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SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... “The Persistence of Difference: Mythologies of Essentialism, the Anglophone World and Modern Spanish Cultural Identity” A Dissertation Presented by Melanie Catherine Simpson to The Graduate School in Partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literature Stony Brook University December 2007 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Melanie Catherine Simpson We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Daniela Flesler-Dissertation Advisor Assistant Professor, Hispanic Languages and Literature Kathleen Vernon-Chairperson of Defense Associate Professor, Hispanic Languages and Literature Lou Charnon-Deutsch Professor, Hispanic Languages and Literature Adrián Pérez Melgosa Assistant Professor, Hispanic Languages and Literature José Manuel del Pino Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Dartmouth College This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Lawrence Martin Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation “The Persistence of Difference: Mythologies of Essentialism, the Anglophone World and Modern Spanish Cultural Identity” by Melanie Catherine Simpson Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literature Stony Brook University 2007 My dissertation argues that contemporary and historical attempts to deconstruct essentialist ideas about Spain often reaffirm or reconstruct these same essentialist notions through Spanish self-representations which engage with or anticipate foreign perceptions of Spain, particularly Britain and the United States. I focus on the mechanisms through which generalizations of Spain as a backward foil for European order and progress are perpetuated and on the slippage between maintaining and deconstructing Spanish difference, particularly in the “contact zone” between Spaniards and foreigners (Pratt 1992). Although Spanish difference is often dismissed as an anachronism (Vilarós 1998), essentialist readings of Spanish culture are implicitly reasserted within the works I discuss. Chapter One contrasts Spanish intellectuals who promote the idea of Spanish difference, whether to lament it or to embrace it: Blanco White’s rejection of Spanish culture and adoption of a new British identity; Larra’s assessment of Spanish difference as the projection of internal social problems onto Spain’s relationship with France; and Lorca’s claims that Spain preserves a “primordial” authenticity in the form of an emblematic national duende. In Chapter Two, I investigate the role of Hispanism in the perpetuation or demystification of Spanish difference, particularly through a contrastive transatlantic assessment of Hispanisms (Del Pino y La Rubia Prado 1999; Epps and Fernández Cifuentes 2005). A reading of novels depicting Spaniards in Anglophone academia (Todas las almas by Javier Marías, 1989 and Carlota Fainberg by Antonio Muñoz Molina, 1999) demonstrates how the perception of difference abroad and the stereotyping of Anglo culture reaffirm essentialist ideas of Spain. In Chapter Three, I trace the decline of the “exotic” in the Spanish tourism industry and argue that the comic representations of the Spanish/tourist encounter in films of the1970s serve as a metaphor for Spain’s own reemergence within Europe, ultimately confirming Spanish difference from Europe as inevitable and desirable. iii This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Fred and Lisa Simpson, who have not only supported me throughout my doctoral career, but who have encouraged me all my life to follow my dreams, and very early on instilled in me the confidence that I can achieve anything if I put my mind to it. Thank you to Daniela Flesler for her encouragement and faith in me, as well as Katy Vernon, Lou Charnon-Deutsch, and Adrián Pérez Melgosa for the wisdom and insight they generously shared with me over the past several years. Thank you to my sisters, Elizabeth, Pam, and Polly, for always believing in me, and thank you to Danny Barreto for his unwavering support throughout the writing of this dissertation. Finally, thank you to José Álvarez, who inspired me to believe in myself. It was through his encouragement that I originally chose this path and I will always be grateful. Table of Contents Introduction: Terror and Beauty: Contradiction, Cultural Identity, and the Anglophone World in Spain..........................................................................................1 1 Voices From the Past: Essentialism and its Detractors………………......……….24 1.1 Cultural Identity Rejected: Exhuming Nonconformity in Juan Goytisolo’s Obra inglesa de Blanco White……………………………………………………….31 1.2 “These European jungles”: José María Blanco White’s Letters From Spain as Travelogue and Cautionary Tale…….…………………………………..…….….41 1.3 Europeizarse Pronto y Mal: Mariano José de Larra, Afrancesado and Moderate ……….........................................................................................................49 1.4 “This strange Gypsy flavour”: Spanish National Identity and Lorca’s Duende Fantasy..………………………..……………………………………………63 2 The Campus Novel a la española: Hispanism, Spanish Identity and Anglophone academia……………………………………………………………………………..82 2.1 Hispanists and Spaniards: Border-Crossing and Identity in Contemporary Spanish Studies………………………………………………………………87 2.2 Spanish Scholars in America After the boom latinoamericano...............................................................................................93 2.3 There’s No Place Like Home: Anglophone Academia and the Spanish Utopia in Todas las almas by Javier Marías and Carlota Fainberg by Antonio Muñoz Molina..........................................................................................................................99 3 “El turismo es un gran invento”: Modernity, Contact Zones and New Interpretations of Spanish “Difference”…………………………………………………………….127 3.1 “False Fronts” and “False Backs”: Tourism Theory and Authenticity………………………………………………………………………...129 3.2 “Tenemos un defecto”: the Black Legend, the boom turístico and Spanish Masculinity in the Films From the Destape Period……………………….……....155 Conclusion: Myths of Difference and the Future in Spain: New Realities and the Eclipse of Fantasy......................................................................................................180 Bibliography..............................................................................................................187 v 1 Introduction Terror and Beauty: Contradiction, Cultural Identity, and the Anglophone World in Spain Yet something sombre and severe O'er the enchanted landscape reigned; A terror in the atmosphere As if King Philip listened near, Or Torquemada, the austere, His ghostly sway maintained. The softer Andalusian skies Dispelled the sadness and the gloom; There Cadiz by the seaside lies, And Seville's orange-orchards rise, Making the land a paradise Of beauty and of bloom. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Castles of Spain,” 1863 The epigraph is a fragment of Longfellow’s “Castles of Spain,” one of many of the author’s Spain-inspired works, which captures in twelve lines two contradictory images that have influenced discourses on Spanish culture for centuries. In the first verse excerpted here, the “ghostly sway” of a bloodthirsty, fanatical inquisitor and the fear and loathing inspired by an absolutist imperial monarch both embody the image of a cruel, despotic, intolerant Spain that has persisted in some form since the Conquest of America. This image, known as the Black Legend, has been perpetuated by (and, in a circular fashion, determined) foreign representations of Spain— particularly British and, later, Anglo-American.1 The flower-strewn “paradise” of 1 While the Black Legend is an abstract set of prejudices rather than a narrative, its association with ruthless colonial domination and reckless imperial decadence reflect favorably on Spain’s imperial rival, Britain, whose own colonial settlers used Enlightenment-influenced language of democracy and liberty to characterize their own nation-building enterprise. Richard L. Kagan (among others) ascribes the colonial roots of the Black Legend to Spain itself: “One variant of this legend,” he writes, 2 Cadiz and Seville in the next stanza of Longfellow’s poem evokes a very different image, yet one equally powerful: Spain as an exotic, sensual land, a “paradise of beauty.” This idealized vision contrasts with the violent one of the Black Legend, and within the poem they seem to cancel each other out: Longfellow presents Andalusia as “softer” than the Spain of the Empire, as a place to counter “the sadness and the gloom.” Despite the nominal regional differentiation the poem draws between these two descriptions—Christian, imperial Castile as opposed to timeless, seafaring Andalusia—there is an inherent contradiction between the two in their later respective incarnations as all-encompassing characterizations of the Spanish nation. Austere, calculating, and deadly, or carefree, amorous, and bucolic; both were variously seen as apt descriptions of Spain on a global level. Of course, the Romantic foreign travelers who popularized the latter