Jaume Roig’s Espill constitutes one of the masterpieces in the history of Catalan literature. On the pages of the present article the attention will be put on one of its main thematic subjects, that is marriage, treated on the basis of a large perspective, whose goal will be to integrate the results of interdisciplinary analyses from the fields of anthropology, theology or cultural studies, in order to project an all-embracing view that will allow to configure the Spill’s signifiers polyhedron, which relies on its precious and singular textual ambiguity. In this frame and around the marriage’s core, the textual presence of sexuality marks, family relations and amor hereos will be analyzed in detail, for finally presenting a reading proposal of the main character’s matrimonial episodes from an exegetical sight.
The aim of the present paper is to determine several fissures and inconsistencies leading to unsolvable ambiguities of meaning in Manuel de Pedrolo’s novel Typescript of the second origin by means of a critical analysing of its linguistic and ideological issues, specially its religious groundwork – which is both stylistic and related to ideological content. However, some elements weaken the narrative’s disrupting character, making almost inevitably the failure of this revolution, as it is evidenced in the epilogue. In short, Predolo’s novel may be interpreted as a strong claim against History.
Invisibility is the main motif of two non-mimetic novels belonging to the Catalan and Spanish literature respectively: Vermell de Cadmi [Cadmium Red] (1984) by Margarida Aritzeta, and Los invisibles [The Invisible] (2000) by José María Merino. The aim of the present article is to compare both novels by analysing how the dialectical process between body, fantasticality, and social conflict works in them, taking into account their historic and literary contexts, possible interpretations of the unusual events from an ideological point of view, and the strategies used for achieving the fantastic effect in both of them.
Tzvetan Todorov typified the literary fantastic as an autonomous gender in 1970, separating it from marvelous texts and other bordering modes that contained unreal or supernatural elements. In the Latin-American Hispanic studies his model and several other views about fantastic literature encouraged an advancing body of important theorizing, more or less critical with his definition of the gender, finding or not correlations with French or Anglo-Saxon alternative approaches to Todorov’s taxonomist view. In Spain a consistent incorporation to the debate occurred much later thanks to Catalan researcher David Roas. In the present article it is presented a brief state of the investigation about the literary fantastic through the last 20 years in Hispanic studies, when the first reactions to structuralist visions of the subject were enriched by sociocritical, historic, psychologist and philological contributions. two particular, solid but conflicting approaches are analyzed as the opposed poles of a quite wide spectrum of different understandings and ways of doing literary fantastic: on one hand, Mexican scholar Ana María Morales philologist and intratextual-based view, and, on the other hand, Roas psychologist and actual-reader-response-based position. This accurately examined presentation shows the complex variety and the enormous interest of Hispanic studies theorizing about fantasy worlds.
El presente artículo constituye una aportación al estudio de las cuestiones sociopolíticas en la literatura no mimética a la luz del concepto de paria. El objetivo del trabajo ha sido analizar el uso de lo fantástico y proyectivo con respecto a la representación de los parias bien como víctimas, bien como victimarios-vengadores. Tras una aproximación a la cuestión del paria en lo fantástico durante los siglos XIX y XX, se analiza una selección de relatos publicados en el siglo XXI en lengua española y catalana por Albert Sánchez Piñol, David Roas, José María García Hernández y Carme Torras. El trabajo demuestra que los textos fantásticos y proyectivos continúan siendo obras válidas de protesta y de denuncia ante las injusticias. Además, en ellos los parias-víctimas ya no son meramente minorías discriminadas y enmudecidas, sino que la casuística de dicha condición se ha ampliado al igual que lo ha hecho la complejidad del mundo contemporáneo.
Catalan writer Joan Perucho, one of the most recognized Hispanic authors of fantasy literature, presents in his works experimental and avant‑garde subjects that are typical of the postmodern era. Nevertheless, his literary texts go far beyond parody and meaningless games. The main objective of this article is to analyse Peruchos’ novels taking into account the dichotomy between transcendence through believing - that is to say, strategies configured to transcend the spiritual void of the last century - and immanence understood, on the one hand, materially (as intertextual frames, forms, and procedures) and, on the other hand, culturally (as rituals related to law, moral, ethics, or gastronomy in the everyday life). Key words: fantasy literature, Joan Perucho, transcendence, immanence, ritual
Dealing with discourses produced in contemporary popular music, it is usual in contemporary youth’s imaginary to find rock considered as metonymic with authenticity, remaining as a movement an outstanding extension of Romanticism. Then, when drawing out its motifs from Satanism, successful rock lyrics need a rhetorical stylization in order to construct persuading songs beyond traditional morals. The main goal of this article is to analyze and compare this kind of stylization in the Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil and Jesucristo García, written by the Spanish band Extremoduro, taking them both as examples of popularized dramatic monologues that present the topic of attraction of Evil performed by devilish figures.
