That are Literary Skulls in México?

La Catrina of José Guadalupe Posadas

By Rosa Elena Alvarado

It approaches November two, Fieles Difuntos day,  at present better call as Day of Dead (Día de Muertos), a date of great importance for the Mexicans across which there are remembered the family, friends and deceased beings by different activities by altars (altares) in honor to its dead, in homes ó in the pantheon where they lie buried and elaboration of offerings (ofrendas) with all the elements that were pleasing in life its deceased.

In these dates gets used also for many years, to elaborating and publishing the Literary Skulls (Calaveras Literarias), which are an expression of the mexican identity, a species of epitaph with jocular sense in the shape of verse, irreverently and with the crafty character of the Mexican.

The Mexican engraver José Guadalupe Posadas used the figure of the pre-Hispanic death and the medieval one to draw a death with festive character, mocking, popular that disguises the Mexican to celebrate more than the death, to the life itself.

Across the literary skulls, from the century xx, the Mexicans use these tenths ó couplets as a forum of social expression, in more of the anonymous times, to do social critique that is directed principally politicians, people who uses the power to offend the society.

 

Would you like to know an example of a CALAVERA LITERARIA in Spanish? ... Please go to the next link:
LITERARY SKULL DEDICATED TO OAXACA STATE