Background
Spires, Robert Cecil was born on December 1, 1936 in Missouri Valley, Iowa, United States. Son of Roy C. and Ellen M. (Epperson) Spires.
(The term metafiction invaded the vocabulary of literary c...)
The term metafiction invaded the vocabulary of literary criticism around 1970, yet the textual strategies involved in turning fiction back onto itself can be traced through several centuries. In this theoretical/critical study Robert C. Spires examines the nature of metafiction and chronicles its evolution in Spain from the time of Cervantes to the 1970s, when the obsession with novelistic self-commentary culminated in an important literary movement. The critical portions of this study focus primarily on twentieth-century works. Included are analyses of Unamuno's Niebla, Jarnés's Locura y muerte de nadie and La novia del viento, Torrente Ballester's Don Juan, Cunquiero's Un hombre que se parecía a Orestes, and three novels from the "self-referential" movement of the 1970s, Juan Goytisolo's Juan sin Tierra, Luis Goytisolo's La colera de Aquiles, and Martín Gaite's El cuarto de atrás. Seeking a stronger theoretical basis for his critical readings, Spires offers a sharpened definition of the term metafiction. The mode arises, he declares, through an intentional violation of the boundaries that normally separate the worlds of the author, the fiction, and the reader. Building on theoretical foundations laid by Frye, Scholes, Genette, and others, Spires also proposes a literary paradigm that places metafiction in a position intermediate between fiction and literary theory. These theoretical formulations place Spires's book in the forefront of critical thought. At the same time, his full-scale analyses of Spanish metafictional works will be welcomed by Hispanists and other students of world literature.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813154693/?tag=2022091-20
( Focusing on post-Franco Spanish fiction from 1975 to 1...)
Focusing on post-Franco Spanish fiction from 1975 to 1989, Robert C. Spires applies the concepts of episteme and discursive field to the ways in which language from multiple sources determines how reality is defined at a given moment and how it influences ideas, attitudes, and feelings. Spires identifies bonds connecting disparate academic disciplines and sociopolitical events by exploring how the world of fiction serves as a register of the nonfictional world. In 1989 the Soviet bloc, along with other totalitarian regimes in South America and Africa, disappeared from the global geopolitical map. Spain set the precedent for this decentralizing revolution when, in 1975, its longtime dictator, Francisco Franco, died; democratic elections followed two years later. This study records an epistemic shift away from logocentric and totalizing approaches to reality by analyzing the links between the novelistic strategies used by Spanish writers from 1975 to 1989 and recent international events and theoretical trends in science, mathematics, communication studies, and art. Highlighting worldwide processes of fragmentation, decentralization, and pluralism, Spires foregrounds ways in which literary and scientific approaches to and concepts of reality coincide, with fiction serving as one more register of how reality is conceived at a particular point in time. Post-Totalitarian Spanish Fiction makes a major contribution in the field of Spanish literature and will enhance the esteem that contemporary Spanish literature is beginning to achieve internationally. In addition, this "epistemocritical" project will serve as a model for literary critics who wish to accommodate the increasingly popular approach labeled "cultural studies" without surrendering the primacy of the literary text.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826210716/?tag=2022091-20
Spires, Robert Cecil was born on December 1, 1936 in Missouri Valley, Iowa, United States. Son of Roy C. and Ellen M. (Epperson) Spires.
Bachelor, University Iowa, 1959. Master of Arts, University Iowa, 1963. Doctor of Philosophy, University Iowa, 1968.
Assistant professor Ohio University, Athens, 1967-1969. Assistant professor Department Spanish and Portuguese University Kansas, Lawrence, 1969-1972, associate professor, 1972-1978, professor, since 1978, professor emeritus, chairman department, 1983-1992.
(The term metafiction invaded the vocabulary of literary c...)
( Focusing on post-Franco Spanish fiction from 1975 to 1...)
(Columbia 1988 1st University of Missouri. 8vo., 178pp., i...)
Served with United States Army, 1959-1961. Member Revista de Estudios Hispánicos (editorial board since 1985), Anales de Literatura Contemporánea (editorial board since 1981), Letras Peninsulares (editorial board since 1987), Modern Language Association (delegate assembly 1989-1991), Modern Language Association 20th Century Spain (executive committee 1983-1989), 20th Century Spanish Association American (vice president 1989-1992).
Married Roberta A. Hyde, February 2, 1963. Children: Jeffrey R., Leslie Annual.