Christopher Columbus is Dead
By J. M. COHEN
ASUB-COMMITTEE of the University Grants Commission is at present considering how best to promote the study of Latin America in the universities. This brings some of us back to the point where we came in. The visit of the Prince of Wales—later Edward VIII—to South America, and his warning of the future impor- tance to British trade and culture of the twenty countries south of the Rio Grande, led to very little. It is to be hoped that the effect of the Duke of Edinburgh's tour this year will be stronger and more lasting. In the interval between the two royal journeys the growth of Spanish language studies in our universities—and schools —has been considerable. Only Reading, Leices- ter, Keele and some recent foundations are without Spanish departments, and the number of professors has greatly multiplied. But interest in Spain's former colonies has hardly grown at all. Only in Bristol is it now possible to take a degree in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin Ameri- can studies, though Glasgow has set Latin American papers as part of their two-year honours course. In other universities there are optional papers in history. But the weight of scholarship and teaching has during the last thirty years gone to the building and reinforce- ment of what I would call the Gongora line. Spanish studies concentrate on the literature of the Golden Age, and modern studies on the brief period of semi-revival in Spain itself, which was so disastrously cut short by the Civil War. In the last six years the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, an excellent journal, has published no article, though an occasional book review, on any Spanish American subject; and a glance at the relevant section of the Year's Work in Modern Language Studies shows the same neglect.
Spanish language teaching also sticks firmly to the Gongora line. The accent favoured is a pure Castilian, which the majority of people in Spain itself do not use, though it certainly has cul- tural prestige there. In Latin America, however, it has quite the reverse. The term gachupin is as depreciatory in Mexico and Central America as gringo. The predominance of Madrid is very strongly rejected.
In fact, we are training our Spanish gradtiates in a dying culture; which unfits them for rela- tions with Spanish America, where our reputa- tion is at present as high as the gringo's is low. For since we have ceased to be a colonial power, our actions on the world stage are viewed with favour, even with indulgence, by people who in- variably look for motives of self-interest in the policies of the US. We can take advantage of this in several ways. First, by the study of the cultures of the South American republics, if not in our older universities, at least in the new. In London, it is possible to read the history at Uni- versity College, and Queen Mary offers a still restricted course in Spanish American literature. But for anything like a complete course, the two languages, Spanish and Portuguese; pre-conquest, colonial and modern history; geography, eco- nomics and literature will be essential. Secondly, there must be an exchange of students. Too many undergraduates reading Spanish are exchanged with Spain itself, where primary and secondary teaching are in a very poor state, and none with Mexico, where liberal education, despite serious shortages of teachers, buildings and money, is a very high priority. It is possible that a start may be made in this direction in the next few months. An exchange of lectors, too, would be useful, since little is known here of Latin Ameri- can writing, and English courses, though they flourish in various schools supported by the British Council, are starved of money and talent in most South American universities.
Interchange of students and lecturers has now become a simple matter, since many govern- ments sponsor or own airlines, and it is no hard- ship for a young man or woman to wait a few days for an unhooked seat on a plane. Nor should an exchange of books—another desideratum— be difficult once the interest is aroused. At present Spanish American publishing is ill-coordinated. New novels and poetry tend to come from Buenos Aires, and educational books, especially of the 'Pelican' type, from Mexico. There is, however, little exchange across the New World frontiers, and even less with Spain itself. There is a good collection in the library of Canning House. But such names as Neruda, Pellicer and Vallejo—poets of perhaps greater importance than Lorca—are almost unknown here; and the novelists, who give the essential background pic- ture on which Latin American studies must de- pend, are either untranslated or appear in small editions printed in the US. A background book or two, followed by a small library of trans- lations, would be a reasonable enterprise, requir- ing only a small subvention. The German magazine Humboldt is already undertaking something of this sort, and this autumn invited a considerable number of Latin American authors to visit Berlin as its guests, to discuss the widening of cultural exchange. I believe that they also intend to print texts in Spanish for study.
In principle, the proposals I am making de- mand a change of attitude in our Spanish lan- guage schools and a development of our still very backward Portuguese studies. The study of literature and philology will unquestionably con- tinue. But modern language schools should surely offer as an alternative of equal status the study of the living and changing languages and cultures of our present-day neighbours. Modern should come to mean something more than not Latin or Greek. Correct and mincing Castilian is not a recommendation in Mexico or Buenos Aires, nor is Hispanic philology, nor the ability to construe difficult passages from Gongora and Quevedo. The English traveller, teacher, official or businessman needs a competent and unaffected Spanish and Portuguese, and a knowledge of the present-day conditions and cultures of the twenty republics he may visit. After all, a visitor to the US would be badly out of his depth if he had heard of nothing more recent than the Boston Tea Party.
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