Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wp2c8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-01T05:29:20.749Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Narrating the Past: History and the Novel of Memory in Postwar Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

David K. Herzberger
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Historiography in Francoist Spain (1939-75) sought to affirm the morally and historically correct role of the regime within the flow of Spanish history. As an important vehicle of dissidence, the novel of memory stands in sharp contrast to Francoist history: it explores the past largely eschewed or appropriated by the regime and contests the so-called truths that Franco shaped through the discourse of myth. This essay examines the role of subjective memory as a challenge to historiography and discloses the narrative strategies novelists used to counter the government's myths. Unlike Francoist historiography, the novel of memory lays out history as a series of disruptions and undermines the referential illusion of truth and wholeness in our understanding of the past.

Type
Hispanic Cluster
Information
PMLA , Volume 106 , Issue 1 , January 1991 , pp. 34 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Lavers, Annette. New York: Hill, 1972.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. The Rustle of Language. Trans. Howard, Richard. New York: Hill, 1986.Google Scholar
Benet, Juan. El ángel del Señor abandona a Tobías. Barcelona: Gaya Ciencia, 1976.Google Scholar
Benet, Juan. Herrumbrosas lanzas. Vol. 3 (books 8–12). Madrid: Alfaguara, 1986.Google Scholar
Benet, Juan. Una meditación. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1970.Google Scholar
Benet, Juan. A Meditation. Trans. Rabassa, Gregory. New York: Persea, 1982.Google Scholar
Caudet, Francisco. “Recuento, de Luis Goytisolo. Anâlisis sociológico.” Papeles de Son Armadans 88 (1978): 225–33.Google Scholar
Cowart, David. History and the Contemporary Novel. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1989.Google Scholar
D'Amico, Robert. Historicism and Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 1989.Google Scholar
Davis, Lennard. Resisting Novels: Ideology and Fiction. New York: Methuen, 1987.Google Scholar
Diaz, Elias. Pensamiento español 1939–1973. Madrid: Cuadernos Para el Diálogo, 1974.Google Scholar
Dilthey, Wilhelm. Pattern and Meaning in History. Trans, and ed. H.P. Rickman. New York: Harper, 1961.Google Scholar
Faulkner, William. Sartoris. New York: Grosset, 1929.Google Scholar
Franco, Francisco. Franco ha dicho. Madrid: Voz, 1949.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Ed. Barden, Garrett and Cumming, John. New York: Seabury, 1975.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “The Problem of Historical Consciousness.” Interpretive Social Science. Ed. Rabinow, Paul and Sullivan, William. Berkeley: U of California P, 1979. 103–60.Google Scholar
Gearhart, Suzanne. The Open Boundary of History and Fiction. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Goytisolo, Juan. Señas de identidad. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1966.Google Scholar
Goytisolo, Luis. La cólera de Aquiles. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1979.Google Scholar
Goytisolo, Luis. Recuento. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1975.Google Scholar
Ilie, Paul. “Dictatorship and Literature: The Model of Francoist Spain.” Ideologies and Literature 4 (1983): 238–55.Google Scholar
Labanyi, Jo. Myth and History in the Contemporary Spanish Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.Google Scholar
LaCapra, Dominick. History, Politics, and the Novel. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martín Gaite, Carmen. The Back Room. Trans. Lane, Helen. New York: Columbia UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Martín Gaite, Carmen. El cuarto de atrás. Barcelona: Destino, 1978.Google Scholar
Morson, Gary Saul, ed. Literature and History. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Pérez Embid, Florentino. “Ante la nueva actualidad del ‘Problema de Espana.‘” Arbor: Ciencia, pensamiento y cultura 45–46 (1949): 149–59.Google Scholar
Pope, Randolph. “Historia y novela en la postguerra española.” Siglo XX/20th Century 5.1–2 (1987–88): 16–24.Google Scholar
Pope, Randolph. “Luis Goytisolo's Antagonía and Radical Change.” Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea 13 (1988): 105–17.Google Scholar
Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past. Trans. Scott Moncrieff, C.K., Kilmartin, Terence, and Mayor, Andreas. 3 vols. New York: Random, 1981.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative. Trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. 3 vols. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984–88.Google Scholar
Sobejano, Gonzalo. Novela española de nuestro tiempo. 2nd ed. Madrid: Española, 1975.Google Scholar
Spires, Robert. “Juan Benet's Poetics of Open Spaces.” Critical Approaches to the Writings of Juan Benet. Ed. Manteiga, Roberto et al. Hanover: UP of New England, 1984. 1–7.Google Scholar
Tuñón de Lara, Manuel. Metodología de la historia social de Espana. Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1973.Google Scholar
Tuñón de Lara, Manuel, and Biescas, José Antonio. Espana bajo la dictadura franquista. Barcelona: Labor, 1980.Google Scholar
Vicens Vives, Jaime. Approaches to the History of Spain. Trans. Ulman, John C. Berkeley: U of California P, 1970.Google Scholar
Weinsheimer, Joel. Gadamer's Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale UP, 1985.Google Scholar
White, Hayden. The Content of the Form. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987.Google Scholar
White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1978.Google Scholar
Williams, William Carlos. Paterson. New York: New Directions, 1963.Google Scholar