The disputed poet

Readings about César Vallejo in the Spanish republican exile and in the Spanish postwar period

Abstract

After the Spanish Civil War, a direct confrontation was established between the cultural narrative proposed by the republican exile and the one constructed from Franco's Spain, either from the government or from its margins. This confrontation of stories directly affected the reception of a series of authors of the so-called “Edad de plata”. One of these disputed references was the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. His enormous influence both among the members of the “Veintisiete” and the “Treintayséis” led to his claim from exile platforms such as España peregrina and from the environment of intellectual Falangism and magazines such as Escorial or Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos. In this way, prominent members of both environments such as Juan Larrea and Leopoldo Panero wanted to bring the author of Trilce closer to not only his aesthetic but also ideological postulates. At the same time, a series of intellectuals outside the Franco government wanted to offer their own reading of Vallejo's legacy from Spain.