Cirilo Villaverde's Cecilia Valds

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Cirilo Villaverde's Cecilia Valdés

• Rolando Romero, U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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Villaverde's Cecilia Valdés

• Biography
• Born in 1812
• Secretary to Narciso López.
• Novel
• 1839 (First Part)?
• 25 page story titled CV
• Developed into 200 page novel with subtitle Loma
  del Angel
• 1879-1882 (Final Version)?
• Final Version published in NY.
• Differences between 2 versions

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Villaverde's Cecilia Valdés

• Narrator
• 19th Century Narrator
• Omniscient
• Moralizing
• Villaverde's Narrator
• limited scope
• characters know more than him/her
• ideas of race (does he believe what the
  characters state?)?

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Villaverde's Cecilia Valdés

• Costumbrista novel
• Describes Cuban culture
• College
• Justice System
• Dances
• Cunas
• Balls
• Markets
• Festivals
• Professions
• tailor
• dentist
• doctor
• Folklore

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Villaverde's Cecilia Valdés

• costumbrismo
• (from Spanish costumbre, custom), a trend in
  Spanish literature that emphasized the depiction
  of the everyday manners and customs of a
  particular social or provincial milieu. Although
  the origins of costumbrismo go back to the Golden
  Age of Spanish literature in the 16th and 17th
  centuries, it grew into a major force in the
  first half of the 19th century, first in verse
  and then in prose sketches called cuadros de
  costumbres (scenes of customs) that stressed
  detailed descriptions of typical regional
  characters and social conduct, often with a
  satirical or philosophical intent.
  ("costumbrismo." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
  Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 07 Sep. 2008
  costumbrismo.)?

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Villaverde's Cecilia Valdés

• 19th Century Ideas of Race
• Physical characteristics tied to intrinsic
  qualities
• Whites
• aquiline nose
• Fair skin
• high forehead
• Blacks
• kinky hair
• wide nose
• Hybridity/Miscegenation
• Criollos

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Villaverde's Cecilia Valdés

• Criollo/Creole
• originally, in the 16th18th century, any white
  person born in Spanish America of Spanish
  parents, as distinguished from an American
  resident who had been born in Spain. The term has
  since been used with various meanings, often
  conflicting or varying from region to region.
• In different parts of Latin America the term
  creole has various referents it may denote any
  local-born person of pure Spanish extraction it
  may refer more restrictively to members of
  old-line families of predominantly Spanish
  descent who have roots in the colonial period or
  it may simply refer to members of urban
  Europeanized classes, as contrasted with rural
  Indians.
• ("Creole." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
  Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 07 Sep. 2008
  
  Creole. )?