Memory and Trauma in the Postwar Spanish Novel (eBook)

Revisiting the Past

Ross Woods, Sarah Leggott (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013
182 Seiten
Bucknell University Press (Verlag)
978-1-61148-531-8 (ISBN)

Infos

This book proposes a new direction for the study of Spanish literature of the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, arguing that novels of this period merit a fresh critical approach that enriches existing perspectives on the Spanish novel during the first two decades of the Franco dictatorship. Essays take an interdisciplinary approach to reveal how contemporary cultural theory relating to memory and trauma can enhance our understanding of the postwar Spanish novel.

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In recent years, much Spanish literary criticism has been characterized by debates about collective and historical memory, stemming from a national obsession with the past that has seen an explosion of novels and films about the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship. This growth of so-called memory studies in literary scholarship has focused on the representation of memory and trauma in contemporary narratives dealing with the Civil War and ensuing dictatorship. In contrast, the novel of the postwar period has received relatively little critical attention of late, despite the fact that memory and trauma also feature, in different ways and to varying degrees, in many works written during the Franco years. The essays in this study argue that such novels merit a fresh critical approach, and that contemporary scholarship relating to the representation of memory and trauma in literature can enhance our understanding of the postwar Spanish novel.The volume opens with essays that engage with aspects of contemporary theoretical approaches to memory in order to reveal the ways in which these are pertinent to Spanish novels written in the first postwar decades, with studies on novels by Camilo Jose Cela, Carmen Laforet, Arturo Barea and Ana Mara Matute. Its second section focuses on the representation of trauma in specific postwar novels, drawing on elements from trauma studies scholarship to discuss neglected works by Mercedes Salisachs, Dolores Medio and Ignacio Aldecoa. The final essays continue the focus on the theme of trauma and revisit works by women writers, namely Carmen Laforet, Rosa Chacel, Ana Mara Matute and Mara Zambrano, that foreground the experiences of female protagonists who are seeking to deal with a traumatic past. The essays in this volume thus propose a new direction for the study of Spanish literature of 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, enhancing existing approaches to the postwar Spanish novel through an engagement with contemporary scholarship on memory and trauma in literature.

Autor

Sarah Leggott is associate professor of Spanish and head of the School of Languages and Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington.Ross Woods is a lecturer in Spanish at Victoria University of Wellington.

Inhalt

ContentsSection One. Revisiting the Past: Memory and HistoryLa familia de Pascual DuarteLa familia de Pascual Duarte and Nada revisitedLa forja de un rebeldeLos soldados lloran de nocheSection Two. Reading the Wounded Generation: Pluralistic TraumaLos que se quedanNosotros, los RiveroEl fulgor y la sangre: The Politics of Memory under Franco Section Three. Narrating Traumatic Experience: Uncovered TraumaNadaMemorias de Leticia Valle and Ana María Matute’s Primera memoriaDelirio y destinoBibliography About the Contributors

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.12.2013
• Co-Autor: Christine Arkinstall, Federico Bonaddio, Francis Lough, Julia van Luijk, Alison Ribeiro de Menezes, Daniela Omlor, Beatriz Caballero Rodriguez, Anne L. Walsh
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Romanistik
• Schlagworte: 20th-century literature • Cultural Studies • Literary Studies • Spanish Literature • Twentieth-Century Literature
• ISBN-10: 1-61148-531-2 / 1611485312
• ISBN-13: 978-1-61148-531-8 / 9781611485318