Keywords
medievalizing fantasy
Bildungsroman
La torre vigía
How to Cite
Abstract
The first part of the so-called medieval trilogy by Ana María Matute, The Watchtower (1971), approaches the mythical world of the Middle Ages with a manifestly modern sensibility, preoccupied by lack of communication, isolation, violence and the conflictive nature of human relations. The use of inherent properties distinguishing the medieval culture (castles, warriors, weapons, etc.) allows, on the one hand, to accentuate the brutality of the world and, on the other hand, to reach an unreal dimension through the pre-rational imagination (witches, spells, animals in bestiaries, etc.), generating the universal meaning of the story. Focusing the narrative on a teenage character, the writer delves into one of the essential themes of her creation: the discovery of ferocity in human relations. Thus, in this Bildungsroman inscribed in the aesthetics of medievalizing fantasy (with Gothic elements that intensify the terrifying experience), moral problems are discussed, with a special attention to the consequences of affective deficiencies, violence, war, etc.References
Attebery, B. (1992). Strategies of Fantasy. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Casas, A., Roas, D. & Gregori, A. (2017). Narrativa 1950-1960. En D. Roas (dir.), Historia de lo fantástico en la cultura española contemporánea (1900-2015) (pp. 57-69). Madrid & Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana & Vervuert.
Deen, J. M. (2014). La nueva novela caballeresca de Ana María Matute. [Tesis doctoral inédita defendida en la Texas Tech University]. Consultado el 15 de enero de 2018 en https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/ttu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346/60591/DEEN-DISSERTATION2014.pdf?sequence=1
Fuente, I. de la (2002). Mujeres en la posguerra. De Carmen Laforet a Rosa Chacel: historia de una generación. Barcelona: Planeta.
Galdona Pérez, R. I. (2001). Discurso femenino en la novela española de posguerra: Carmen Laforet, Ana María Matute y Elena Quiroga. Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Universidad de La Laguna.
Gazarian, M. L. (1993). El lenguaje ningún o el mundo interior de AMM. En J. Roy, M. L. Gazarian, M. E. W. Jones & J. Pérez (eds.), The Literary World of Ana Maria Matute (pp. 11-18). Coral Gables: University of Miami.
Glenn, K. M. (1990). Apocalyptic Vision in Ana María Matute's La torre vigía. Letras Femeninas, 16, 21-28.
Gracia, J. & Ródenas, D. (2011). Historia de la literatura española, VII: Derrota y restitución de la modernidad. 1939-2010. Barcelona: Crítica.
Gregori, A. (2015). La dimensión política de lo irreal: el componente ideológico en la narrativa fantástica española y catalana. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM.
Gullón, G. (1996). La singularidad de la narrativa de Ana María Matute. En A. M. Matute, Primera memoria (pp. V-XXIX). Barcelona: Destino.
James, E. (2012). Tolkien, Lewis and the explosion of genre fantasy. En E. James & F. Mendlesohn (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature (pp. 62-78). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCullar, M. C. (2011). Other Worlds, Other Words: Ana María Matute’s Fantasy. [Tesis doctoral inédita defendida en University of Colorado]. Consultado el 15 de enero de 2018 en https://scholar.colorado.edu/span_gradetds/1/
Matute, A. M. (1994). La torre vigía. Madrid: Plaza y Janés.
Niewiadomski, A. & Smuszkiewicz, A. (1990). Leksykon polskiej literatury fantastycznonaukowej. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.
Pérez, J. (1993). Aspectos de lo gótico en la obra de Ana María Matute. En J. Roy, M. L. Gazarian, M. E. W. Jones & J. Pérez (eds.), The Literary World of Ana Maria Matute (pp. 35-51). Coral Gables: University of Miami.
Redondo, A. (2009). Mujeres y narrativa: otra historia de la literatura. Madrid: Siglo XXI.
Roas, D. (dir.) (2015). Historia de lo fantástico en la cultura española contemporánea (1900-2015). Madrid & Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana & Vervuert.
Roas, D. & Casas, A. (2008). Prólogo. En D. Roas & A. Casas (eds.), La realidad oculta: cuentos fantásticos españoles del siglo XX (pp. 9-54). Palencia: Menoscuarto.
Sanz Villanueva, S. (2010). La novela española durante el franquismo. Itinerarios de la anormalidad. Madrid: Gredos.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (2002). Árbol y hoja (J. C. Santoyo & J. Santamaría, trad.). Barcelona: Minotauro.
Trębicki, G. (2007). Fantasy. Ewolucja gatunku. Cracovia: Universitas.
License
- The Author hereby warrants that he/she is the owner of all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in the Work and that, within the scope of the present Agreement, the paper does not infringe the legal rights of another person.The owner of the copyright work also warrants that he/she is the sole and original creator thereof and that is not bound by any legal constraints in regard to the use or sale of the work.
- The Author grants the Purchaser non-exclusive and free of charge license to unlimited use worldwide over an unspecified period of time in the following areas of exploitation:
2.1. production of multiple copies of the Work produced according to the specific application of a given technology, including printing, reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means (reprography) and digital technology;
2.2. marketing authorisation, loan or lease of the original or copies thereof;
2.3. public performance, public performance in the broadcast, video screening, media enhancements as well as broadcasting and rebroadcasting, made available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them;
2.4. inclusion of the Work into a collective work (i.e. with a number of contributions);
2.5. inclusion of the Work in the electronic version to be offered on an electronic platform, or any other conceivable introduction of the Work in its electronic version to the Internet;
2.6. dissemination of electronic versions of the Work in its electronic version online, in a collective work or independently;
2.7. making the Work in the electronic version available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, in particular by making it accessible via the Internet, Intranet, Extranet;
2.8. making the Work available according to appropriate license pattern Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) as well as another language version of this license or any later version published by Creative Commons. - The Author grants the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan permission to:
3.1. reproduce a single copy (print or download) and royalty-free use and disposal of rights to compilations of the Work and these compilations.
3.2. send metadata files related to the Work, including to commercial and non-commercial journal-indexing databases. - The Author declares that, on the basis of the license granted in the present Agreement, the Purchaser is entitled and obliged to allow third parties to obtain further licenses (sublicenses) to the Work and to other materials, including derivatives thereof or compilations made based on or including the Work, whereas the provisions of such sub-licenses will be the same as with the attributed license pattern Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)or another language version of this license, or any later version of this license published by Creative Commons. Thereby, the Author entitles all interested parties to use the work, for non-commercial purposes only, under the following conditions:
4.1. acknowledgment of authorship, i.e. observing the obligation to provide, along with the distributed work, information about the author, title, source (link to the original Work, DOI) and of the license itself.
4.2. the derivatives of the Work are subject to the same conditions, i.e. they may be published only based on a licence which would be identical to the one granting access to the original Work. - The University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań is obliged to
5.1. make the Work available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, without any technological constraints;
5.2. appropriately inform members of the public to whom the Work is to be made available about sublicenses in such a way as to ensure that all parties are properly informed (appropriate informing messages).
Other provisions
- The University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań hereby preserves the copyright to the journal as a whole (layout/stylesheet, graphics, cover design, logo etc.)