Sanchos contra Quijotes. Un paradigma ibérico contra el Estado Novo y el franquismo

Abstract

Abstract. Sanchos against Quijotes. An Iberian Paradigm Against the Estado Novo and Francoism. The current article analyses the presence of Don Quixote’s myth in the poetry related to the opposition against the regimes of Francisco Franco and António de Oliveira Salazar in Spain and Portugal. These poems are written by several Portuguese and Spanish poets between the years of the Spanish Civil War and the sixties. In this corpus of texts we can observe a particular treatment of Sancho Panza’s and Quixote’s figures. In this sense, we have worked with the poetic texts of José Gomes Ferreira, Mário Dionísio, Miguel Torga, Gabriel Celaya and José Saramago. All these texts adopt a negative view – with the exception of Miguel Torga – of the character of Don Quijote de la Mancha, which is identified with hypocrisy and selfishness of the privileged class. On the contrary, in all these poets, and particularly the writers of Communist affiliation, the figure of Sancho Panza appear dignified as a symbol of the Iberian proletariat. In this common scheme, however, there can be seen different nuances between the examined poems, showing a kinder treatment of the figure of Don Quixote in the writings of Saramago or Torga, as against Gomes Ferreira and Dionísio. Also, an interesting development is seen between the poems written during the Spanish Civil War –Torga, Gomes Ferreira and Dionísio– and written twenty and thirty years later – Celaya and Saramago, when the Iberian dictatorships of the twentieth century enter their final phase. In conclusion, it is possible to determine a common paradigm in the treatment of the quixotic myth in the Spanish-Portuguese poetry during the middle decades of the twentieth century.