Robert Simon | Kennesaw State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Robert Simon

InterDISCIPLINARY Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies, Oct 5, 2015

Abstract. Post-independence Angolan poetry has continued in many ways the socially oriented thema... more Abstract. Post-independence Angolan poetry has continued in many ways the socially oriented thematic of pre-1975 works from authors such as Agostinho Neto, Alda Lara, and Antonio Jacinto. The tendency is to see either an “epic,” or sociopolitical framework, or a “constructive,” or socially oriented framework within an intimate poetic matrix (Mata 96). As such, a truly intimate poetic which also conveys a social orientation (but without the social epistemology of the former) seems in need of further study. Ana Paula Tavares is one of the most recognized and celebrated female poets of the post-independence period in Angola. Currently living in Lisbon, she has produced much of her poetry in the past several years as a resident of Portugal. Her poetic voice builds upon a focal point of a feminine dialogic contextualized through the reinsertion of Angolan oral tradition, anti-hegemonic discourse, the mystical, and the authority of social and intimate memory. In one of her more recent works, Manual para Amantes Desesperados (2007), the female poetic voice finds an attempt to consolidate the notion of self based on the connections between the intimacy of physical love and the transcendence of fluid spatial and temporal relationships which the geographical separation from one’s home implies. The poetic voice in the work utilizes a variety of natural images related to the southern region of Angola (such as the desert, and various plant and animal species) intertwined with descriptions of the experience of ephemeral love to enhance the links between the internal process of discovery and the external social spaces which activate memory, set as a whole upon a timeless narrative imaginary. This approximation to the mystical while simultaneously maintaining a distance from the essentialism common in a mystical discourse provides the reader with a nuanced re-evaluation of the post-colonial Angolan poetic voice, and particularly, that of the poet from afar.

This book contributes to the ongoing discussion of the place of contemporary Galician writer Blan... more This book contributes to the ongoing discussion of the place of contemporary Galician writer Blanca Andreu’s work within the 1980s post-“novísimo” movement, as part of a larger resurgence of the Surrealist in Spanish poetry and its possible placement in the more recent mystical poetry of Spain. It provides a detailed textual analysis of her poetry, and in doing so reveals not only that her work encompasses notions of the surreal and the mystical but also, although Andreu has so far written entirely in Castilian (Spanish), that her poetry utilizes a variety of traditional Galician and Portuguese symbols and images. In this way her work challenges the boundaries between what we as readers may accept as a solely Castilian, Galician, or Spanish poetic. It bases its transtheoretical framework on findings from such fields as Galician studies, Iberian studies, mysticism studies, paradigm shift studies, and regional studies over the past two decades. Ultimately, this comprehensive and unique study shows how Andreu’s multifaceted transnational work may pertain to, and expand, our knowledge of each of these areas of focus.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/facbooks/1022/thumbnail.jp

La presencia del ausente. Dios en literaratos contemporáneos, 2021

zara Batres Cuevas has published four collections of poetry, a study on the poetics of Julio Cort... more zara Batres Cuevas has published four collections of poetry, a study on the poetics of Julio Cortázar, and works of prose. She has won two international awards for her poetry. Her work is based on the notion of the «cronopia», or the place in which the «cronopios», the altruistic and artistic beings of Cortázar’s literary imagination, may thrive and create a new world.

Luso-Brazilian Review, 2015

Upon the comparison of two contemporary poetic works from Portugal, As palavras by António Ramos ... more Upon the comparison of two contemporary poetic works from Portugal, As palavras by António Ramos Rosa and Por outras palavras by Joaquim Pessoa, we see the presence of a clear mystical symbolism, facing the (non)utility of the poetic word, in the work of each poet. This process serves to demonstrate that there exists, in Portuguese poetry, a simultaneously activist and mystical thematic trajectory which merits a greater attention. From these mystical, critical and activist perspectives, we open ourselves to the notion of the “paradigm shift,” from Modernism to Postmodernism, in Portuguese poetry. In this study I propose that, despite having created a basis for such a shift, it could not yet have happened in Portugal, at least according to the thematic evolution that has developed in recent work.

Durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y la primera mitad del siglo XX, las tendencias filosófica... more Durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y la primera mitad del siglo XX,
las tendencias filosóficas y artísticas del momento impulsaban hacia un
enfrentamiento entre una realidad propugnada por varias fuerzas
socioculturales y otra realidad fenomenológica, lo cual ahondaba en lo que más tarde sería el pensamiento existencialista. A raíz de las obras de filósofos como Kierkegaard, autores en España como Unamuno creaban una nueva realidad, llena de relativismos y epistemologías de crisis. Al dedicarnos un espacio a la comparación entre la temática pre-existencialista de Unamuno y Miguel Torga, y el cuestionamiento de lo absoluto por parte de Ramón Gómez de la Serna y Vergílio Ferreira, y aprovechándonos de nuestra perspectiva posposestructuralista de siglo XXI para la reinterpretación de la noción de crisis espiritual nacional en España y Portugal, podemos empezar a llegar a un punto de comprensión universal de una posible epistemología ibérica en aquella época.

in “Translation, Orality, and Aesthetic Transfer.” African Creative Expressions: Mother Tongue an... more in
“Translation, Orality, and Aesthetic Transfer.”
African Creative Expressions: Mother Tongue and
Other Tongues. Akintunde Akinyemi, Ed. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press: 2011. 146-151. Print.

La Nueva Literatura Hispánica 16 (2012): 289-313. Impreso / Print.

InterDISCIPLINARY Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies, Oct 5, 2015

Abstract. Post-independence Angolan poetry has continued in many ways the socially oriented thema... more Abstract. Post-independence Angolan poetry has continued in many ways the socially oriented thematic of pre-1975 works from authors such as Agostinho Neto, Alda Lara, and Antonio Jacinto. The tendency is to see either an “epic,” or sociopolitical framework, or a “constructive,” or socially oriented framework within an intimate poetic matrix (Mata 96). As such, a truly intimate poetic which also conveys a social orientation (but without the social epistemology of the former) seems in need of further study. Ana Paula Tavares is one of the most recognized and celebrated female poets of the post-independence period in Angola. Currently living in Lisbon, she has produced much of her poetry in the past several years as a resident of Portugal. Her poetic voice builds upon a focal point of a feminine dialogic contextualized through the reinsertion of Angolan oral tradition, anti-hegemonic discourse, the mystical, and the authority of social and intimate memory. In one of her more recent works, Manual para Amantes Desesperados (2007), the female poetic voice finds an attempt to consolidate the notion of self based on the connections between the intimacy of physical love and the transcendence of fluid spatial and temporal relationships which the geographical separation from one’s home implies. The poetic voice in the work utilizes a variety of natural images related to the southern region of Angola (such as the desert, and various plant and animal species) intertwined with descriptions of the experience of ephemeral love to enhance the links between the internal process of discovery and the external social spaces which activate memory, set as a whole upon a timeless narrative imaginary. This approximation to the mystical while simultaneously maintaining a distance from the essentialism common in a mystical discourse provides the reader with a nuanced re-evaluation of the post-colonial Angolan poetic voice, and particularly, that of the poet from afar.

This book contributes to the ongoing discussion of the place of contemporary Galician writer Blan... more This book contributes to the ongoing discussion of the place of contemporary Galician writer Blanca Andreu’s work within the 1980s post-“novísimo” movement, as part of a larger resurgence of the Surrealist in Spanish poetry and its possible placement in the more recent mystical poetry of Spain. It provides a detailed textual analysis of her poetry, and in doing so reveals not only that her work encompasses notions of the surreal and the mystical but also, although Andreu has so far written entirely in Castilian (Spanish), that her poetry utilizes a variety of traditional Galician and Portuguese symbols and images. In this way her work challenges the boundaries between what we as readers may accept as a solely Castilian, Galician, or Spanish poetic. It bases its transtheoretical framework on findings from such fields as Galician studies, Iberian studies, mysticism studies, paradigm shift studies, and regional studies over the past two decades. Ultimately, this comprehensive and unique study shows how Andreu’s multifaceted transnational work may pertain to, and expand, our knowledge of each of these areas of focus.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/facbooks/1022/thumbnail.jp

