Poética de la novela del dictador hispanoamericanoOrigen, evolución y agotamiento de un subgénero novelístico

Resum

ABSTRACT: Drawing from the identification of the distinguishing features of the poetics of the sub-genre described with the term “dictator novel”, this dissertation investigates the ways in which this literary phenomenon inserted into varying contexts of production and reception which have significantly shaped the sub-genre. In order to do so, special attention is given to the connection between the long series of novels about Spanish American dictators and a wide and complex system of internal factors and elements extrinsic to the text so as to achieve a more complete understanding of the specific ideological, historical, social, cultural and literary contexts which contributed to the process of formation, development and exhaustion of the sub-genre. As a result of its dynamic nature as a process, special attention is paid to the dialectic between permanence and change which determines the process of transformation and reenactment of the generic framework, which is inextricable linked to its historical dimensions. The examination of the series Tirano Banderas (1926) plus El Señor Presidente (1946) leads us unmistakably to confirm the hypothesis that both Valle-Inclan‟s and Miguel Ángel Asturias‟ foundational texts established the constituent elements of the poetics of dictator novel. On the basis of the analysis of these two novels as well as of their connections with the corpus of novels which were produced previously within the narrative of dictatorship tradition in Spanish American literature, this study illustrates to which extent dictator novels published in the fifties, sixties and seventies assimilate, incorporate and transform the poetics of the genre. Thus dictator novels selected for in-depth analyses -El Gran Burundún-Burundá ha muerto (1952), by Jorge Zalamea, El gran solitario de palacio (1971), by Rene Avilés Fabila, El otoño del patriarca (1975), by Gabriel García Márquez and General a caballo (1980) by Lisandro Otero- have been chosen for the ways in which they exemplify paradigmatically the dynamic between specificity and typicality intrinsic to dictator novel generic identity. Furthermore, the study focuses on the causes of the exhaustion of the poetics from the second half of the seventies and the progressive phenomenon of intergeneric shift of the thematic of dictatorship towards the so-called “new historical novel”, which emerged in that period. Finally, the study addresses the decisive role played by the novel Yo el Supremo (1974) by Augusto Roa Bastos in the process of deep transformation dictator novel underwent, which concerns the production as well as the diffusion and reception of the sub-genre from the decade of the eighties.