Blue packet study guide quiz

Surrealism

extreme realism which emphasizes subconscious creativity and uses shock therapy (influenced by drug culture)

Existentialism

The doctrine that existence precedes essence - individual beliefs supersede pre-existing philosophy

synodic cycle

temporal interval for an object to reappear at some point; two successive conjunctions with the sun and earth aligned in the same linear order

Aztec Calendar Stone

symbolic portrayal of the four disasters that led to the demise of the four prior universes in aztec cosmology - hieroglyphic layout of how Aztecs measured time

When was the sun stone carved and to whom was it dedicated?

carved in 1479 during the reign of the 6th monarch dedicated to the sun god

What was the stone carved from and how big is it?

piece of basalt weighing 24 metric tons - 12 feet in diameter and four feet thick

where is the sun stone displayed?

National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park

what is depicted in the sun stone?

sun gods at the center representing past and present eras, the suns are circled by rings showing aztec cycles of time

what happened to earliest inhabitants of the earth?

devoured by jaguars

what caused the demise of the second sun?

great winds

how was the third sun destroyed?

fiery rain

how was the fourth sun destroyed?

massive flood

fifth sun

current era of decline and testing by the gods

3 main aztec gods

Huitzilopochtili (hummingbird wizard), Tezcatlipoca (smoking mirror), and Quetzalcoatl (sovereign plumed serpent)

Chinampas

areas of cultivation with soil dug out of the lake and planted between willow trees (fertile crops)

native language of the Aztecs

Nahuatl (pictographs)

valuable trade items

jade and quetzal

When was Paz born and where

March 31, 1914 in Mexico city

who was Paz’s father affiliated with?

revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata

How old was Paz when he finished his first book?

19

Where did Paz go to college?

studied law at the national autonomous university of mexico and took a cultural attache to France

What work solidied Paz’s reputation?

the labyrinth of solitude

what is Paz’s first poetic work?

Piedra de sol (sunstone)

Paz’s wife

Marie-jose Tramini

What honor did Paz recieve?

first Mexican to receive the nobel prize for literature in 1990

when did Paz die?

1998 - spinal cancer in MX city

Piedra de sol

584 lines reflecting Venus’ 584-day synodic orbit and showing the cycle of time

what does the lack of verbs in Piedra de sol represent?

thoughts are never completed and the effect is hypnotic

what does the repetition in Piedra de sol represent?

causes poem to fold back on itself so the speaker cannot distinguish the past from the present or the future (imitative of the indigenous concept of circular time)

how paz views history

through its indian past - humans must find salvation within each other (the aim of creation is a regenerative process)

what does the sunstone transcend?

the part of the mexican psychological inclination to be the ‘instinctive nihilist’