamental for the development of national literature. The saltpeter war with Chile (1879-1884), which ended with a catastrophic and humiliating defeat for the Peruvians (conquest of the capital Lima on January 17, 1881), caused a serious break in the liberal consensus of the Latin American republicans . In 1881, not only was Palma's house in Miraflores , a suburb of Lima, looted, but also the National Library of Lima. Ricardo Palma was specially hired by the state in 1883 to rebuild the library. He became known as bibliotecario mendigo , the “begging librarian”, as he missed almost no opportunity to write to wealthy friends and intellectuals inside and outside Peru and to ask for donations to the library. Palma thus became a civil servant literary figure, and his role came close to the European concept of the "bourgeois poet". In addition to this intensive work, he continued to write for several newspapers: he worked for El Perú Ilustrado from 1887 to 1891, for El Ateneo in 1887, and finally in 1891 he also worked for La Ilustración Sudamericana . He held the post of director of the National Library, which was reopened in 1884, for almost 30 years until 1912. The library, which was rebuilt and cared for with great devotion, has thus become part of his work and legacy.

In 1912 he handed over the management of the national library to Manuel González Prada , a long-time opponent and sharp critic of Palma in the disputes between literary traditionalists and modernists, to whom Palma's spelling seemed too old-fashioned and artificial. Ricardo Palma died on October 6, 1919 in his home in Miraflores.

plant

Assignment and meaning

Cedomil Goic assigned Ricardo Palma to the third generation of romantics, who emerged in Latin America from 1867 . The outstanding writers of his time include Alberto Blest Gana (1830–1920) in Chile, Jorge Isaacs (1837–1896) in Colombia and Juan Montalvo (1832–1889) in Ecuador . The writers of that time were characterized above all by a changed attitude to politics and brought with them a new interest in the colonial past. There were also approaches to a socially critical realism that are reminiscent of Honoré de Balzac . Grossmann sees the romantic aspect of Palma's work, particularly in the Tradiciones peruanas, in the "lack of plan of the whole". In contrast, Grossmann sees a characteristic feature of literary realism in the use of real or fictitious historical documents, which Palma practiced widely.

The importance of Ricardo Palma for the literary history of Latin America is mainly based on the newly created literary genre of Tradición . He went beyond the conventional framework of the literary forms known at the time. While Latin American authors had always remained loyal to European models through all literary epochs with their respective genres, Ricardo Palma created something completely new here, something especially Latin American.

Work characteristics

Ricardo Palma is considered a representative of literary traditionalism, who values ​​the old order despite his liberal attitude and holds it high: He loves the past, wants to preserve and defend its values ​​and react defensively and indignantly to fashions and contemporary phenomena, which he often satirized and sometimes ironically also attacks very polemically. Rubén Bareiro Saguier describes Palma as the creator of a “colonialist myth” in Hispanic American literature, which deliberately glorifies the “good old days” - the Spanish viceroyalty.

Palma's style is considered to be particularly artistic and inventive within the romantic- costumbrist prose literature of the 19th century, at the same time creative, artificial and robust, whereby he always looks for the “real” and “authentic” expression in his stories that he gives to the “common people “In the mouth to set a heroic monument to his straightforward and blunt way of speaking. To this end, he often uses archaic-looking linguistic means that are supposed to evoke memories of the “old days”, but can also offend the reader with their exaggerated pathos and the peculiarly contrasting, snubber simplicity.

In addition to his well-known Tradiciones , he also wrote solemn poems , plays and historical essays . He also worked on the lexicographical elaboration of the Diccionario de peruanismo ("Lexicon of Peruvian Sayings") by Pedro Paz-Soldán y Unánue, who published under the pseudonym "Juan de Arona". Like Rodríguez Galván before him, Palma also translated European literature into Spanish, such as works by Victor Hugo from French. He also devoted himself enthusiastically to German-language poetry and translated poems by Heine , Uhland , Mörike and Lenau .

