Esta tesis es una exploración de la literatura como un mecanismo de recuperar la memoria colectiva de España después de la Guerra Civil. Los textos de Duelo en El Paraíso por Juan Goytisolo, El cuarto de atrás por Carmen Martín Gaite, Soldados de Salamina de Javier Cercas, y Los girasoles ciegos de Alberto Méndez se utilizan como ejemplos de la literatura de la posguerra que se tratan del tema de la memoria como parte faltante de la sociedad de hoy. El análisis de estos cuatro textos muestra las maneras diferentes en que la literatura puede servir como manera de ganar acceso al pasado.

The Old Testament story of Joseph is common to the Christians, Muslims, and Jews of medieval Spain, and each group drew upon its own and other exegetical traditions to produce literary versions of the biblical tale. After the expulsion of the latter two groups, several Hispanic playwrights, including such notable figures as Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, continued to produce theatrical versions of the Josephine legend throughout the Golden Age. Most of these plays attained a great deal of popularity. In spite of the importance of these works in early Spanish culture, recent scholarship has paid comparatively little attention to them. The present study is meant to remedy that situation. By drawing upon the theoretical concepts of Edward Said, Amin Maalouf, Jonathan Z. Smith, and others regarding identity and Otherness, I demonstrate how each adaptation of the story constructs or evaluates religious and national identity. Medieval prose and poetic adaptations written by representatives of each of the three monotheistic faiths reveal an attempt to maintain the boundaries of religious identity within a multicultural context. Sixteenth-century theatrical versions deal with the post-expulsion identity crisis by proposing a more inclusive attitude towards New Christians. Finally, under the Baroque influence of the late seventeenth century, adaptations of the Joseph story become increasingly metatheatrical. This literary self-reflection serves to interrogate the nature of identity and reveal its constructedness. Given the importance of identity issues in current scholarship, this analysis suggests the need for increased critical attention to be paid to the Spanish Josephine tradition. / text

This dissertation explores from an interdisciplinary point of view the textual impact of globalization processes and their concurrent transformation of the cultural industry in the Spanish-language novel of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Here it is argued that the elimination of barriers to capital flows and foreign investment, in conjunction with changes in intellectual property laws and the implementation of new communication and information technologies, have led to the creation of multinational media conglomerates able to restrict the choices made by individuals on not only of what can be read, but also what can be listened to and watched. This work defends the idea that the metafictional frame found in works by the Chilean Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) and the Spaniard Enrique Vila-Matas (1948) epitomizes a novel approach to transnational writing. In their narratives, both authors portray and resist globalization by proposing a bricolage of stateless literati scattered across the globe in search of enigmatic writers, tantamount in my interpretation to out of print or unpublished books. Coincidentally, both novelists began their career in the same independent publishing house, the Barcelona-based Anagrama, and were later published under major imprints. Moreover, these recognized novelists, both recipients of the prestigious Herralde and Rómulo Gallegos literary prizes, have become points of reference for the next generation of Latin American and Spanish authors. / text

Homometries : Representations of Homosexual Desire in Spanish Golden Age Literature traces literary representations of homosexuality during this period. Traditional criticism is written from a perspective that reflects the heteronormative idiosyncrasy that permeates this literature. In my study, I interpret the authors' textual imaginings and how they manipulate hegemonic ideals of identity and sexuality to highlight overt or encoded attempts to subvert the concept of transhistorical heterosexuality. My study valorizes "anachronistic" queer literature. It differs from those in the 1990s by averting from the consideration of homosexuality as a recent "invention". I revisit Spanish Golden Age texts to illustrate how human relations in this era can provide the spaces where alternative sexual identities can take hold. I propose five imperatives, one, it is necessary to admit that these texts incorporate not only hegemonic ideals but all the intensities of human desire; two, when these intensities have to do with homosexuality they are registered in three levels: codified, embedded in a homophobic concept, or silenced; three, when the codification appears in a positive context it can be identified through the rhetoric of homoeroticism or masculine love (homosociality would be the asexual variation and feminine love its lesbian counterpart); four, homophobia can be recognized in condemnatory, moralistic, or mockery situations; and five, the language of the closet exists in textual suggestions, in what is not pronounced but can be identified. Each chapter deals with and elaborates on each of these imperatives, with Chapter 1 acting as the theoretical platform. Chapter 2 focuses on homoeroticism through the poetry of don Juan de Arguijo. Chapter 3 studies a feminine man in the episode of Leandra and Vicente in Don Quijote, here, I propose the term, "homoscapes" (homo-relieves) as the identifiable characteristics of hegemonic gender transgressions. In Chapter 4, I revise Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's homosociality to show how homosexual relationships between men could have been maintained in La boda entre dos maridos, a Lope de Vega play. Chapter 5 analyzes homophobia and its representations in Celos con celos se curan, a play by Tirso de Molina. And, Chapter 6 deals with the interpretation of the language of the closet in El castillo de Lindabridis, a play by Calderón de la Barca. / text

