In this Note, I examine whether the complex nature of the U.S. spin-off rules and the burdens ass... more In this Note, I examine whether the complex nature of the U.S. spin-off rules and the burdens associated with successfully navigating such rules discourage conglomerates from breaking up into smaller companies through tax-free spin-offs. First, I argue that there are numerous disadvantages of conglomeration, which generally tend to outweigh any economic benefits derived from the conglomerate form. Next, I describe the statutory and nonstatutory requirements of tax-free spinoffs, evaluating particularly how each requirement may impact a conglomerate wishing to spin off one or more of its business units. Because conglomerates are usually multinational corporations, I also briefly consider the tax consequences of spinning off a foreign company. In the following section, I discuss the issuance of private letter rulings in connection with conglomerate spin-offs and assess whether the I.R.S.'s recent policy changes have accelerated spin-off activity or, to the contrary, whether they have produced a chilling effect on conglomerate spin-offs. Finally, I examine a recent example of a successful conglomerate spin-off-Liberty's spin-off of TripAdvisor-before analyzing an example of a failed conglomerate spin-off-Yahoo's attempt to spin off Alibaba. I conclude that, although tax-free spin-offs are occasionally unsuccessful, such failures are rare. Even if the tax rules are byzantine and the monetary stakes are exceptionally high, conglomerates wishing to spin off business units typically manage to satisfy the requirements. Therefore, although U.S. tax law does not completely hinder deconglomeration, spin-offs are nevertheless costly. Fulfilling the spin-off requirements leads to economic inefficiencies because it entails expensive pre-spin-off restructuring and delays, as well as high transaction and friction costs.
In this article, I argue against the claim made by various scholars that Ercilla imitates Homer's... more In this article, I argue against the claim made by various scholars that Ercilla imitates Homer's Iliad in La Araucana. I propose, to the contrary, that the Spanish poet's allusions to the story of the Trojan War derive from his familiarity with the anti-Homeric tradition stemming from Dictys's Ephemeris belli troiani and Dares's De excidio troiae historia. I suggest that these chronicles and their multiple adaptations during the Middle Ages -especially the Historia troyana polimétrica -constitute essential sources for Ercilla's prologue to Part One, the fall of the Araucanian fort in Mataquito in Cantos 13-14, and the architecture of Fitón's cave in Canto 23. Like Ercilla, Dictys and Dares construct their chronicles as historiography, claiming to have participated as eyewitnesses in the events they narrate. At times Ercilla writes from the perspective of the Spaniards, while on other occasions he describes the war from the natives' viewpoint. Through his reading of Dictys and Dares, who offer rival accounts of the Trojan war -the first pro-Trojan, the second pro-Greek -Ercilla found a model for the creation of alternating perspectives of the same historical event.
This article underscores the importance of Canto 7 in the design of Part One as well as its signi... more This article underscores the importance of Canto 7 in the design of Part One as well as its significance in the overall architecture of Alonso de Ercilla's La Araucana (1569, 1578, 1589). During his depiction of Concepción's destruction, Ercilla collapses the dichotomies established in the poem's opening cantos between the masculine and the feminine, between the Spanish and the Araucanians, and between the conqueror and the invaded. The poet invites the reader to reconsider both Doña Mencía as well as Concepción's fall from overlapping, often contradictory, perspectives. Ercilla rewrites the scene on two occasions in Part One and once again in Part Two. Concepción's destruction can therefore be seen as a prototype repeated throughout La Araucana that endows the epic with greater unity and that suggests unexpected parallels through the juxtaposition of otherwise distant or unrelated episodes. The multiple reversals in Canto 7 correspond to an overarching inversion in the fortunes of warfare in Part One.
