Wars and heroes: the romantic representation of Spain in "Don Juan; or the Battle of Tolosa" (1816)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.3271Keywords:
Don Juan, or the Battle of Tolosa, representations of Spain, British Romanticism, Peninsular War, medievalism, Muslim IberiaAbstract
This paper examines “Don Juan; or the Battle of Tolosa”, an anonymous poem published inLondonin 1816. This metrical tale set in medievalIberiaat the time of the so-called “reconquista” recreates the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), in which the Muslim forces were defeated by a Christian coalition near Sierra Morena. The poet clearly sides with the Christians, who are depicted as brave warriors struggling to recover their land and their freedom. The emphasis on their patriotic heroism against foreign usurpation creates an implicit analogy between the medieval battle and the recent events of the Peninsular War (1808-1814). The representation ofSpainas a land of war and romance echoes the Romantic figurations of this country appearing in British print culture in the early nineteenth century.
Downloads
References
Almeida-Beveridge, J. 2010. Romanticism and the Anglo-Hispanic Imaginary. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Alvira Cabrer, M. 2012. Las Navas de Tolosa. Idea, liturgia y memoria de una batalla. Madrid: Sílex.
Anon. 1815. De Mowbray. London: James Harper & Co.
Anon. 1816. Don Juan; or the Battle of Tolosa. London: James Harper and Co.
Bigland, J. 1810. The History of Spain from the Earliest Period to the Close of the Year 1809. Vol. 1. London: Longman.
Byron, G. Gordon, Lord. 2008 (1812-1818). Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Lord Byron: The Major Works. Ed. J. J. McGann. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 19-206.
Cayuela Fernández, J. G. and J. A. Gallego Palomares. 2008. La Guerra de la Independencia: Historia bélica, pueblo y nación en España (1808-1814). Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca.
Coletes Blanco, A., ed. 2015. El Rey Pelayo en el Romanticismo europeo y norteamericano. Siete estudios críticos. Oviedo: Real Instituto de Estudios Asturianos.
Coletes Blanco, A. and A. Laspra Rodríguez, eds. 2013. Libertad frente a tiranía: poesía inglesa de la Guerra de la Independencia (1808-1814). Antología bilingüe. Barcelona: Espasa.
Curtis, M. 2009. Orientalism and Islam: European Thinkers on Oriental Despotism in the Middle East and India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Freire López, A. M. 2013. “Estrategias teatrales frente a la invasión francesa (1808-1814). El teatro patriótico durante la Guerra de la Independencia”. Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo 19: 163-172.
Freire López, A. M. 2015. “Las reapariciones de Pelayo en el teatro español: la época de la invasión francesa”. El Rey Pelayo en el Romanticismo europeo y norteamericano. Siete estudios críticos. Ed. A. Coletes Blanco. Oviedo: Real Instituto de Estudios Asturianos. 37-53.
García Fitz, F. 2008. Las Navas de Tolosa. Barcelona: Ariel.
Grosrichard, A. 1998. The Sultan’s Court: European Fantasies of the East. London, New York: Verso. Trans. L. Heron.
Iarocci, M. P. 2006. Properties of Modernity: Romantic Spain, Modern Europe, and the Legacies of Empire. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Iriarte, T. de. 1794. Lecciones instructivas sobre la historia y la geografía. Vol. 2. Madrid: Imprenta Real.
Kelly, R. N. 1815. The Inquisition, or, Tale of Varez: And Other Poems. London: James Harper & Co.
Laspra Rodríguez, A. 2015. “Una segunda Reconquista: el Rey Pelayo y la Guerra de la Independencia en la literatura romántica británica”. El Rey Pelayo en el Romanticismo europeo y norteamericano. Siete estudios críticos. Ed. A. Coletes Blanco. Oviedo: Real Instituto de Estudios Asturianos. 163-199.
Lucena Giraldo, M. 2006. “Los estereotipos sobre la imagen de España”. Norba: Revista de Historia 19: 219-229.
Rubiés, J. P. 2005. “Oriental Despotism and European Orientalism: Botero to Montesquieu”. Journal of Early Modern History 9 (1): 109-180.
Saglia, D. 1997. “The Exotic Politics of the Domestic: The Alhambra as Symbolic Place in British Romantic Poetry”. Comparative Literature Studies 34 (3): 197-225.
Saglia, D. 1999. “Nationalist Texts and Counter-Texts: Southey’s Roderick and the Dissensions of the Annotated Romance”. Nineteenth-Century Literature 53 (4): 421-451.
Saglia, D. 2000. Poetic Castles in Spain. British Romanticism and Figurations of Iberia. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Saglia. D. 2002. “The Moor’s Last Sigh: Spanish Moorish Exoticism and the Gender of History in British Romantic Poetry”. Journal of English Studies 3: 193-215.
Said, E. W. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
Sharafuddin, M. 1996. Islam and Romantic Orientalism: Literary Encounters with the Orient. London, New York: I. B. Tauris.
Singer, A. E. 1965. The Don Juan Theme, Versions and Criticism: A Bibliography. In West Virginia University Bulletin Series 66 (4-6). Online version at Don Juan Archiv Wien <http://www.donjuanarchiv.at/fileadmin/DJA/Forschung/Don%20Juan/Quellen%20und%20Texte%20I/Bibliographie%20Don-Juan-Fassungen/A.E.Singer/Bibliography%20Don%20Juan%20Theme/Singer_1965.pdf> (Accessed 17 February 2017)
Tzoref-Ashkenazi, C. 2013. “Romantic Attitudes toward Oriental Despotism”. The Journal of Modern History 85 (2): 280-320.
Valladares, S. 2012. “Walter Scott’s Vision of Don Roderick (1811): A ‘Drum and Trumpet Performance’?” Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo 18: 107-126.
Valladares, S. 2015. Staging the Peninsular War: English Theatre (1807-1815). Farnham: Ashgate.
Villegas-Aristizábal, L. 2015. “Norman and Anglo-Norman Intervention in the Iberian Wars of Reconquest before and after the First Crusade”. Crusading and Pilgrimage in the Norman World. Eds. K. Hurlock and P. Oldfield. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press. 103-121.
Weinstein, L. 1959. The Metamorphoses of Don Juan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors retain copyright of articles and authorize Journal of English Studies the first publication. They are free to share, redistribute, and/or reprint the article without obtaining permission from the publisher as long as they give appropriate credit to the editor and the journal.
Self-archiving is allowed too. In fact, it is recommendable to deposit a PDF version of the paper in academic and/or institutional repositories.
It is recommended to include the DOI number.
This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
