Iberian Eugénio de Castro

ideologization of his spanish reception

Abstract

Eugénio de Castro, the most widely read, translated, commented and celebrated Portuguese poet in Spain in the first half of the 20th century, underwent a process of progressive ideological appropriation during the modernista period. This text proposes an analysis of the ideological factors that underlie the Spanish reception of the author, in the context of the critical situation of modern Spain, currently dealing with its semi-peripheral and post-imperial condition. That condition permeates the Spanish reception of Castro’s works and public figure. As we shall see, this reception is thus marked by a subtle Iberian rhetoric. In the end lies a Castilian primacy, progressively institutionalized and politicized. Therefore, Eugénio de Castro’s Spanish reception acts as a symbolic corrective instrument of the Spanish critical condition.