Treasure Seeking -- A Pattern of Hispanic Culture?

Abstract

ions, points of view from which the tesoro-complex has become manifest. Take the notorious traditionalism in Spanish literature of the Renaissance and the Siglo de Oro. Quite modern, and, at the same time, quite mediaeval! This is the conclusion of Ram6n Menindez Pidal with regard to Don Quixote, the Romancero, and the Spanish stage of the Golden Age (4). The Spanish way of tackling a new literary problem seems to be to hit upon the rediscovery of the golden treasure of earlier centuries and to use the old covenant for a new dispensation. It is quite significant to note here that the mediaeval Spanish epic poetry itself is, while undeniably romantic, much more real historically than the epic literature of most other nations (5). Ram6n Men~ndez Pidal's generalizations on Spanish literature have been surprisingly corroborated by Gerald Brenan's analysis of The Spanish Labyrinth in the fields of socio-economics and politics, especially as neither Men6ndez Pidal nor Brenan has used the other's material (6). If ever an effort was made to disregard constituted, traditional authority and to break with the past, that effort, one could pardonably think, sprang from Spanish Anarchism. The anarcho-syndicalist F. N. A. S. (Federaci6n Nacional de Agricultores Espafioles), founded at C6rdoba in April, 1913, was organized in local syndicates which met regularly to discuss local affairs (7). This sounds very much like a radical break with the forms of community life to be expected in a notoriously backward country. But, we may ask, what was the original inspiration for this break? What one was witnessing (in the anarchosyndicalist setup) was really the rebirth of the municipality of the early Middle Ages, before the intrusion of the nobles, the rich burghers and the King had robbed it of its democratic quality. This is not the only occasion on which we shall have to note that Spanish Anarchism ... seeks to recreate the past (8). The Catalonian fishermen's community of Port de la Selva is a co-operative in every sense of the word, so much so that it has been taken for a creation of the Anarchists. That, however, is not so. The constitution of Port de la Selva was set up in 1929, just before the Republic came in, by the co-operative movement founded in the 1860's by the Fourierist, Fernando Garrido. Amazingly, these co-operatives This content downloaded from 207.46.13.111 on Sat, 21 May 2016 06:14:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms