When the Dead Are Always with Us: Ayala's "Diálogo de los muertos"

Abstract

This article places Francisco Ayala's Didlogo de los muertos (1939) beyond the context of the book, Los usurpadores, in which it eventually appeared, by discussing the text as part of a larger tradition of the dialogues of the dead, the dialogue form in general, and the funeral oration. In both diverging from, and following this literary-cultural tradition, Ayala's text ultimately gives form and meaning to the Civil War dead by making the dead necessary to the living.