Semana Santa Research Articles

El soneto de Cervantes al saco de Cádiz “Vimos en julio otra Semana Santa”: Edición crítica y notas filológicas

This study proposes a new critical edition of the sonnet “Vimos en julio otra Semana Santa” (1596) written by Miguel de Cervantes in the wake of the sack of Cadiz. Through a comparison and examination of variants of all ancient and modern sources available, this article discusses the validity and trustworthiness of the printed versions by Juan Antonio Pellicer and Saforcada (1778) and Agustin Garcia Arrieta (1800) from which all modern editions ultimately stem. The edition is based on the collatio of all the surviving manuscripts, two of which are preserved in the Library of the Hispanic Society of New York and which have not been previously mentioned nor analyzed. This article demonstrates the presence within the manuscripts of variants that are more reliable while still keeping in mind the historical and literary context in which the sonnet was written.

Ninth Avenue Elevated

To the casual observer, a quick peek at the pictures of industrial edifices painted by Ralston Crawford (1906-1978) might bring to mind an imaginary enclave made of LEGO bricks. To some, the works may seem a bit lacking in romance, but this perception would be at odds with Crawford’s sense of his work: “I suppose one of the reasons for the severity of some of my paintings,” he later remarked, “is that I am in many respects an incurable romantic. ... I am long on feeling, and a lot of discipline—or steering of that feeling—is necessary.” (Haskell B. Ralston Crawford. New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art; 1985:14.) Crawford was born in Ontario, Canada. His father, a ship captain, conveyed cargoes of coal andwheat to points on the Great Lakes. It seems likely that an early impression of docks andgrainelevatorswasabasis forhis son’s revisiting theseelements as a painter. The family moved to Buffalo, New York, whereCrawforddemonstrated ability in art inhigh school.He had planned to attend the Pratt Institute in New York to pursue commercial illustration, but as the classes had filled, he opted instead for work as a seaman on the ship La Perla. During reflective moments at sea, Crawford became less enamoredof themore commercial aspects of art.LaPerla traversed the Panama Canal to Los Angeles, where he would attend Otis Art Institute, which proved to be a felicitous introduction to fine art. On a different front, although it wasn’t exactly da Vinci caliber art, he was able to work on a Disney animation film. In 1927, he would seriously embark on a career inartbyenrolling in thePennsylvaniaAcademyof theFine Arts, where his mentality clicked with modernist influences that included teacher Hugh Breckenridge. Atimeof transformationforCrawfordwouldoccur inPennsylvaniawithhis exposure to art collectionsbyEarlHorter and Dr Albert Barnes. Horter’s collection includedwork by Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth, both associated with Precisionism,with its definition of formand inclusion of industrial subjects. Dr Barnes’ collection included works by Cezanne. “Crawford recalled being mesmerized for hours in front of Cezanne’s paintings, seeing in themthekindof control and solidityhewouldsoonseekinhisownwork.HeadmiredCezanne’s employment of Impressionist color in the service of structure and his insistence that it function as the building block of form. ... Cezanne’s reduction of architectural forms to planes and volumes...was a revelation to Crawford.” (Haskell, p 16.) In 1931, Crawford was living in New York in impoverishment, but a group exhibition in that year led to a purchase of one of his works on opening day. Another boost would occur with his marriage in 1932. On a trip to Europe, a gift from his father-in-law to the newlyweds, Crawford attended to an extent theAcademieColarossi andAcademieScandinave inParis. Returning toNewYork, he attendedTeachersCollege, Columbia University, in a quest for a source of financial stability. He wouldcontinue to refinehispersonal style inpainting,dubbed “Cezannesque structuralism.” (Haskell, p 25.) In Ninth Avenue Elevated, warm terracotta-toned buildings in a sunlit cityscape are bounded by street and sidewalk and banded by a ribbon of elevated railway. The curvature of the jaunty green cylindrical structure rising from the roof offers a respite fromtheunrelenting rectilinearplanes.Theclean lines andperspectivegradients arevisually appealingandconvey balance and order. Crawford’s evolution toward abstractionwith diminution of detail is eminently evident. This panorama of the bones of business may have been intended to render a takeaway message reassuring to the citizens of that era; ie, the United States is thriving and energeticallymoving forward. The ninth avenue “el” was constructed in the latter 1800s and has historical significance in its early role in innovation to improve city transportation. Crawford was rewardedwith applause for his work Overseas Highway (1939). On the home front, however, his marriage was dissolving. Economic imperatives led him to take teachingpositions, andhewouldmarry again in 1942.Drafted in the same year, he servedwith theVisual PresentationUnit, Weather Division, during which he translated meteorologic data to a formunderstandable byArmyAir Force staff through his use of symbols picturing weather events. Crawford would develop a fondness for the atmosphere ofNewOrleans.He enjoyed jazz andwas attracted to the light andstructural elements found in the city’s cemeteries. In 1971, he was diagnosed with cancer, but undaunted, he continued living his life, findingmeaning in religion that included an affinity for thepowerof religiousparadeshewitnessed inSeville during Holy Week. As noted: “We cannot help but feel a distinct spiritual side tohisart and temperament inpaintings such as the NewOrleans cemetery series of the 1950s, or the 1970s Semana Santa paintings from Seville.” (Agee WC. Ralston Crawford (1906-1978):ARetrospective.NewYork,NY;SalanderO’Reilly Galleries; 2001:9.) In Houston arranging for an exhibition when hewas hospitalized, Crawfordwasnot even submissive to death, having planned his funeral in New Orleans to be accompanied by a brass band. He believed in the value of art as an influence for rationality in society, but the lyrical allure ofAmerica’s industrial architecture was especially irresistible. “For him, industrial structures were the American counterpart to Europe’s Gothic cathedrals.” (Haskell, p 48.)