Histoire de lunes" (1933) pertenece a la obra temprana de Carpentier, a un primer ciclo de creati... more Histoire de lunes" (1933) pertenece a la obra temprana de Carpentier, a un primer ciclo de creatividad que hoy todavía subsiste en parte en la oscuridad. 1 este hecho tiene varias explicaciones. el propio autor, una vez consagrado como escritor reconocido y exitoso, rehusó volver a publicar los escritos de esta etapa formativa. Además, muchos de estos textos no son plenamente literarios, puesto que fusionan literatura, música, baile y teatro. Por último, esta primera época de producción narrativa quedó eclipsada por el éxito de su obra madura: los cuentos reunidos en Guerra del tiempo y sus novelas como El reino de este mundo, Los pasos perdidos y El siglo de las luces.
Debido a la rareza inquietante de su aspecto físico y a su capacidad extraordinaria de metamorfos... more Debido a la rareza inquietante de su aspecto físico y a su capacidad extraordinaria de metamorfosis, el ajolote ha cautivado el interés de todos aquellos que lo han conocido. En los últimos cien años, se ha visto una proliferación sorprendente de escritos sobre el ajolote que atraviesan las disciplinas más diversas. La génesis de este ensayo fue una comparación de la representación del ajolote en 'Axolotl' de Julio Cortázar y en Salón de belleza de Mario Bellatin, pero a medida que leía más al respecto, iba descubriendo un gran corpus de textos de distinta índole sobre los ajolotes. 1 En el año 2011, Gerardo Villadelángel Viñas y Roger Bartra publicaron Axolotiada, una antología que reúne una gran cantidad de textos e imágenes dedicados al ajolote. 2 En este artículo analizo la presencia del ajolote en algunas obras que figuran en Axolotiada, pero también en otras que no fueron incluidas en el volumen. A la primera versión del ensayo sobre Cortázar y Bellatin, he añadido un análisis del ajolote en las crónicas coloniales de Bernardino de Sahagún, Francisco Hernández y Francisco Javier Clavijero en un esfuerzo por iluminar los orígenes de lo escrito sobre el ajolote. 3 También he incorporado un breve estudio de 'El hombre' de Juan
In Part Two (1578), Cantos 20.21-21.12, of La Araucana, Alonso de Ercilla narrates his encounter ... more In Part Two (1578), Cantos 20.21-21.12, of La Araucana, Alonso de Ercilla narrates his encounter with a sympathetic Amerindian widow named Tegualda. While guarding the Spanish fort at Penco during the night, he discovers the grieving woman crouched among the corpses of the Araucanians slain in the recent battle outside the fortress walls. Concerned that she may be a spy, he interrogates her. She begs that he allow her to search for the body of her husband, Crepino. She then begins a lengthy narrative telling how she met Crepino while presiding over an Amerindian athletic tournament a month earlier. She explains that after Crepino overcame Mareguano in wrestling, the defeated native requested a rematch. Crepino agreed to face him a second time and, after seeking Tegualda's consent, defeated Mareguano again. He then won a footrace, and Tegualda declared him the victor of the games. While placing a wreath on his head and a ring on his finger, love seized her, and shortly after the competition they married. Once Tegualda finishes her narrative, Ercilla agrees to help her to search for the body the following morning. When they find the cadaver, Tegualda collapses over it and grieves. Ercilla then sees to it that she is safely escorted back home. 1 In this article, I explore Ercilla's construction of the invented Araucanian characters, Tegualda and Crepino. I argue that in this episode the poet invites the reader to consider the natives from at least two different perspectives. First, they appear as ancients cast in classical garb. Crepino engages in a wrestling match and in a footrace, the kind of athletic competitions that appear in ancient epic poetry, for example in Aeneid 5. Furthermore, Ercilla bases the frame story in the present-the search for the cadaver and the depiction of Tegualda mourning over Crepino's body-on the classical model of Argia in Statius's Thebaid. Second, the Amerindians behave as if they were courtly lovers in a chivalric romance. Tegualda and Crepino speak with highly stylized rhetoric that repeats the language of Petrarchan love poetry, and Ercilla also bases the native couple on Isabella and Zerbino from Ariosto's Orlando furioso. Finally, I examine the