The book 'The Trench nostalgic' meets the vision of British writers on the Spanish Civil War.
The book 'The Trench nostalgic. British writers in the Spanish Civil War, published by Silver Spur seal, addressed by several authors and the edition of Gabriel Insausti, collect interest "extraordinary" that the civil conflict between the letters british awoke.
This interest resulted, according to the editorial has pointed to Europe Press, an unparalleled wealth of texts in European literature. It has also emphasized that the fascination with, gaia gold, a country whose image was taken of myths and secular topics, the expectation before the revolutionary phenomenon and alarm at what is contemplated in many cases as a prologue to a broader conflict became the distant clash capital in an episode in the literary history of Great Britain of those years, and even subsequent decades. "
On the other hand, explained, ffxiv gil, that for some time, Spain, more than one country or state, was an issue, "almost a symbol." In this sense, has indicated that the writers who came to Spain in the war or who wrote about it was "sometimes political cynicism, idealism, naive or a frivolous desire for adventure and exoticism, but also sacrifice, heroism and generous devotion to a case, each his own,, buy fallen earth chips, which for a moment wanted to recognize the interest of man. " "That old trench later take them to the nostalgia was just a matter of time," he stressed.
Aware of the difficulty of giving a complete picture that summarizes the attitude of the British before the war lyrics. So, has indicated that, with the exception of a few, such as Hispanist Allison Peers, the diplomat Sir Peter Chalmers-Mitchell or the writer Gerald Brenan, most of those who wrote about Spain did not speak Spanish, unaware of the history of the country and had "a simplistic vision of the roots of the conflict, and of course, almost none, except those mentioned and a few cases but, as Stephen Spender, Brian Howard, Louis MacNeice and Ralph Bates, had had occasion to travel through Spanish land before July 1936. "
In this regard, it reiterated the finding in the sum of these texts, a fair perspective, if not equidistant, it is "extremely difficult" since the Civil War was approached by "an overwhelming majority of writers who joined from positions quite plural , to the Republic. " However, it has tempered that there were notable exceptions as "the reluctance of Virginia Woolf, the provocative indifference of Vita Sackville-West, the Franco fan of Roy Campbell, the tedium of TS Eliot, perplexity disenchanted HG Wells, the anti-Republican of filofascistas and Pound, the distance of a right Yeats, anti Wyndham Lewis, the strong support for the Franco side Waugh, hoist justification Edmund Blunden or cynicism of Greene and his sense of embarrassment of others to the grand statements on the left .
CHRONIC,
Newspapers and poetry
Consequently, explained that the goods which are predominantly personal chronicle, the journalistic point, the autobiographical narrative, the daily and lyric poetry. Thus readers may know the stories of fighters such as Lee, Orwell, Romilly, Sommerville, Jason Gurney, Tom Wintringham, Peter Kemp or Gerahty Cecil, and also the accounts of correspondents and witnesses "moreor less "qualified as Geoffrey Brereton, Charles Duff, Richard Ford, Frank Jellinek, John Langdon-Davies, Francis McCullagh, Arnold Lunn and Herbert L. Matthews, who in many cases tie in with the nineteenth-century travel books in the description of" a strange country, primitive and brutal. "
On the other hand, the book contains the memoirs and autobiographies of Koestler, Spender and Chalmers-Mitchell, and, above all, the poems, many of them collected in anthologies such as 'Poems for Spain', prepared by John Lehmann and Spender himself, or 'The poets of the world dnd the Spanish people', by Nancy Cunard and Pablo Neruda.
The paper published by Silver Spur with the collaboration of Niall Binns, Francisco Javier Caspistegui, Valentine Cunningham, Manuel Gonzalez de Aleja, Pastor Daniel Garcia, Antonio R. Celada and Carlos Villar Flor, coordinated by Gabriel Insausti, doctor of philology and English Philology.