Semana Santa Processions as viewed by Galdós and Alas

Resumen: Tanto Benito Pérez Galdós como Leopoldo Alas criticaban duramente en sus obras literarias las prácticas contemporáneas de la Iglesia Católica en España, lo que les granjeaba a su vez la repulsión de muchos clérigos y fieles devotos. Sin embargo, en sus respectivas novelas controvertidas– Gloria (1878) y La Regenta (1884-85)—ambos autores presentan ejemplos de una verdadera fe espiritual en algunos personajes, que se registra en las caras y ojos de las estatuas religiosas que llevan con mucha pompa los llamados devotos en Semana Santa. Existe la fuerte posibilidad de que ejerciera Gloria una gran influencia sobre La Regenta en el desarrollo de este tema. Abstract: Galdós and Alas, both strongly critical of, and criticized by, the Catholic Church in Spain during their lifetime, give powerful representations in their respective novels— Gloria (1878) and La Regenta (1884-85)—of a true faith in some characters, which is projected unto the faces and eyes of the statues paraded in the holy Week processions. There is a strong possibility that the earlier novel influenced the later one in the development of this topic.

Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico

Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico

Collaborative Filmmaking in the Digital Age

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsSam PackSam Pack is an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kenyon College. His research interests address the relationship between media and culture and specifically focus on an anthropological approach to the production and reception of television, film, photographs, and new media. His ethnographic film, Celebrating Semana Santa: Change, Conflict, and Continuity in Rural Honduras, has been screened at ethnographic and documentary film festivals around the world and will be distributed by Berkeley Media LLC.

Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico (review)

Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico. By Edward W Osowski. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 261. $50.00. ISBN 978-0-816-52855-4.) Mesoamerican peoples were long familiar with miraculous occurrences, and they therefore readily incorporated those of the Spaniards into their new beliefs in Catholicism. Indeed, over the course of the colonial period native leaders appropriated select miracles to suit their purposes and, in many ways, made them indigenous. Their Christian piety consequently affirmed their legitimacy as stalwart members of New Spanish society. Miracles in central Mexico were, of course, cause for celebration, with bell ringing at the churches and entire communities rallying for the occasion. Apparitions, a dead child suddenly come to life, a stone cross on the move, and spontaneous sacred images were among the many marvelous events that the natives personalized. Early miracles included the widely known visitations experienced by Fray Martin de Valencia, head of the Franciscan Apostolic Twelve, which occurred in a cave on a hilltop in Amecameca, Chalco. Now known as the Sacromonte, that hill (ChalchiuhmomoztliAmaqueme), as the Nahua historian Chimalpahin (b. 1579) recounted, was the site where Amecameca's founding rulers established their kingdom in 1241 - not a coincidence. Thus inviolable, the cave was configured by subsequent leaders into a sanctuary with an image of the Santo Entierro (the Holy Burial of Christ, another miracle in its own right) and served as a pilgrimage destination for centuries. Other indigenous miracle sites were not necessarily as prosperous over the long term, due largely to demographic change and interference by Spanish authorities. Undaunted, native leaders sent out alms collectors, who traveled the countryside with a sacred image ensconced in a box strapped to the back of a mule. Musicians and women often accompanied them, and frequently the latter contacted women in distant towns to arrange for exclusive viewing of the saintly icon. The fame of the miraculous cult and the additional revenue benefited the home community and its leaders, and such alms collectors became familiar travelers across the region, much to the chagrin of the Spaniards. By the eighteenth century Bourbon viceroys were implementing various regulations to gain greater control over ostentatious political and religious celebrations in Mexico City and neighboring communities. Two targets were the annual Corpus Christi and Semana Santa festivals, in which the native peoples were heavily invested. For example, San Juan Tenochtitlan and Santiago, the indigenous cabildos in the capital, organized the stately milelong, floral-covered arches that framed and shaded the Eucharist as it was carried about the city in procession. …

