My thesis is a collection of my own original poetry and short fiction written as a
kind of response to Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." Instead of having Whitman
continue to represent me through his poem, I wish to represent myself through my own
poetry. I attempted to create a new kind of fiction and poetry from the perspective of a
Hispanic who has less of a tie to Mexico or the homeland and more of the cultural
influences of the United States. Instead of focusing on differences between myself and
the dominant culture, I attempted to discuss in chapter II my philosophy concerning
subjects such as; war, religion, time and space, and society. In chapter III, I tried to
reconcile various cultural mythologies as the United States does not have a single shared
mythology. And in chapter IV I gave my own predictions of the future based on personal
observation. My twofold goal of this collection was to one, demonstrate that Hispanic
writers are capable of more than lamenting their shared past. And two, to challenge the
notion that anything besides a disenfranchisement narrative is "inauthentic" and renders
me a poor writer of Hispanic literature. I believe it is up to the reader to decide whether I
have accomplished these goals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-3166 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Valdez, Reynaldo Alexander |
| Contributors | McCann, Janet |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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