La presencia del ausente. Dios en literaratos contemporáneos, 2021

zara Batres Cuevas has published four collections of poetry, a study on the poetics of Julio Cort... more zara Batres Cuevas has published four collections of poetry, a study on the poetics of Julio Cortázar, and works of prose. She has won two international awards for her poetry. Her work is based on the notion of the «cronopia», or the place in which the «cronopios», the altruistic and artistic beings of Cortázar’s literary imagination, may thrive and create a new world.

Luso-Brazilian Review, 2015

Upon the comparison of two contemporary poetic works from Portugal, As palavras by António Ramos ... more Upon the comparison of two contemporary poetic works from Portugal, As palavras by António Ramos Rosa and Por outras palavras by Joaquim Pessoa, we see the presence of a clear mystical symbolism, facing the (non)utility of the poetic word, in the work of each poet. This process serves to demonstrate that there exists, in Portuguese poetry, a simultaneously activist and mystical thematic trajectory which merits a greater attention. From these mystical, critical and activist perspectives, we open ourselves to the notion of the “paradigm shift,” from Modernism to Postmodernism, in Portuguese poetry. In this study I propose that, despite having created a basis for such a shift, it could not yet have happened in Portugal, at least according to the thematic evolution that has developed in recent work.

Durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y la primera mitad del siglo XX, las tendencias filosófica... more Durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y la primera mitad del siglo XX,
las tendencias filosóficas y artísticas del momento impulsaban hacia un
enfrentamiento entre una realidad propugnada por varias fuerzas
socioculturales y otra realidad fenomenológica, lo cual ahondaba en lo que más tarde sería el pensamiento existencialista. A raíz de las obras de filósofos como Kierkegaard, autores en España como Unamuno creaban una nueva realidad, llena de relativismos y epistemologías de crisis. Al dedicarnos un espacio a la comparación entre la temática pre-existencialista de Unamuno y Miguel Torga, y el cuestionamiento de lo absoluto por parte de Ramón Gómez de la Serna y Vergílio Ferreira, y aprovechándonos de nuestra perspectiva posposestructuralista de siglo XXI para la reinterpretación de la noción de crisis espiritual nacional en España y Portugal, podemos empezar a llegar a un punto de comprensión universal de una posible epistemología ibérica en aquella época.

in “Translation, Orality, and Aesthetic Transfer.” African Creative Expressions: Mother Tongue an... more in
“Translation, Orality, and Aesthetic Transfer.”
African Creative Expressions: Mother Tongue and
Other Tongues. Akintunde Akinyemi, Ed. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press: 2011. 146-151. Print.

La Nueva Literatura Hispánica 16 (2012): 289-313. Impreso / Print.

This book serves as a study of poets' reflections on the use of the Portuguese language as a tool... more This book serves as a study of poets' reflections on the use of the Portuguese language as a tool for the nation building project of Angola during and after the war of independence. The writers studied fall into two categories: those of a first phase, in the context of the war of independence, during which time poets often focused on linguistic unity as a reflection of the nation's plurality through the inscribing of notions of singular identity simultaneous to the incorporation of elements of linguistic plurality; and those of the second phase, within the context of the postwar and ensuing civil strife which, if taken as a more or less continuous Civil War, lasted from 1975 to 2002, and during which writers would use techniques seen in many postmodern poets to deconstruct the utopian discourse of poets from the previous generation. Its ultimate purpose is to elucidate an alternative approach both to existing arguments regarding political and social movement in the country as well as to less-recognized arguments regarding literary evolution in Angola during this period.