Pere Calders is one of the most recognised contemporary Catalan authors, especially on account of his uses of humorous and fantastic motives. In the present article two of his short stories are analysed as samples of involvement between fantasticity, on the one hand, and literality, metafiction and discourse construction on the other. It is showed how the narrative voice manipulates language semantically, syntactically and pragmatically in order to create ambiguity and, therefore, enlarge the limits of reality. If narrator’s parody strategy is seen as the representation of the unreal in front of everyday life, and reality as what certainly tortures and strongly worries people in the name of reason, we can conclude that in Calders’ short stories unreality is subtly invaded by the real, producing at the same time aparody of aparody in itself.
Ramon Vinyes has been known in the literary world because of his being mentioned in García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad as a fictional character, “the Catalan sage”. In fact, he was a poet, playwright and short story writer, who did create his works in his homeland, as well as in Colombia during his exile years, though always writing in Catalan. Vinyes’s most acknowledged short story is “L’Albí” (The Albino), telling the bizarre aftermath of a monstrous presence in a village of the Catalan hinterland. In the present article, the author analyses the ways in which fantasticity and weirdness are used in the configuration of this mysterious character – which is a meaningful projection of otherness – taking into account the function of ideology and parody in the text. Thus, the study argues about the role played by several allusions to English history and significant gothic motives, showing that these elements, along with fantasticity, ideology and parody, build a singular narrative fiction which is at the cutting edge of its contemporary Catalan literary context.
Alfons Gregori, ressenya de Josep-Anton Fernàndez & Jaume Subirana (Eds.): Funcions del passat en la cultura catalana contemporània: institucionalització, representacions i identitat [review of Josep-Anton Fernàndez & Jaume Subirana (Eds.): Funcions del passat en la cultura catalana contemporània: institucionalització, representacions i identitat].
L’atorgament del premi Nobel de literatura a Bob Dylan va suposar la culminació d’una concepció dels textos de la música popular com a literatura. A l’Estat espanyol aquesta línia de pensament ha servit de base per a força treballs acadèmics, que en general han minimitzat l’aspecte musical de l’obra artística i, en alguns casos, fins i tot el context històric, polític i cultural en què aquesta va sorgir. D’altra banda, en una òptica més propera als estudis culturals s’han publicat treballs sobre aspectes sociològics i historiogràfics de gèneres, períodes i intèrprets o grups musicals. La majoria d’aquesta recerca resulta força encomiable perquè ha estat capaç de rebel·lar-se contra el silencis a l’entorn del fenomen de la música popular contemporània en l’àmbit de les humanitats a l’Estat espanyol, alhora que la seva escassetat indica que l’interès per la qüestió ha estat bastant més baixa que al món anglosaxó. En aquest article es presentarà l’esmentada problemàtica i es plantejaran algunes vies d’aplicació de perspectives pròpies dels estudis culturals en els treballs sobre música popular contemporània, a partir no sols de la dimensió intertextual i interdiscursiva d’aquests, sinó també de la valoració del so com a element copartícip a l’hora de crear sentit(s) en la recepció d’una obra d’art musical.
The main aim of this article is to analyse the complexity of the subject of memory in the work of Jesus Moncada, as an author from Aragon writing in Catalan and introducing the Spanish Civil War issue in fantastic fiction, namely in Històries de la mà esquerra [Stories of the Left Hand] (1981). Furthermore, the short story that closes the book, “D’uns vells papers de música” [Old Sheet Music], is discussed to illustrate that matter in the context of the conflict between the real and the fantastic, on the one hand, and between history and memory, on the other hand. Thus, in the mentioned narrative fiction collective memory stands as a specter whose condition is noticed by its anachronistic return under grotesque forms, resulting from the horror facing death or the unreal, and from the irony interwoven by the narrator. In doing so Moncada problematizes any attempt to reconstruct historical memory based on literature.
This article analyzes the construction of El complot dels anells (The plot of the rings), a Catalan political fiction artifact that was created as both a film and a novel in 1988. To this end, not only the fundamental sociopolitical and cultural contexts have been taken into account, but also the point of view M. O’Brian, an Irish American journalist who has to cover the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona. He gets involved in a high-voltage political intrigue, a confabulation that leads a terrorist group to hijack the Olympic stadium and the Catalan president in an attempt to declare independence from Spain. Therefore, the main goal is to discuss the mechanisms that articulate figures of Otherness throughout the story. In conclusion, allusions to contemporary reality and the distance created by the Other voices do not, at first sight, meet the challenge of reflecting on armed struggle as a means of achieving political goals, causing the effect of escapism alone. Nevertheless, a closer approach through the figure of Otherness and a reflection on terrorism’s real sense in the film and the novel entail a vision of O’Brian’s character as both the real Double and the representational Sameness in El complot dels anells.