The Numancia of Rafael Alberti in the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

On July 18th 1936 a military uprising occurs which triggers the Spanish Civil War confronting two sides: nationalists and republicans. In this context the so-called emergency theatre arises with the purpose of functioning as an instrument of agitation and propaganda at the service of the republican cause. The aim of this theatre is to combine the revolutionary theme of the time with the classics of the Golden Age theater, since they had a connection with the popular masses that contemporary playwrights could not ignore. In 1937 Rafael Alberti appropriates Cervantes´s Numancia adapting it and putting it at the service of the republican cause to highlight its heroic example when the nationalists start to attack Madrid and it is essential to encourage fighters as well as civilians in the resistance. Alberti´s work stands out the republicans´ fight and resistance leaving no place for a possible defeat and will become Spanish people as Numancia avengers. The present work relates to Numancia in 1937, its rewriting process through the paradigm of Gerard Genette´s hypertextuality, the resignification of Cervantes´s text in the Spanish war context, and how this version functions as an ideological parapet to exalt the republican values.