significance of 1 Based in part on the Guacolda episode in Part One (Cantos 13-14), the story of the suffering Araucanian woman becomes a major narrative thread in Parts Two and Three. The stories of Tegualda and Glaura (Canto 27-28) provide a frame for warfare in Part Two. The critics who have examined the Tegualda episode have tended to focus on similar aspects, namely the fact that Ercilla constructs the Amerindian maiden based on European models. Tomás Guevara asserts that Ercilla endows Tegualda and the other Araucanian women with Latin and Italian features: "El clasicismo le llevó a retocar las pinturas de aquellos salvajes con algunos rasgos más latinos e italianos que chilenos" (497). Luis Gadamés expresses surprise that Ercilla does not portray the Araucanian women as barbarians. He seeks a historical justification for the appearance of these noble, exemplary native women: "Para comprender mejor el alma de estas mujeres es menester insistir una vez más en que la barbarie araucana se había elevado, a la llegada de los españoles, sobre un nivel muy superior de las etapas primitivas" (48-49). Lucía Guerra Cunningham writes that through Tegualda, Glaura, and Lauca, Ercilla expresses the flipside of victory-the tragic loss of the defeated. Their stories "ponen en evidencia el reverso de la gloria bélica donde la muerte del enemigo ya no es el índice de la victoria sino la pérdida trágica que es apenas recuperable a través del luto y la memoria" (17). Lía Schwartz Lerner examines chivalry in the episodes of Tegualda and Glaura, and Aura Bocaz offers a structuralist, narratological analysis of the Tegualda story. Juan Diego Vila focuses on the role of the woman in courtier lyric poetry (poesía cortesana) and the Aristotelian tension between history and poetry in the episode. James Nicolopulos examines the criticism of the amorous episodes by readers and writers who upheld the encomendero system, especially Pedro de Oña. Finally, Cyrus Moore explores the significance of the episodes of Guacolda, Doña María de Bazán, Tegualda, Glaura, Lauca, and Dido in Ercilla's self-construction, his expression of personal honor, and his stance on empire and tyranny.
Poet; Soldier. Active 1569-1589 in America -South Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-94) is the aut... more Poet; Soldier. Active 1569-1589 in America -South Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-94) is the author of La Araucana, the most widely read and imitated epic of the Spanish Golden Age. Ercilla spent nearly 30 years working on the poem's three volumes, which he published in 1569, 1578, and 1589. Composed in heroic verse, La Araucana narrates the history of colonial warfare between the Spaniards and the Araucanians, a nation of bellicose, nomadic herdsmen living in Arauco, a region in southern Chile. The poem is a hybrid masterpiece that fuses literature, history, and autobiography. Unlike his epic precursors, Ercilla participated in many of the battles that he narrated. In the construction of his poem, he blended narrative strategies and the imitation of scenes and characters from classical epic, the Italian romance, and historiography. Following in the footsteps of the Spanish Renaissance poet Garcilaso de la Vega, Ercilla combined sapientia et fortitudo, and in Part Two he claims that, during the military campaign against the Araucanians, he was "armado siempre y siempre en ordenanza, / la pluma ora en la mano, ora la lanza" [Ever armed, alert each instant, / Pen I held in hand, and spear-shaft] (2.20.24.g-h). Ercilla embodied the Renaissance ideals of the perfect soldier and courtier. The elevation of contemporary historical events to epic proportions and the poet's active participation in the warfare that he narrates render the poem daringly original.
¿Cómo es posible escuchar un texto en prosa? ¿De qué manera suena una obra narrativa considerada ... more ¿Cómo es posible escuchar un texto en prosa? ¿De qué manera suena una obra narrativa considerada 'musical'? Con códigos y lenguajes propios, la música y la literatura son dos formas artísticas sumamente diferentes entre sí. La literatura es representativa, capaz de borrar nuestros alrededores físicos, de darnos la ilusión de ser transportados hacia mundos imaginarios y la oportunidad de vivir experiencias ajenas. La música, por el contrario, es difícilmente representativa sin la ayuda de la literatura o al menos la adición de títulos y letras.