chronology

Ricardo Palma's literary output is very extensive and started early. At the age of 18 he wrote naive texts with a traditional background, but which bore no resemblance to his later Tradiciones ; he himself never referred to these works as such. They were romantic legends that hardly stand out from the numerous similar productions of the time. Nonetheless, his first work Consolación (1851) already offers information about his future personal style . The Poesías followed in 1855 . Even in early stories such as El virrey de la adivinanza (1860) or Justos y pecadores (1862) he did not yet achieve the precise and pointed brevity of his later Tradiciones . The story Don Dimas de la Tijereta , published in 1864, is considered a model for the fully developed narrative form of Tradición : the historical content remains superficial; the novelty lies in the way the story is told. He uses a plastic language with expressions that prove his profound knowledge of the colloquial language of the time. In the following years in exile, he continued to work on the historical projects he began in 1860. He published the result of this work in 1863 in Anales de la Inquisición de Lima . Many of his later Tradiciones were fed from the knowledge that he read in the Chilean private libraries . In 1872 the first series of Tradiciones peruanas appeared . The second followed in 1874; The third and fourth in 1875 and 1877; by 1883 he published two more series. In 1889 he published the seventh series with the self-deprecating title Ropa vieja ("Old stuff"). Two years later, in 1891, Ropa apolillada (“From the moth box”) followed. Palma could not keep the promise made here that he would not write any more Tradiciones . In 1899 he published Cachivaches ("junk"), 1900 Tradiciones y artículos históricos ("Traditions and historical articles"), 1906 Últimas tradiciones ("Last Tradiciones ") and finally in 1911 Apéndice a mis últimas tradiciones ("Addendum to my last traditions") . According to Oviedo, the best Tradiciones can be found in the first eight series.

Tradiciones peruanas

What is the Tradición?

The Tradición, a kind of short story , is translated as tradition. There have been many attempts to define the narrative genre that emerged in the “[…] area of ​​intersection between reality and fiction , documentary historiography and literary text” , especially by Ricardo Palma himself.

For the tradition, Ricardo Palmas put it in his own words: “Algo, y aun algos, de mentira y tal cual dose de verdad, por infinitesimal u homeopática que ella sea, muchísimo de esmero y pulimento en el lenguaje y cata la receta para escribir tradiciones. "

Because the “Tradición is not what one actually understands by 'history', but a form of popular narration, just right for the people's delight in invented stories. Mine were well received, not because they contained too much truth, but because they correspond to the spirit and means of expression of the many. "

José Miguel Oviedo puts forward a similar definition in which he defines the Tradición as the legacy of a people, whereby this inheritance, which in principle is always orally preserved, is linked for the Tradición with the different beliefs, history and the individual style of the people's imagination.

According to José de la Riva Agüero (1905), the Tradición, which originated in the overlapping area of ​​the genres, is a “producto del cruce de la leyenda romántica breve y el artículo de costumbres” . Half a century later Robert Bazin (1954) put it even more briefly. In his opinion, the tradition is the sum of three factors: "leyenda romántica, artículo de costumbres y casticismo" .

By elevating history to a work of art in the form of tradición , according to Grossmann, Palma reaches the level of literature. What is special is the simplification of the story with an additional emphasis on individual personalities, known or unknown. Palma thus achieved "a kind of historical fidelity of a higher order on a literary level" . The form of the Tradición is thus attributed to romantic historicism.

content

In Kindler's New Literature Lexicon , the “Tradiciones peruanas” are described as classics of Latin American literature. His more than 500 sketches and short stories presented, in short, “a picture of Peruvian folk life from the beginnings of colonial times to the present [Palmas]” . A nostalgic note can not be denied in the Tradiciones peruanas , but it is possible more in to see them as a pure revival of the past. Because although they are very popular in their time, Palma’s anti-authoritarian and above all critical way of writing is all too obvious. Whoever reads between the lines can see, hidden behind the slight irony , the humor and sarcasm , that Palma was very keen to make a “contribution to the question of the spiritual structure of its country” with the Tradiciones . Using various sources such as folk songs , proverbs , travel books, diatribes and mission reports, etc., he developed an all-encompassing picture of Peru. With his stories of “everyday customs, church festivals, family scenes, military undertakings, gossip and little stories, folklore and cultural assets” , he succeeded in “nationalizing the colonial heritage” of Peru, according to Cornejo Polar.

Language and style

After Enrique Pupo-Walker, Ricardo Palma, as the only Latin American author, brought about the development of an undeniably picturesque and imaginative liveliness in his works. The special feature is the linguistic design of his texts. The Tradiciones peruanas show for Leo Pollmann "[...] the way to a new language Peruvian reality" . His cultivated expression shows a strong influence of the authors of the Siglo de Oro , but there is no doubt about the Peruvian origin. He enriched Spanish with neologisms , Americanisms and popular expressions. While some emphasize his typical Peruvian Spanish, others praise him above all for the skill with which he was able to combine vulgarisms and old-fashioned scholarly terms. Anderson Imbert therefore said about this problem that “in Palma the artistic still has a lot of colloquiality about it and, conversely, his way of chatting a lot of literature” . Ricardo Palma himself was very convinced of his style of Spanish and said, ironically and confidently, about this discussion of the language norms, that he deserved as much recognition as Cervantes for his style . Irony was one of Palma's greatest skills anyway. He was the master of the punch line . His kind of humor, also called “Chispa” by Peruvians, arises from a “dry mother tongue of naturally sensitive people” .

