INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University MicroUms International A Beil & Howeii information Company 300 North ZeeD Roaa Ann Arbor Ml 48*06-1346 USA 313.761-4700 800 521-0600 Order Number 9227328 Discourse and ideological contradiction: Structure and history in Ignacio AgustPs “La ceniza fue drbol” Mate-Kodjo, Samuel-Edwin Mate, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1992 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Discourse and Ideological Contradiction: Structure and History in Ignacio Agusti's "La ceniza fue Arbol". DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in The Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Samuel Edwin Mate Mate-Kodjo The Ohio State University 1992 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Stephen Summerhill Professor Salvador Garcia Professor Samuel Amell Adviser Department of Spanish & Portuguese DISCURSIVE AND IDEOLOGICAL CONTRADICTION: STRUCTURE AND HISTORY IN IGNACIO AGUSTI'S LA CENIZA FUE ARBQL. Copyright by Sanuel Edwin Mate Mate-Kodjo 1992 To Arnold Opata Mate-Kodjo and Beatrice Anorkor Lartey ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I express sincere appreciation to Dr. Stephen Summerhill for his guidance through what has been a rather trying time. Thanks go to the other members of my Dissertation Committee Dr. Salvador Garcia and Dr. Samuel Amell for their support and enoouragement. Likewise sinoere gratitude to the entire Faoulty and Staff of the former Department of Romance Languages and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Special thanks to Dr. Josaphat Kubayanda and his family for softening the jagged edges of distance. Deepest appreciation to 'la quinta de Logon, Andrew, Paschal and Christian. To my family and friends I say no. and thank you. iii VITA September 27, 1955 .............. Born - Osu - Accra 1979 ............................. B.A. (Hons) Legon 1984 ............................. Post Grad Diploma in International Studies Hadrid 1985 ............................. Licenciatura en Filologia HispAnica Madrid 1989 ............................. ABD The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major field: Spanish and Portuguese. Studies in Spanish Language and Literature with specialization in 19th and 20th century Literatures. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................... iii VITA ....................................................... iv Chapter Page I ....... Introduction. Text and Ideology: The 1 Historical novel and "La ceniza fue Arbol" II ..... Contrastive Definitions of the Ideal: Mariona 52 Rebull and El viudQ itius- III .... Desiderio and El 19 .iulio: The definition of 161 the other. IV ..... Guerra civil or tying up the ends 281 V ...... Conclusion 331 BIBLIOGRAPHY 349 Chapter I Introduction. Text and Ideology: The Historical Hovel and "La ceniza fue &rbol" Genres are essentially literary institutions, or social contracts between a writer and a specific public, whose function is to specify the proper use of a particular social artefact. The speech acts of daily life are themselves marked with indications and signals (intonation, gestuality, contextual deictics and pragmatics) which ensure their appropiate reception1. Fiction is defined by its pragmatic structure, and in turn, this structure is a necessary part of the interpretation of fiction2 . Genre is an important consideration for both the aesthetic and historical understanding of texts as part of a metatextual continuum in which the text participates and finds its legitimacy and practicability. The fact of 1 2 ideological motivation is the thesis of Gyorgy Lukacs' The Historical Novel (1962). According to LukAcs, the historical novel and, in fact, the realist novel of the nineteenth century are historical in that they are representative malgrA soi. LukAcs treats the text as a symptom or signifier that signals the stages of historical societies. Other authors, for example Herbert S. Lindenberger (1975), point out that historical writing is not generic because it cannot in any way be linked to formal characteristics. In our consideration, beyond the fact of its symptomatic nature, any novel that defines itself as historical does so not only in content but also in intention. It is this intentionality that conditions the structuring of the novel. Therefore while recognizing the argument that the qualities that make a novel historical are thematic as opposed to formal, we shall argue later that the main characteristic of historical fiction is its overt ideological project. And this political intention invests the text with formal elements that can be traced and analyzed. The historical novel is thus an ideologically motivated construct in both literary and political terms. Placing "La ceniza fue arbol" in its generic and social context can assist the reader in 3 understanding how the series works. In this chapter, we shall offer a brief exposition of the historical novel to show how it served an eminently ideological role in the nineteenth century. This will be followed by a brief survey of the historical genre in Spain with particular emphasis on the Galdosian "Episodio nacional". We will then touch on the overall goals of Ignacio Agusti's "La ceniza fue Arbol" and end with a description of the historical novel as an 'authoritative fiction'. This last point is important because it shows how the need for univocality subverts itself in texts that emphasize doctrinal intentions. Susan Suleiman (1983) develops a series of formal criteria for identifying authoritarian fictions and how they tend to subvert their own intentions by their insistence on the authority of their version of history. History has always been present as part of the practice of literature but the historical novel had to wait until the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries for its classical development. Associated with the great political changes of the period, the genre emerges from the upheavals of the French revolution, the Napoleonic wars and the wars of national 4 liberation. This new concern for national history within the arts was an important part of the recuperation of national conscience as part of the struggle against French hegemony. The difference between this new literary form and earlier incorporations of historical material into novels was in the understanding of history as a process and as a concrete precondition for the present3 . The new attitude towards history at the turn of the nineteenth century took two basic forms within the ideological and political conflicts of the period between conservatives and liberals. On one hand, history was used as a basis for justifying an ideology opposing change. Such an approach advocated a return to the pre-revolutionary political and social systems, and was practised especially by aristocratic legitimists who found justification in history for their 'restoration' and conservation of a 'glorious' past presented as an example for present and future emulation. On the other hand, post-revolutionary liberals were also resorting to history in order to create texts that would prove the historical necessity of their notion of 'progress'. In all instances, history was invoked pragmatically as legitimiser of political programs. No less importantly, history was 5 conceived as holding the cypher for the explanation of contemporary political and social experience. It is this climate of change and flux, under the particular circumstance of an insular British culture already well advanced in the industrial and social changes that were to alter the rest of Europe that the novel of Sir. Walter Scott emerged. He was the first major exponent of the historical novel, and he was influenced by the historical “accident' of England's special situation. For example, the novel of Walter Scott is characterized by a lack of exalted sentiment, attention to historical detail and an interest in portraying the panorama of the whole of the period involved in the novel. According to Luk&cs this attention to detail was due to the fact that Scott did not feel obliged to make his characters live out contemporary conflict (1962, 33). Sir Walter Scott is thus able to