Incomparable Empires: Modernism and the Translation of Spanish and American Literature

The Spanish-American War of 1898 marked a turning point in geopolitical and literary histories, but Gayle Rogers' book challenges these assumptions and reveals how key modernist figures in both America and Spain rewrote these histories at a foundational moment of modern literary studies. He explores the role of empire in shaping a nation's literature and culture, and reads the provocative arguments of John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 04 December 2018
Publisher: Columbia University Press

The Spanish-American War of 1898, a pivotal moment in geopolitical and literary histories, saw the victorious American empire ascend and begin its cultural domination of the globe in the twentieth century, while the once-mighty Spanish empire declined and became a minor state in the world republic of letters. However, this narrative may rely on faulty assumptions, and key modernist figures in both America and Spain radically rewrote these histories at a foundational moment of modern literary studies. In his book, Gayle Rogers delves into the arguments that forged the politics and aesthetics of modernism by tracing the networks of American and Spanish writers, translators, and movements. He revisits the role of empire, from its institutions to its cognitive effects, in shaping a nation's literature and culture. Rogers' work ranges from universities to comparative practices, from Ezra Pound's failed ambitions as a Hispanist to Juan Ramón Jiménez's multilingual maps of modernismo. He illuminates modernists' profound engagements with the formative dynamics of exceptionalist American and Spanish literary studies. He reads the provocative, often counterintuitive arguments of John Dos Passos, who held that American literature could only flourish if the expanding U.S. empire collapsed like Spain's did. Rogers also details both a controversial theorization of a Harlem-Havana-Madrid nexus for black modernist writing and Ernest Hemingway's unorthodox development of a version of cubist Spanglish in For Whom the Bell Tolls. By bringing together revisionary literary historiography and rich textual analyses, Rogers offers a striking account of why foreign literatures mattered so much to two dramatically changing countries at a pivotal moment in history.

Weight: 402g
Dimension: 145 x 223 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231178570