The present thesis is an experiment in adaptation of one of Roberto Payró's plays for staging in English. Sobre las Ruinas was chosen both because it is one of the best known of his works and because no previous translation is known to exist.

This thesis (i) presents a critical analysis of the political allegory and dramatic elements employed by Antón Arrufat in Los siete contra Tebas in order to comment upon the conflict in Cuban society during and immediately after the Cuban revolution; and (ii) further analyzes that conflict using an anthropological approach in order to establish partial reintegration as an additional final phase in the rites of passage journey.

This thesis examines the fiction of the Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez, and focuses on hyperbole as a fundamental characteristic of Márquez's fiction. There is special interest in three aspects of his work: setting, people, and themes.

The purpose of this study is to determine the importance of characterization in the Quinteros in developing their characters into figures possessing human qualities which give them charm and reality. In nine of the twenty plays studied, the characters are used in emphasizing other elements such as love and atmosphere, or to prove a thesis. However, the importance of characterization is shown by the fact that eleven of the plays are concerned with the character development.

This thesis is a study of social criticism in the works of Leopoldo Alas ("Clarín"), a nineteenth century Spanish novelist, literary critic and short story writer. In Clarín's two major novels, "La Regenta" and "Su único hijo," and in his numerous short stories there is frequent criticism of the abuses of the clergy, the state of Spanish morality, the misunderstanding and misapplication of religion by the laity, the quality of education, literature, theater and medicine, the corruption of law and government and the treatment to which the poor and uneducated were subjected. Because of Clarín's techniques it can be said that he was the leader of the naturalistic movement in Spain. It can also be said that Clarín as a naturalist did not follow the tenets of the French school.

This thesis describes the work of Uruguayan-born author Javier de Viana and his imagery of Uruguayan rural life in his short stories and novellas.

This thesis looks at the two idological phases of Armando Palacio Valdés' writings as manifested in his novels.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of determining how Francisco Garcia Pavon's concept the detective novel evolved throughout the period during which he cultivated that literary form. To trace this evolution Garcia Pavon's detective novels and novelettes are studied in chronological order of publication, each work being given a chapter of its own. The character development is analyzed and the style is given consideration in the study.

La Malinche is one of the most controversial figures in Mexican and Chicano literature. The historical facts about her life before and after the Spanish Conquest are largely speculative. What is reliably known is that she had a significant role as translator, which developed into something of mythic proportions. The ideological appropriation of her image by three authors, Octavio Paz, Laura Esquivel and Cherríe Moraga, are explored in this thesis. The full extent of the proposed rendition of La Malinche by Octavio Paz is the basis of the second chapter. The conclusion drawn by Paz, in The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950) is that La Malinche is what he calls la chingada [the raped/violated one] and proposes that all women are always open to conquest, sexually and otherwise. Laura Esquivel's novel Malinche (2006) is a re-interpretation that focuses on the tongue as the source of power and language as the ultimate source of autonomy for La Malinche. This aspect of La Malinche and the contrast of Paz's understanding are the basis of the third chapter of this thesis. Cherríe Moraga, in Loving in the War Years (1983), proposes that if women are to be traitors, it is not each other that …

This thesis is an experiment in adapting a Florencio Sánchez play for staging in English. La Gringa was chosen because it is the best known of Sánchez' works, and because, to this writer's knowledge, no translation of this play is available.

It is my purpose in this thesis to show any influence that Emile Zola's Naturalism had on the novels of Blasco Ibáñez.. Because the novels of the Spanish author contain many suggestions of the Zolaesque theory of Naturalism, many literary critics have assumed that he did obtain much of his inspiration from this source; they have even called him the "Spanish Zola." I shall try to determine how much he imitated Zola's Naturalism, and to show to what extent it is correct to call him the "Spanish Zola."

The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether Blasco Ibáñez in his novel La Horda used Pío Baroja's Material which was published in La Lucha por la Vida. Baroja claimed that he did. Therefore, this paper compares the two novels to discover similarities in their settings, their plots, and their characters.

Este estudio propone hacer un ensayo dando énfasis los motivos temporales y estructurales en las obras Los pasos perdios (1946) y Guerra del tiepo (1958) de Alejo Carpenter, gran novelista y cuentista cubano del momento. Carpenter obliga al lector a notar nuevos conceptos sobre el tiempo y a aceptar nuevas definiciones y dimensiones mas amplias, libre de todas las restricciones tradicionales. Mediante la deformación del tiempo en todo aspecto concebible (vuelto al revés, transpuesto del lugar normal, invertido, fragmentado, o torcido en una manera que es ilógica e inexplicable), Carpentier utiliza los medios temporales en su narrativa de varias maneras: el tiempo circular, el tiempo regresivo, el tiempo histórico, el tiempo interiorizado, o el tiempo atemporal, que son los principales aspectos analizados en esta tesis.

