The opening line of the 1967 novel, One Hundre Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, is often invoked as the most perfectly-crafted sentence in literature: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” Of course, García Márquez composed his novel in Spanish. The sentence you read above was Gregory Rabassa’s translation of García Márquez’s original: “Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.”

One Hundred Years of Solitude, known in Spanish as Cien años de soledad, is an extraordinary novel in both languages; indeed, the reciprocal relationship it inscribes between Hispanophone and Anglophone societies and cultures on the American continents is part of its significance. In this introductory comparative literature course, we will read and discuss the novel in its literary, historical, cultural and political contexts. The novel is known for its particular narrative technique, “magical realism.” In this class we practice “close reading” in order to identify how magical realism works and how it transforms received notions about history and literature. We will also examine the novel in key twentieth-century aesthetic contexts: Modernism, surrealism, the avant-garde. This class is conducted in English; however, students are warmly encouraged to work in Spanish and/or in other languages, including Spanglish, if they would prefer. Please consult with me about your preferences in Week 1 of classes. This course uses a labor-based grading contract to calculate grades. I will explain the contract during Week 1.

Learning Objectives

• Read one of the great novels of the 20^th century and consider it in literary, cultural and political contexts
• First, learn about the literary concept of “magical realism,” and, subsequently use that concept to think critically about the concepts of history, reason and truth.
• Develop skills in the critical practice of formal analysis and “close-reading,” an approach to literary texts that understands them as aesthetic creations and examines the choices and techniques a writer deploys in creating them.
• Gain an understanding of wider aesthetic contexts of One Hundred Years of Solitude in the aesthetic movements of Modernism and surrealism.
• Think critically about the concepts of “America” and “Latin America.”

Grades in COLT 102 are determined by “contract grading” – principles and guidelines will be presented in class during Week 1