Exilio, Memoria y Autorrepresentación: La Escritura Autobiográfica de María Zambrano, María Teresa León y Rosa Chacel
After the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), an exceptional group of republican intellectual women chose autobiography as the literary genre that best accomplishes the goal of expressing their experience of exile. Among them, three writers from the so called Edad de Plata stood out to break the silence and isolation of exile and raise their voices: María Zambrano, María Teresa León and Rosa Chacel. They are considered central figures of Spanish Modernism, and the latter two also pertain to the Generación del 27. Their most representative autobiographical works, Delirio y destino, Memoria de la Melancolía and Alcancía, can be classified in three different self writing genres: autobiographical novel, autobiography, and diary, respectively. With a diverse theoretical framework and an interdisciplinary approach, key terms such as ''exile,'' ''memory,'' and ''gender'' are taken as the main concepts that directly affect the writing on issues related to authority, discourse, and the construction of national and self identity. Special attention is paid to time/space frameworks (chronotopes), traumatic memory, rhetoric and discourse strategies of self-representation (body metaphors, chronological gaps, specific themes, etc.). The experience of exile is not only the point of departure and leitmotiv of these texts, but also is the breakpoint that shows, in many different ways, the paradox of unspeakability in the traumatic cultural divisions of twentieth century Spain.
School:The Ohio State University
School Location:USA - Ohio
Source Type:Master's Thesis
Keywords:spanish exile memory autobiography women s writing
Date of Publication:01/01/2002