This study is an attempt to analyze the novels of Juan Valera y Alcala Galiano, with particular attention to the characterization of the principal figures.

This thesis will give a brief biography of Miguel Mihura, summarize and discuss his more important plays, comment on the less important ones, and point out recurrent patterns and themes, with the hope that the general public as well as the student of Spanish, may be better informed of the values to be found in the works of this writer.

Categories titled simple plots, loose plots, no plots, and parallel plots are used within this thesis to organize and contrast sixteen novels by Spanish author Pio Baroja.

In this work, superficial to the extreme, it is my purpose to offer a review of the development of lyric poetry ("poesía lírica") in Colombia throughout its history. It is logical that because of the extent of the subject it is not possible to give a complete treatment of our political history, though I have tried not to leave out points of significance. The classification of authors and of poems, as well as the division of periods I have made arbitrarily, guided by my own criteria. Thus, I have the Romantic period divided into romanticism and post-romanticism, according to the dates generally regarded as the beginning and end of these two literary movements. In reality, romanticism only ended with the beginning of modernism, and one cannot therefore distinguish romantic poets from post-romantic poets. Due to the nature of this thesis, many poets--some of them well known--will not be mentioned. However, my intention is not to write a lyric anthology, but to reveal the spirit of Columbia through her poets and her poetry.

This thesis presents a brief biography of the Mexican writer José Rubén Romero and discusses his prose writings, with an emphasis on his novels.

The purpose of this investigation is to characterize the dramatic characters of Federico García Lorca as realists or idealists. Lorca wrote a total of fifteen plays, and the majority of them are considered in this study. Additional source materials include the works of such critics as J. Alberich, María Teresa Babín, Alfredo de la Guardia, and Francisco Umbral.

This study discusses the life and works of Larra and many of his beliefs and ideas. The chapters have been divided into three, traeting of Larra's social, literary and political satire that deals mainly with the high cociety of Madrid (Spain).

The major proposition is that the childhood point of view in two Delibes novels--El camino (1950) and Las ratas (1962)--aids the reader's comprehension of the basic values held by rural Spaniards. These values are stressed in both novels, giving the reader an insight into the nature of these simplistic people. Honest, accepting attitudes of the child protagonists aid the reader's understanding of the plight of the villagers.The superiority of the natural way of life is revealed in both novels. Nature became even more important to Delibes as his stature as novelist increased, The later work, therefore, is a social protest against effects of industrial progress on rural Castilians.

Spain underwent drastic social and political changes in the last decades of the twentieth century which also affected the nation’s patterns of emigration. Contemporary Spanish literature and film that portray these decades reflect the country’s fluctuating characteristics of migration. ¡Vente a Alemania, Pepe! (1971) by Pedro Lazaga, Coto vedado (1985) by Juan Goytisolo, El hijo del acordeonista (2003) by Bernardo Atxaga, and Yoyes (2000) by Helena Taberna demonstrate Spain’s migration trends during the last years of Franco’s dictatorship and the transition to democracy. The nation’s highly increased socioeconomic development in the 1970s and 1980s which eventually led to a first-world status also affected emigration, which can be seen in Carlota Fainberg (1999) by Antonio Muñoz Molina, Kasbah (2000) by Mariano Barroso, Restos de carmine (1999) by Juan Madrid, and Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (2009) by Isabel Coixet.

This thesis studies three of the most significant themes in the poetry of the Cuban Modernist, Julian del Casal. The poet's morbid fascination with death is characterized by an inability to adapt to his life environment, boredom, a strong self-destructive drive, and the concept of death as the ultimate joy and refuge. He reflects the Modernist aesthetic code in his cult of plastic and lyric beauty. An escapist, he sought refuge in an ideal world of perfection and elegance. This unobtainable goal resulted in deep melancholia and despair. The theme of love reflects a complete absence of passion and eroticism. The poet's categorical rejection of woman as a sensual object is accompanied by subtle insinuations concerning his own physical impotence and inability to love.

The purpose of this study is twofold: the first and most important purpose is to examine the various forms of humor; the second is to present views of the author concerning universal topics.