Heinrich Heine | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 16 pages of analysis & critique of Heinrich Heine.

Heinrich Heine | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 16 pages of analysis & critique of Heinrich Heine.
This section contains 4,355 words
(approx. 15 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by John Carson Pettey

SOURCE: "Anticolonialism in Heine's 'Vitzliputzli'," in Colloquia Germanica, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1993, pp. 37-47.

In the following essay, Pettey investigates Heine's representation of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in his poem "Vitzliputzli" as primarily a violent clash of religions.

In "Vitzliputzli",1 the longest of the "Historien" in Romanzero (1851), Heine avoided sentimentalizing the Aztecs vis-à-vis their Spanish conquerors and colonizers. He was chiefly concerned with presenting his historical vision in a disturbingly vivid, nightmarish account of the clash between two diverse cultures. Following a major theme found in the "Historien," "Vitzliputzli" illustrates the dominance of barbarity attended by a baffling lack of transcendent benevolence in human history.2 As was always his wont, Heine sided overtly with the underdog, and yet he pulled no punches about the cruelty in Aztec rituals. Indeed, the historical problem addressed deals primarily with a conflict between religions. His poetic rendering of the Conquest of Mexico...

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This section contains 4,355 words
(approx. 15 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by John Carson Pettey
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Critical Essay by John Carson Pettey from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.