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Full-Text Articles in Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature
Spanish Identity: Nation, Myth, And History, Jesús Torrecilla
Spanish Identity: Nation, Myth, And History, Jesús Torrecilla
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
In the last two centuries, conservatives and liberals have offered two mutually exclusive visions of Spanish history, each with distinct myths, symbols, and heroes. The conservative image, formed in the Middle Ages, was based on the myth of the Reconquest and the need to restore (or keep) the homogeneity of a country characterized by its Christian religion and Latin culture. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, faced with Napoleon’s invasion, Spanish liberals understood the danger of associating their modern ideas with France and invented a progressive and democratic Spanish tradition. According to their interpretation, the most authentic Spain was …
Uses Of A Myth: Al-Andalus, Serafín Fanjul
Uses Of A Myth: Al-Andalus, Serafín Fanjul
Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
In the last two decades, the Spanish press treatment of the Muslim world reflects a change of tone from unsympathetic to enthusiastic, although the information is still marred by confusion and ignorance. This change of attitude has occurred in other Western countries as well, and it is due in part to immigration trends, control over oil resources, and the relativism of official discourses towards the Third World. In the case of Spain, however, there is an additional internal element at play: the mass-media reinvention of a mythical al-Andalus as a tolerant and pluralistic society. This idealized interpretation of seven centuries …