In this Note, I examine whether the complex nature of the U.S. spin-off rules and the burdens ass... more In this Note, I examine whether the complex nature of the U.S. spin-off rules and the burdens associated with successfully navigating such rules discourage conglomerates from breaking up into smaller companies through tax-free spin-offs. First, I argue that there are numerous disadvantages of conglomeration, which generally tend to outweigh any economic benefits derived from the conglomerate form. Next, I describe the statutory and nonstatutory requirements of tax-free spinoffs, evaluating particularly how each requirement may impact a conglomerate wishing to spin off one or more of its business units. Because conglomerates are usually multinational corporations, I also briefly consider the tax consequences of spinning off a foreign company. In the following section, I discuss the issuance of private letter rulings in connection with conglomerate spin-offs and assess whether the I.R.S.'s recent policy changes have accelerated spin-off activity or, to the contrary, whether they have produced a chilling effect on conglomerate spin-offs. Finally, I examine a recent example of a successful conglomerate spin-off-Liberty's spin-off of TripAdvisor-before analyzing an example of a failed conglomerate spin-off-Yahoo's attempt to spin off Alibaba. I conclude that, although tax-free spin-offs are occasionally unsuccessful, such failures are rare. Even if the tax rules are byzantine and the monetary stakes are exceptionally high, conglomerates wishing to spin off business units typically manage to satisfy the requirements. Therefore, although U.S. tax law does not completely hinder deconglomeration, spin-offs are nevertheless costly. Fulfilling the spin-off requirements leads to economic inefficiencies because it entails expensive pre-spin-off restructuring and delays, as well as high transaction and friction costs.
In this article, I argue against the claim made by various scholars that Ercilla imitates Homer's... more In this article, I argue against the claim made by various scholars that Ercilla imitates Homer's Iliad in La Araucana. I propose, to the contrary, that the Spanish poet's allusions to the story of the Trojan War derive from his familiarity with the anti-Homeric tradition stemming from Dictys's Ephemeris belli troiani and Dares's De excidio troiae historia. I suggest that these chronicles and their multiple adaptations during the Middle Ages -especially the Historia troyana polimétrica -constitute essential sources for Ercilla's prologue to Part One, the fall of the Araucanian fort in Mataquito in Cantos 13-14, and the architecture of Fitón's cave in Canto 23. Like Ercilla, Dictys and Dares construct their chronicles as historiography, claiming to have participated as eyewitnesses in the events they narrate. At times Ercilla writes from the perspective of the Spaniards, while on other occasions he describes the war from the natives' viewpoint. Through his reading of Dictys and Dares, who offer rival accounts of the Trojan war -the first pro-Trojan, the second pro-Greek -Ercilla found a model for the creation of alternating perspectives of the same historical event.
This article underscores the importance of Canto 7 in the design of Part One as well as its signi... more This article underscores the importance of Canto 7 in the design of Part One as well as its significance in the overall architecture of Alonso de Ercilla's La Araucana (1569, 1578, 1589). During his depiction of Concepción's destruction, Ercilla collapses the dichotomies established in the poem's opening cantos between the masculine and the feminine, between the Spanish and the Araucanians, and between the conqueror and the invaded. The poet invites the reader to reconsider both Doña Mencía as well as Concepción's fall from overlapping, often contradictory, perspectives. Ercilla rewrites the scene on two occasions in Part One and once again in Part Two. Concepción's destruction can therefore be seen as a prototype repeated throughout La Araucana that endows the epic with greater unity and that suggests unexpected parallels through the juxtaposition of otherwise distant or unrelated episodes. The multiple reversals in Canto 7 correspond to an overarching inversion in the fortunes of warfare in Part One.
