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- Title
Heroism in Defeat: Alberti's Cantata de los heroes y la fraternidad de los pueblos and Cercas's Soldados de Salamma.
- Authors
Gagen, Derek
- Abstract
Rafael Alberti's Cantata de los heroes y la fraternidad de los pueblos was devised as one of several homages to the departing International Brigades as they left a Republican Spain facing certain defeat in November 1938. As critics have recently noted, this Cantata, blending Alberti's text with ‘musical illustrations’, has generally been neglected by commentators on Alberti's theatre. In a blend of at times unsubtle political commitment and the highly traditional use of allegory and symbolic characters, with Spain represented as divided, the piece both celebrates the heroism of those (Spaniards and foreigners) fighting for España, and in the face of heroic defeat utters a surprisingly traditional patriotic plea for the union of the two Spains. The article goes on to reflect how, decades after the Nationalist victory, the defeated republicans are now celebrated but in ways that evince a less black-and-white picture of the Civil War. Cercas's novel Soldados de Salamina offers a less ‘total’ and more personalized view of heroism yet can also be seen as a more problematized vision of the ‘Fraternidad’ celebrated in Alberti's Cantata.
- Subjects
SPAIN; CANTATAS -- History &; criticism; ALBERTI, Rafael, 1902-1999; INTERNATIONAL brigades in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939; COURAGE; NATIONALISM; ALLEGORY
- Publication
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (1475-3839), 2006, Vol 83, Issue 4, p349
- ISSN
1475-3839
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3828/bhs.83.4.4