Not available / text

This dissertation analyzes the prose works of the “Nova Novorum,” a fiction series created and published by José Ortega y Gasset between 1926 and 1929. This collection included six works by four authors, five of which will be discussed in this dissertation. Pedro Salinas’ Víspera del gozo (1926) inaugurated the series. Benjamín Jarnés published two works: El profesor inútil (1926) and Paula y Paulita (1929). Antonio Espina is also responsible for two works: Pájaro pinto (1927) and Luna de copas (1929). The dissertation is divided into five sections. The first chapter introduces the topic of avant-garde prose during the 1920s in Spain, and the concept of ekphrasis as a methodological approach. Prose authors of the avant-garde were prolific during the first third of the twentieth century in Spain. They produced a new aesthetic sensibility with their experimental narrations. All of the works analyzed are examined through the lens of ekphrasis, which is the verbal representation of visual representation. Chapter Two discusses three relational aspects of ekphrasis: word and image, time and space, and the hermeneutics of ekphrasis. The first section examines the difference between narration and description. The second explores the relationship between time and space and the implications of the fact that a visual object is normally associated with space, while a verbal representation is associated with time. This section examines how authors incorporate spatial techniques into their narrations in ways that are commonly employed by painters. The third section of Chapter Two examines iconology and the hermeneutics of ekphrasis and how the authors use the trope of mimesis not to imitate nature but rather to distort reality. Chapters Three, Four and Five closely examine the images described by each author. This study draws on understanding of ekphrasis from literary studies and art history as well as theories of the literary avant-garde that stems both from Europe and from Spain in particular. Ortega y Gasset’s ideas about the novel and the avant-garde informed the basic assumptions of the authors of the “Nova Novorum,” who often used ekphrasis as a means of avoiding narrative progress. In many cases of ekphrasis found in the “Nova Novorum” collection, the representations of art are deployed in the same way in which the authors utilize metaphor, as a means of digressing from the narrative. These ekphrastic moments allow each author to withdraw from or slow down the narration, providing the author with the opportunity to focus on the use of language itself.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study offers an analysis of the interaction between urban spaces and bohemian literature in Madrid around 1900. I argue that bohemianism and bohemian literature are actually part of a very well structured cultural discourse--a discourse of social resistance--and must be studied as such. At the same time, the obvious urban nature of this phenomenon is a deciding aspect of it. In order to know how the bohemian discourse evolved in Madrid from 1850s to 1920s--from Realism to Modernismo--we have to study the core and reciprocal relationship between bohemianism and the city. This issue has not yet been explored within Hispanism, in spite of the fact that it provides a very useful perspective for considering the period as a synthesis of intellectual and artistic matters.In my dissertation I engage the essential aspects of bohemianism in the turn of the twentieth century Spanish literature. I focus on the characterization and use of space in the bohemian discourse of Peninsular Modernismo. My starting point is the description and characterization of such a discourse as it has been constructed, analyzing how it takes form in a variety of different kind of texts. I study the construction and evolution of its "cartographic imaginary" (David Harvey), an image of the city that bohemian literature uses to resist the bourgeois order imposed on Madrid's urban spaces and the capitalistic process that supports it. I argue that bohemianism was taken by the peninsular version of Hispanic Modernismo as its central aesthetic discourse. Consequently, and because of the subaltern and marginal nature of it, Modernismo could never position itself at the central stage of the 1900s Spanish culture.