Histoire de lunes" (1933) pertenece a la obra temprana de Carpentier, a un primer ciclo de creati... more Histoire de lunes" (1933) pertenece a la obra temprana de Carpentier, a un primer ciclo de creatividad que hoy todavía subsiste en parte en la oscuridad. 1 este hecho tiene varias explicaciones. el propio autor, una vez consagrado como escritor reconocido y exitoso, rehusó volver a publicar los escritos de esta etapa formativa. Además, muchos de estos textos no son plenamente literarios, puesto que fusionan literatura, música, baile y teatro. Por último, esta primera época de producción narrativa quedó eclipsada por el éxito de su obra madura: los cuentos reunidos en Guerra del tiempo y sus novelas como El reino de este mundo, Los pasos perdidos y El siglo de las luces.
Debido a la rareza inquietante de su aspecto físico y a su capacidad extraordinaria de metamorfos... more Debido a la rareza inquietante de su aspecto físico y a su capacidad extraordinaria de metamorfosis, el ajolote ha cautivado el interés de todos aquellos que lo han conocido. En los últimos cien años, se ha visto una proliferación sorprendente de escritos sobre el ajolote que atraviesan las disciplinas más diversas. La génesis de este ensayo fue una comparación de la representación del ajolote en 'Axolotl' de Julio Cortázar y en Salón de belleza de Mario Bellatin, pero a medida que leía más al respecto, iba descubriendo un gran corpus de textos de distinta índole sobre los ajolotes. 1 En el año 2011, Gerardo Villadelángel Viñas y Roger Bartra publicaron Axolotiada, una antología que reúne una gran cantidad de textos e imágenes dedicados al ajolote. 2 En este artículo analizo la presencia del ajolote en algunas obras que figuran en Axolotiada, pero también en otras que no fueron incluidas en el volumen. A la primera versión del ensayo sobre Cortázar y Bellatin, he añadido un análisis del ajolote en las crónicas coloniales de Bernardino de Sahagún, Francisco Hernández y Francisco Javier Clavijero en un esfuerzo por iluminar los orígenes de lo escrito sobre el ajolote. 3 También he incorporado un breve estudio de 'El hombre' de Juan
In Part Two (1578), Cantos 20.21-21.12, of La Araucana, Alonso de Ercilla narrates his encounter ... more In Part Two (1578), Cantos 20.21-21.12, of La Araucana, Alonso de Ercilla narrates his encounter with a sympathetic Amerindian widow named Tegualda. While guarding the Spanish fort at Penco during the night, he discovers the grieving woman crouched among the corpses of the Araucanians slain in the recent battle outside the fortress walls. Concerned that she may be a spy, he interrogates her. She begs that he allow her to search for the body of her husband, Crepino. She then begins a lengthy narrative telling how she met Crepino while presiding over an Amerindian athletic tournament a month earlier. She explains that after Crepino overcame Mareguano in wrestling, the defeated native requested a rematch. Crepino agreed to face him a second time and, after seeking Tegualda's consent, defeated Mareguano again. He then won a footrace, and Tegualda declared him the victor of the games. While placing a wreath on his head and a ring on his finger, love seized her, and shortly after the competition they married. Once Tegualda finishes her narrative, Ercilla agrees to help her to search for the body the following morning. When they find the cadaver, Tegualda collapses over it and grieves. Ercilla then sees to it that she is safely escorted back home. 1 In this article, I explore Ercilla's construction of the invented Araucanian characters, Tegualda and Crepino. I argue that in this episode the poet invites the reader to consider the natives from at least two different perspectives. First, they appear as ancients cast in classical garb. Crepino engages in a wrestling match and in a footrace, the kind of athletic competitions that appear in ancient epic poetry, for example in Aeneid 5. Furthermore, Ercilla bases the frame story in the present-the search for the cadaver and the depiction of Tegualda mourning over Crepino's body-on the classical model of Argia in Statius's Thebaid. Second, the Amerindians behave as if they were courtly lovers in a chivalric romance. Tegualda and Crepino speak with highly stylized rhetoric that repeats the language of Petrarchan love poetry, and Ercilla also bases the native couple on Isabella and Zerbino from Ariosto's Orlando furioso. Finally, I examine the significance of 1 Based in