It is 1898: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines have become independent from Spain. Traditional accounts offer a view of the Spanish writers of that time, deeply struck by the “disaster of 1898”. As a result, they embark on a search for the true essence of the country, hoping to find the cause for the loss of an empire. This tragic look is inward and Castille, in the heart of the country, becomes the symbol of the need for the country’s regeneration.
Rather than this nationalistic view, enforced by Francisco Franco’s regime, come hear a different account of the turn of the century. Writers from Spain and Latin America were engaged in a debate on how the Castilian language could be renewed from the other shore of the Atlantic. In light of the emerging power of the United States, they were also busy appointing who were exactly Ariel and Caliban, in their own reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Featuring works by Spanish Miguel de Unamuno and Nicaraguan Rubén Darío, you are invited to an alternate, transatlantic vision of the Spanish Regeneration Movement.
A writer in residence at the Library’s Wertheim Study, Natalia Santamaría-Laorden is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Since the presentation of her dissertation at Harvard University, her writings have appeared in Cuadernos Americanos, Letras Hispanas and Decimonónica. She is currently writing a book manuscript that explores the relevance of fin-de-siècle transatlantic debates in order to gain an understanding of the historic, geographical and linguistic dimensions of the Spanish Regeneration Movement.
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