Criticism of the genre of Tradición

Manuel González Prada , a contemporary of Ricardo Palma , had criticism of the form of the Tradición and especially of the special language on which the self-confidence of the Peruvian author was based . He said: “Stylistic and linguistic truth is synonymous with truth in general. To use the language and idioms of past centuries for the present is nothing more than a lie, a falsification of language. Since words express ideas and have their own medium in which they arise and live, the appearance of an antiquated expression in a modern work of language is comparable to the incrustation of the crystalline eye of a mummy on the forehead of an old man. "

reception

In the opinion of José Miguel Oviedo, everything that Peruvian romanticism has produced - be it in poetry , epic or drama - can be largely copied without actually losing anything. However, he mentions that there is one major exception: Ricardo Palma. He not only surpassed his contemporaries, but also became an important figure in Spanish-language prose in America, as well as in Spain.

Works

Translations

• Selection from the Tradiciones of Peru . J. Groos, Heidelberg 1928.
• Peruvian traditions . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-515909-7 .

Complete edition

• Palma, Ricardo (Author), Edith Palma (Ed.): Tradiciones peruanas completas . Aguilar, Madrid 1964.

See also

• List of Spanish-speaking writers

literature

• Jose M. Cabrales Artega: Literatura Hispanoamericana. Del Descubrimiento al siglo XIX . Editorial Playor, Madrid 1982, ISBN 84-359-0289-7 .
• Jorge Cornejo Polar: El Costumbrismo en el Perú. Estudio y Antología de Cuadros de Costumbres . Ediciones COPÉ, Lima 2001, ISBN 9972-606-29-5 .
• César Fernández Moreno (Ed.): América latina en su literatura . UNESCO, Ciudad de México 1972, ISBN 92-3-301025-2 .
• Cedomil Goic (Ed.): Historia y crítica de la literatura hispanoamericana. II Del romanticismo al modernismo . Editorial Crítica, Barcelona 1991, ISBN 84-7423-482-4 .
• Rudolf Grossmann: History and Problems of Latin American Literature . Max Hueber, Munich 1969.
• José Miguel Oviedo: Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana vol. 2. Del Romanticismo al Modernismo . Alianza Editorial, Madrid 1997, ISBN 84-206-8163-6 .
• Felipe B. Pedraza Jiménez (Ed.): Manuel de literatura hispanoamericanan, Vol. 2. Siglo XIX . Cénlit Ediciones, Berriozar 1991, ISBN 84-85511-24-7 .
• Leo Pollmann: History of the Latin American novel, Vol. 1. The literary self-discovery (1810-1929) . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-503-01662-7 .
• Emilia Romero de Valle: Diccionario Manual de Literatura Peruana y Materias Afines . Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima 1966.
• Enrique Pupo-Walker (Ed.): El cuento hispanoamericano ante la crítica . Editorial Castalia, Madrid 1973, ISBN 84-7039-141-0 .
• Wolfgang Rössig (ed.): Major works of Latin American literature. Individual presentations and interpretations . Kindler, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-463-40280-7 .
• Michael Rössner (ed.): Latin American literary history . JB Metzler, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-476-01202-6 .
• Margaret Sayers Peden (Ed.): The Latin American Short Story. A critical history . Twayne Publishers, Boston, Mass. 1983, ISBN 0-8057-9351-8 .

