An English Poetic Rhapsodic Vision of The Spanish Civil War: An Intertextual Analysis of Roy Campbell’s Poetic Oeuvre

Luis Javier Conejero-Magro

doi:10.17561/grove.v27.a1

Abstract

This article revisits and re-examines Roy Campbell’s poems inspired by the Spanish Civil War: Flowering Rifle, Talking Bronco and “A Letter from the San Mateo Front”. The studies carried out by Esteban Pujals (1959), Stephen Spender (1980) and Bernd Dietz (1985) reflect the scarcity of research about Campbell’s warlike poems. The methodology used in this article aims to develop a better understanding of Campbell’s war images and literary references to the Spanish conflict, by analysing them in the light of the poet’s own political ideology. Campbell presents a paean to the ‘Nationalist’ leadership and this exaggerated idealising of the rebels and their deeds contrasts with the way he denigrates those in favour of the Republic. The article concludes that this exaggerated feat transforms most of these poetic works into quasi-Manichaean pamphlets resembling more a morality play than a work of modern literature.

Highlights

Recent and growing interest in preserving or reviving the historical memory of events surrounding the Spanish Civil War mainly focuses for obvious reasons on the combatants and victims in the country itself
It inevitably involves the foreign volunteers who fought in the International Brigades, especially those who lost their lives in the conflict
This study proposes a review of some of the comments or ideas proposed by Esteban Pujals (1959), Stephen Spender (1980) and Bernd Dietz (1985) upon Roy Campbell’s literary value

Summary

Introduction

Recent and growing interest in preserving or reviving the historical memory of events surrounding the Spanish Civil War mainly focuses for obvious reasons on the combatants and victims in the country itself It inevitably involves the foreign volunteers who fought in the International Brigades, especially those who lost their lives in the conflict. Needless to say, disregarding these latter writers would fail to do justice to this unique page in English-language writing dedicated to the fight in Spain These authors include Roy Campbell, as his voice is, beyond all doubt, the strongest and frankly the most strident. This article aims to develop a better understanding of Campbell’s war images and literary references to the Spanish conflict, by analysing them in the light of the poet’s own political ideology

Against intellectuals and the Bloomsbury circle

A paean to Franco

Against the defenders of democratic legitimacy

Concluding remarks