Rituales, descentramientos territoriales y niveles de identidad: La Semana Santa Marinera de Valencia

The aim of this paper is to study how the processes of spatial and identity recomposition brought about by a globalized world affect traditional religious rituals, with particular reference to the Semana Santa Marinera processions in Valencia (Spain). Instead of the ritual giving rise to a single local identity, it can be seen that levels of local identity —while not disappearing— overlap more and more with increasingly vague new territorialities ranging from processional networks based on canon law to state-organized meetings. Media coverage of the ritual means that new virtual communities with no fixed territorial base are created, and the complexity of this phenomenon further increases with the creation of virtual online communities. The spatial decentration of ritual, therefore implies the creation of new forms of identity constructed along hybrid and cross-sectional lines, thereby strengthening the process of secularization.

Coliform and Metal Contamination in Lago de Colina, a Recreational Water Body in Chihuahua State, Mexico

Lago de Colina (Colina Lake) is located about 180 km south of the city of Chihuahua (Mexico), and during the Semana Santa (Holy Week) vacation period its recreational use is high. The objective of this study was to quantify coliform and heavy metal levels in this water body before and after the Holy Week vacation period in 2010. Twenty sampling points were randomly selected and two water samples were collected at each point near the surface (0.30 m) and at 1 m depth. After the Holy Week vacation the same twenty points were sampled at the same depths. Therefore, a total 80 water samples were analyzed for fecal and total coliforms and levels of the following metals: Al, As, B, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, Pb, Se, Si and Zn. It was hypothesized that domestic tourism contaminated this water body, and as a consequence, could have a negative impact on visitor health. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) study was performed for each element and its interactions considering a factorial design where factor A was sample date and factor B was sample depth. Fecal coliforms were only detected at eight sampling points in the first week, but after Holy Week, both fecal and total coliforms were detected at most sampling points. The concentrations of Al, B, Na, Ni and Se were only statistically different for factor A. The levels of Cr, Cu, K and Mg was different for both date and depth, but the dual factor interaction was not significant. The amount of Ca and Zn was statistically different due to date, depth and their interaction. No significant differences were found for any factor or the interaction for the elements As, Fe and Mn. Because of the consistent results, it is concluded that local tourism is contaminating the recreational area of Colina Lake, Chihuahua, Mexico.

The passion of Antonio Delgado: Religious iconography in the Spanish TV mini-series Padre Coraje/Father Courage

ABSTRACTThe Spanish TV mini-series Padre Coraje (2001) is based on the story of Francisco Holgado (aka ‘Padre Coraje’), a bank clerk who infiltrated the criminal underworld of the city of Jerez in Andalucía in the hope of unmasking his son's murderer. Pre-production/production of the series were extensively covered by the newspaper El Mundo, coverage emphasizing notions of moral duty and emotional compromise with both subject and real protagonists. An emotive discourse is also present in interviews with the actors and with director Benito Zambrano. Here a third idea surfaces: the event as distinctively Andalusian story. Padre Coraje also bears the trace of its Andalusian provenance at the level of characterization, the characters of Padre Coraje and his family being constructed as living replicas of images of the Virgin and Jesus Christ (as represented in the tradition of Andalusian Semana Santa—or Easter Parades). This emotive portrayal is balanced with a more socio-realist approach to the representation of the criminal underworld of Jerez. It is through this combination of styles that Zambrano fulfils a desire frequently expressed in interviews: to use the emotional story of Padre Coraje as conduit for a faithful picture of the most deprived members of Andalusian society.

