The Underdogs Summary

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The term Novel of the Revolution refers to a group of narrative works inspired by and based on the events of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. These writings focus on the military actions, popular uprisings, political and social transformations, and the overall human suffering caused by the decade-long war. The canon of the Novel of the Revolution comprises an assortment of novels, short stories, autobiographies, biographies, and testimonial accounts of the war. During the armed conflict, authors coined the phrase Novel of the Revolution to describe narrative works that portrayed the violent events of the war. However, the term gained critical acceptance and a more precise definition after the war. In the polémica de 1925 critics eschewed foreign …show more content…
Set in the battlefield and centered on the character types that participated in the war, Los de abajo became an example for Mexican novelists interested in creating a socially committed national literature. From 1915 to 1947 as many as one hundred different authors wrote approximately two hundred and eighty Novels of the Revolution, as discussed in Moore 1941 (cited in Bibliographies). Due to this enormous body of work, critics often disagree on which narratives should be classified as Novels of the Revolution. Some limit the canon to works that deal specifically with the destructive, military phase of the Revolution. Other scholars propose broader parameters for the genre and include works that are set in the period of fighting as well as those that depict the era of postrevolutionary reconstruction. Finally, some critics offer an even more inclusive definition, labeling Novels of the Revolution literary works that narrate the important historical events of modern Mexico before and after the war of