Mitos cristianos en la poesía no religiosa del grupo del veintisiete

  • Rocio Ortuno Casanova

Student thesis: Phd

Abstract

The exploration of Christian myths as literary resources in the work of Spanish poets writing between 1920 and 1944 has to date been attempted by scholars focusing on the works of individual poets, notably Luis Cernuda and Lorca. In this doctoral thesis, I aim to cover one of the few gaps in the criticism of this period by pointing to the use of Christian myths by a range of poets working with a similar intention, and within a common heritage.The Christian myths that I shall examine here, are approached in two different ways: firstly structurally, analysing them as Biblical references and fragments of myths -using Strauss' nomenclature 'Gross Constituent Units'-which appear decontextualised in many of the works, with a non-religious intention, that is, as a metaphor for something else. Secondly, thematically, by suggesting that there are four mythic topics common to many of the poets writing at those times, which are: creation by means of the word; the loss of Paradise; suffering; and the announcement of a new world to come. Through these myths, the poets reflect an evolution in their lives and Poetics. A phenomenological perspective is adopted in order to explain the role of the myths in the poems and to trace common grounds through the myth among the poets and as continuators of a Western poetic tradition since Romanticism (Prieto de Paula, 2002:59).The story line that these four topics constitute is very similar to the Romantic plot that M. H. Abrams had defined for the British Romantics and that Philip Silver and Derek Harris had already applied to the poetry of Luis Cernuda. This mirroring of the myth in the British and German Romantics has led the thesis towards a contextualisation of the work of the poets of 1927 in the modern Western literary tradition. They are seen in this specific context of practice as inheritors of a line which goes from European Romanticism, through the Modernism, Symbolism, Pure Poetry, and Avant-garde to the group of 1927, and therefore they are expressing typically modern topics by means of religious images and myths.As well as those conventionally studied as belonging to the "Generación del veintisiete", the thesis discusses Ernestina de Champourcin, Elisabeth Mulder, Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Ana María Martínez Sagi and Rosa Chacel, and proposes a new way of seeing the group of poets writing between the 20s and the Civil war and after this in the exile as a new expression of the same Modernity.
Date of Award31 Dec 2010
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • The University of Manchester
SupervisorChris Perriam (Supervisor) & Anthony Lappin (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Prophecy
  • Religious Poetry
  • Generación del 27
  • Spanish Poetry
  • Myth

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