Achilles, an updated character in two Spanish plays of exile of 1939: Héctor y Aquiles, by José Ramón Enríquez and La hija de Dios, by José Bergamín

Abstract

First, we study and comment how Achilles figure is adapted in the Spanish Literature and then we analyse his myth in the exile theatre. The Spanish Civil War, in 1936, remember the classic Trojan War, that appear in the Greek Tragedies and Epic in the war itself, the republic surrenders and, finally, the exile. On the other hand, Ulysses is a paradigmatic representation of the “nostoi” or come back desire, while Achilles is the fighter with some sense of justice. However, in the two exile plays where the Greek hero appears, the image is not of a mythic and epic warrior. José Ramón Enríquez, member of the “Second Generation” and resident in Mexico, presents, like in other plays with classic plot, another point of view about the fight between the Trojan princeps Hector and the Greek hero Achilles. Bergamín, writer with more literary experience before the exile, removes Achilles presence like revenge causa of Teodora/Hecuba in La hija de Dios. There are two innovative conceptions about Achilles and the war in both playwrights. Because Bergamín and Enríquez knew the horrible consequences – death and exile – that the war causes. So, they Will denounce and create another end for the mythic Achilles story.