Abstract

MONSIVAIS, C. Urban Passions (The City of Mexico and the Culture 1900-1950). Andes [online]. 2006, n.17, pp.383-411. ISSN 1668-8090.

Towards the second half of the nineteenth century, the social differences inherited from the colonial period become deeper in Mexico, but the literary renewal that takes place at the same time due to a reduced number of intellectuals open up the possibilities for criticism.  In the city, the Revolution establishes new cultural borders and divides literary points of view; for the first time in the city there appear the poor from the countryside, and the humanism cult seems superfluous; violence takes hold of the streets and stops temporarily the best intents for keeping the literary practice without interruption. With the arms laid down and political animosities ended, the city intelligentsia  launches again into  the conquest of cosmopolitism and adopts the language of mural painting to encourage a kind of civic and historical catechesis, launching at the same time a literacy crusade of impossible epical intentions. The new times do not necessarily diversify the settings, and the City of Mexico emphasizes its central role in the national life; irremediably, the new institutions -as well as the new narrative- arise there. Because of this fact, it is also irremediable that the Spanish immigrants settle in the City of Mexico. About the middle of the twentieth century, the cinema, the great publishing houses and the new literary cannon build a new urban face that the imminent population explosion threats to split.

Keywords : Second half of the nineteenth century; Literary renewal; Intelligentsia.

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