Tauromachy and the bull: What remains in a symbol in Fernán Caballero's La gaviota

Translated title of the contribution: Tauromachy and the Bull: What Remains in to Symbol in Fernán Caballero's The gull

Nicolás Fernández-Medina

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Fernán Caballero's popular novel La gaviota has been criticized as an uneven text replete with all manner of contradictions that stem from the disjunction between the author's romantic affinities and realist ambitions. Through the art of tauromachy and its bull symbol, it is possible to trace a complex semi-private symbolism in the novel that enhances certain aspects of its realism by forging a textual 'middle space' in which contradictions like eros/thanatos, God/godless and salvation/damna-tion, among others, are considered dialectically. Instead of impoverishing the literary work, the contradictions contribute to the underlying structural frame of the text and the soteriological logic that sustains it.

Translated title of the contributionTauromachy and the Bull: What Remains in to Symbol in Fernán Caballero's The gull
Original languageSpanish
Pages (from-to)401-416
Number of pages16
JournalBulletin of Hispanic Studies
Volume86
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language
  • Literature and Literary Theory

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