Jorge Isaacs' Maria is perhaps the best known, most frequently read 19th century Spanish American novel, but at the same time, the most often misunderstood by modern readers and critics alike. The novel has been labeled by some critics as a real tear-jerker that seeks to revive, and to share with the reader, the loss of a first love. The story is recounted by Efrain, a first-person narrator, who tells it in retrospection, reconstructing the events and feelings of the moment, but in many instances reacting to that past in the emotional framework of the present. The abundant weeping in the tale...