Holy Week in Campanha / A Semana Santa em Campanha. Produced by Suzel Ana Reily. URL: http://www.qub.ac.uk/sa-old/resources/HolyWeek/index.html

Holy Week in Campanha / A Semana Santa em Campanha. Produced by Suzel Ana Reily. URL: http://www.qub.ac.uk/sa-old/resources/HolyWeek/index.html

Reading Spanish colonial literary texts: the example of la araucana

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Patricia Seed defines colonial discourse as an “emergent interdisciplinary critique of colonialism … originating from the intersection of dissatisfaction about the limitations of existing critiques of colonial rule with the contemporary intellectual movement known as poststructuralism” (1991, p. 182). The most comprehensive study I have read to date is that of Francisco Cevallos (1989 Cevallos, FJ. (1989). ‘Don Alonso de Ercilla and the American Indian: history and myth’. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, vol. 23(no. 3): pp. 1–20 [Google Scholar]). Bakhtin introduced his concept of “chronotope” in 1937–38 (1981b, pp. 84–86). In his essay he considers early forms of assimilating time and space in artistic images. The most important aspect of the concept of chronotope is the visualizing in the artistic work of a human being in relation to his/her temporal and spatial context. Human existence can only be understood within a physical‐geographical space and a specific point in historical time. This unified time/space perception of life is given the name “chronotope”. Corpus Christi and Semana Santa began during the height of the Counterreformation. Fray Luis de Granada (1504–83), Fray Luis de León (1526–91), Santa Teresa de Jesús (1515–82) and San Juan de la Cruz (1542–91) are the most famous of the sixteenth‐century mystics. Additional informationNotes on contributorsKevin Krogh Correspondence to: Kevin Krogh, Utah State University, Department of Languages and Philosophy, UMC 0720, Logan, Utah 84322‐0720, USA. Correspondence to: Kevin Krogh, Utah State University, Department of Languages and Philosophy, UMC 0720, Logan, Utah 84322‐0720, USA.

Lenten Rites and Practices [The Philippines

In April, just as the summer heat begins to reach its peak, the Philippines joins the rest of the Christian world in the observance of Holy Week (Semana Santa), recalling Christ's passion, death and resurrection. In rituals born of his Hispanic heritage, the Filipino mourns and celebrates Semana Santa, infusing it with a distinct pagan fervor. Local traditions and medieval rituals combine with modern day innovations to suit varying temperaments and locales.From Ash Wednesday to Good Friday a piercing lamentation fills the air as the life of Christ is chanted in gatherings called pabasa. For seven weeks, at odd hours of the day and night, participants recite the passion and death of Jesus Christ from the Holy Book. There are as many versions of it as there are dialects.

RURBAN COMMUNITY OF A MEXICAN HIGHLAND MUNICIPIO: TEPEOJUMA

Tepeojuma is a Spanish colonial village (municipio) in the Estado de Puebla, about 180krn southeast of Mexico City. This village nestles in a basin surrounded by hills (cerros) and is in the tierra templada. This village has a typical plaza with shade trees (sombra). Around the plaza are concentrated the public office, school and church. On the market day a variety of goods are sold in the plaza. Marketing is held on Thursdays here but in Atlixco and Ma-tamoros near this village it is held twice a week (Tab. 1). The population of Tepeojuma, like most other Mexican villages, has shown a rapid increase in recent years, but mortality rate has shown both sharp rise and sharp decline alternately (Tab. 5). Most women have many children, thence the average family size is over eight (Tab. 6). Monoculture prevails and very few croplands are irrigated (Tab. 4). Thus the life of this village is unstable. Children of this village have their “substitute papa (padrino) and mama (madrina)” in the nearby town called compadre and compadre respectively. This system (compadrazgo) is characterized by the two sets of formal relation between non-relatives. Rela-tionship between compadres is much more important than between padrinos and ahijados (children in compadrazgo). As the general purpose, padrinos are to provide their ahijados with security. Padrinos usually give their ahijados a few pesos when they come to see them or when they marry, enter or finish school and also in Semana Santa and Todos los Santos. In Tepeojuma, it is thought to be desirable to have a compadre from Matamoros situated very near. It is assumed that the family in the town can be of great help in emergency. This is an essential connection in the rurban community of the Mexican Highland.