The Trojan cycle in the Spanish exile Theater

Abstract

The possibilities that the Trojan cycle offers to treat on stage the historic circumstances of a war and the forced exile of the losers afterwards is not new in most European literatures. Nevertheless, in Spain this tragic theme obtains new meaning and dramatic force because of the Civil War (1936-1939), followed by the banishment of most of the intellectuals and writers that had taken part in the Silver Age of Spanish literature. Some of its playwriters had to continue their work in other countries, and, sometimes, in other languages and cultures. However, in some of their plays they return to the main characters of the Trojan cycle – in both their epic and tragic version – to rethink and update these myths and themes that link them to the European culture that they left behind. Among the different treatments of this classic theme we’ll find from a mere banalization of the myth in José Ricardo Morales’ La odisea to the update in a different time and space setting that offer María Luisa Algarra’s Casandra o la llave sin puerta and José Bergamín’s La hija de Dios. In other plays, they focos on a certain anecdote or episode and develop it in a way more or less similar to the Greek original, like in León Felipe La manzana, José Ramón Enríquez Héctor y Aquiles, Agustí Bartra’s Odiseo, and Carlota O’Neill Circe y los cerdos. As you can see, we are able to find both sides of the armed conflict, the Trojan and the Greek, and even the consequences of the Greek heroes’ long absence causes in their families in Orestes parte by José Ramón Enríquez, playwriter settled in Mexico and considered an author of a “second generation” in exile.