part on the Guacolda episode in Part One (Cantos 13-14), the story of the suffering Araucanian woman becomes a major narrative thread in Parts Two and Three. The stories of Tegualda and Glaura (Canto 27-28) provide a frame for warfare in Part Two. The critics who have examined the Tegualda episode have tended to focus on similar aspects, namely the fact that Ercilla constructs the Amerindian maiden based on European models. Tomás Guevara asserts that Ercilla endows Tegualda and the other Araucanian women with Latin and Italian features: "El clasicismo le llevó a retocar las pinturas de aquellos salvajes con algunos rasgos más latinos e italianos que chilenos" (497). Luis Gadamés expresses surprise that Ercilla does not portray the Araucanian women as barbarians. He seeks a historical justification for the appearance of these noble, exemplary native women: "Para comprender mejor el alma de estas mujeres es menester insistir una vez más en que la barbarie araucana se había elevado, a la llegada de los españoles, sobre un nivel muy superior de las etapas primitivas" (48-49). Lucía Guerra Cunningham writes that through Tegualda, Glaura, and Lauca, Ercilla expresses the flipside of victory-the tragic loss of the defeated. Their stories "ponen en evidencia el reverso de la gloria bélica donde la muerte del enemigo ya no es el índice de la victoria sino la pérdida trágica que es apenas recuperable a través del luto y la memoria" (17). Lía Schwartz Lerner examines chivalry in the episodes of Tegualda and Glaura, and Aura Bocaz offers a structuralist, narratological analysis of the Tegualda story. Juan Diego Vila focuses on the role of the woman in courtier lyric poetry (poesía cortesana) and the Aristotelian tension between history and poetry in the episode. James Nicolopulos examines the criticism of the amorous episodes by readers and writers who upheld the encomendero system, especially Pedro de Oña. Finally, Cyrus Moore explores the significance of the episodes of Guacolda, Doña María de Bazán, Tegualda, Glaura, Lauca, and Dido in Ercilla's self-construction, his expression of personal honor, and his stance on empire and tyranny.
Poet; Soldier. Active 1569-1589 in America -South Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-94) is the aut... more Poet; Soldier. Active 1569-1589 in America -South Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-94) is the author of La Araucana, the most widely read and imitated epic of the Spanish Golden Age. Ercilla spent nearly 30 years working on the poem's three volumes, which he published in 1569, 1578, and 1589. Composed in heroic verse, La Araucana narrates the history of colonial warfare between the Spaniards and the Araucanians, a nation of bellicose, nomadic herdsmen living in Arauco, a region in southern Chile. The poem is a hybrid masterpiece that fuses literature, history, and autobiography. Unlike his epic precursors, Ercilla participated in many of the battles that he narrated. In the construction of his poem, he blended narrative strategies and the imitation of scenes and characters from classical epic, the Italian romance, and historiography. Following in the footsteps of the Spanish Renaissance poet Garcilaso de la Vega, Ercilla combined sapientia et fortitudo, and in Part Two he claims that, during the military campaign against the Araucanians, he was "armado siempre y siempre en ordenanza, / la pluma ora en la mano, ora la lanza" [Ever armed, alert each instant, / Pen I held in hand, and spear-shaft] (2.20.24.g-h). Ercilla embodied the Renaissance ideals of the perfect soldier and courtier. The elevation of contemporary historical events to epic proportions and the poet's active participation in the warfare that he narrates render the poem daringly original.
¿Cómo es posible escuchar un texto en prosa? ¿De qué manera suena una obra narrativa considerada ... more ¿Cómo es posible escuchar un texto en prosa? ¿De qué manera suena una obra narrativa considerada 'musical'? Con códigos y lenguajes propios, la música y la literatura son dos formas artísticas sumamente diferentes entre sí. La literatura es representativa, capaz de borrar nuestros alrededores físicos, de darnos la ilusión de ser transportados hacia mundos imaginarios y la oportunidad de vivir experiencias ajenas. La música, por el contrario, es difícilmente representativa sin la ayuda de la literatura o al menos la adición de títulos y letras.
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