Web links

• Biblioteca Virtual Cervantes
• Literature by and about Ricardo Palma in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Wolfgang Rössig (Ed.): Kindlers New Literature Lexicon . Major works of Latin American literature. Individual presentations and interpretations. Munich: Kindler 1995, p. 162.
2. ↑ So Michael Rössner in: ders. (Ed.): Latin American Literature History. Stuttgart, Weimar: JB Metzler 1995, p. 172.
3. ↑ Cf. José Miguel Oviedo: Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana (“2. Del Romanticismo al Modernismo”). Madrid: Alianza Editorial 1997, p. 118
4. ↑ Cf. Emilia Romero de Valle: Diccionario Manual de Literatura Peruana y Materias Afines. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos 1966, p. 237.
5. ↑ Cf. Felipe B. Pedraza Jiménez (Ed.): Manuel de literatura hispanoamericanan II Siglo XIX. Berriozar: Cénlit Ediciones 1991, p. 644.
6. ↑ See Rudolf Grossmann: History and Problems of Latin American Literature. Munich: Max Hueber Verlag 1969, p. 216f.
7. ↑ See Grossmann (1969), p. 197.
8. ↑ See Pedraza Jiménez (1991), pp. 641f.
9. ↑ See Grossmann (1969), p. 294.
10. ↑ See Romero de Valle (1966), p. 237.
11. ↑ See Grossmann (1969), p. 196.
12. ↑ See Romero de Valle (1966), p. 237.
13. ↑ See Rössner (1995), p. 167.
14. ↑ See Rössner (1995), p. 174.
15. ↑ See Romero de Valle (1966), p. 237.
16. ↑ See Rössner (1995), p. 171.
17. ↑ See Romero de Valle (1966), p. 237; like. Pedraza Jiménez (1991), pp. 641f.
18. ↑ See Oviedo (1997), p. 119; Like Grossmann (1969), p. 294.
19. ↑ See Grossmann (1969), p. 293.
20. ↑ See Pedraza Jiménez (1991), p. 642; like. Romero de Valle (1966), pp. 236f.
21. ↑ See José M. Cabrales Artega: Literatura Hispanoamericana: Del Descubrimiento al siglo XIX. Madrid: Editorial Playor 1982, p. 30.
22. ↑ See Pedraza Jiménez (1991), p. 642; like. Romero de Valle (1966), pp. 236f.
23. ↑ See Rössner (1995), pp. 167, 173.
24. ↑ See Pedraza Jiménez (1991), p. 642; See Romero de Valle (1966), p. 237.
25. ↑ See Grossmann (1969), p. 197.
26. ↑ See Romero de Valle (1966), p. 237.
27. ↑ See Oviedo (1997), p. 126.
28. ↑ See Pedraza Jiménez (1991), p. 642.
29. ↑ See Cedomil Goic (ed.): Historia y crítica de la literatura hispanoamericana ("II - Del romanticismo al modernismo"). Barcelona: Editorial Crítica 1991, p. 151.
30. ↑ See Grossmann (1969), p. 294.
31. ↑ See Rössner (1995), p. 169.
32. ↑ Rubén Bareiro Saguier: Encuentro de culturas. In: César Fernández Moreno (Ed.): América latina en su literatura. México: UNESCO 1972, p. 35:

    "Un mito virreinal colonialista en la literatura hispanoamericana."

33. ↑ See Moliner (1976), p. 23.
34. ↑ See Oviedo (1997), pp. 117f.
35. ↑ See Grossmann (1969), p. 216; 273
36. ↑ See Grossmann (1969), p. 273.
37. ↑ See Oviedo (1997), pp. 119f .; similar Rössig (1995), p. 162.
38. ↑ Quotation Rössner, 1995, p. 172
39. ↑ Cit. Grossmann, 1969, p. 294; Translation: Zit. Rössig 1995, p. 162 “A little, or even several, little lies, now and then a bit of truth, as infinitesimal and homeopathic as it may be, a lot of care and polish in the language, that is the recipe for the writing of 'tradiciones'. "
40. ↑ Cit. Rössner, 1995, p. 173
41. ↑ See Oviedo, 1997, p. 118
42. ↑ Cit. Cornejo Polar, Jorge (2001): El Costumbrismo en el Perú. Estudio y Antología de Cuadros de Costumbres. Lima: Ediciones COPÉ, p. 45; "A product of the crossing of the short, romantic legend and the Costumbrist article."
43. ↑ Ibid., P. 45 "romantic legend, costumbrist article and purity of style" [own translation]
44. ^ Cit. Grossmann, 1969, p. 268.
45. ↑ See Rössner, 1995, p. 172
46. ↑ Cit. Rössig, 1995, p. 15
47. ↑ See Sayers Peden, Margaret (Ed.) (1983): The Latin American Short Story. A critical history. Boston: Twayne Publishers, p. 44
48. ^ Cit. Grossmann, 1969, p. 294
49. ↑ See Rössig, 1995, p. 162
50. ^ Cit. Grossmann, 1969, p. 294
51. ↑ Quotation Rössner, 1995, p. 172
52. ↑ Cf. Pupo-Walker, Enrique (ed.) (1973): El cuento hispanoamericano ante la crítica. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, p. 11
53. ↑ Cit. Pollmann, Leo (1982): History of the Latin American novel- I. The literary self-discovery (1810-1929). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, p. 87
54. ↑ See Rössig, 1995, p. 162
55. ↑ See Rössner, 1995, p. 172
56. ↑ Cit. Rössig, 1995, p. 163
57. ↑ See Rössner, 1995, p. 173
58. ^ Cit. Grossmann, 1969, p. 294
59. ↑ Cit. Rössner 1995, p. 173
60. ↑ See Oviedo, 1997, p. 117