What 50 Cent can teach us about Quevedo : the case for using analogy and video clips

Abstract

This paper looks at using modern video clips taken from entertainment media to provide students with content analogous to works of Golden Age literature. The examples of content provided in the paper will all be drawn from an honours-level university module titled ‘Action Heroes and Anti-Heroes in Early Modern Spain’. To provide material for a broader discussion of anti-heroes in which to take a closer look at Golden-Age texts, the instructor plays modern video clips that contain analogous characters, such as criminal alter egos of hip-hop artists (like 50 Cent), or iconic figures played by actors such as Clint Eastwood in the role of ‘Dirty Harry’. While not guaranteed to eliminate all barriers to understanding the material, modern video clips are useful in stimulating the students’ analytical imagination. These supplmentary media make it easier for seminar participants to name relevant abstract themes to be applied to specific difficult texts, such as jácaras that contain obscure slang and unfamiliar contexts.