An English Poetic Rhapsodic Vision of The Spanish Civil War: An Intertextual Analysis of Roy Campbell’s Poetic Oeuvre

espanolEn este articulo, se revisa y examina la poesia de Roy Campbell inspirada en la Guerra Civil espanola: Flowering Rifle, Talking Bronco and“A Letter from theSan Mateo Front”. Los estudios llevados a cabo por Esteban Pujals (1959), Stephen Spender (1980) y Bernd Dietz (1985) reflejan la escasez investigadora que existe sobre los poemas belicos de Campbell. Este trabajo ofrece un entendimiento mas certero y fiel de las imagenes belicas y las referencias literarias de este conflicto, empleadas por Campbell, teniendo en cuenta la perspectiva ideologica del poeta. Campbell presenta un pean al liderazgo ‘Nacional’ y esta representacion exacerbada se opone al nivel de degradacion que sufren quiene estan a favor de la Republica. Algunas de las conclusiones que se extraen son que la mayor parte de sus versos se transforman en un panfleto cuasi-maniqueo semejante a una dramatizacion de tipo doctrinal o a una alegoria medieval. EnglishThis article revisits and re-examines Roy Campbell’s poems inspired by the Spanish Civil War: Flowering Rifle,Talking Bronco and“A Letter from the San Mateo Front”. The studies carried out by Esteban Pujals (1959), Stephen Spender (1980) and Bernd Dietz (1985) reflect thescarcityofresearch about Campbell’s warlike poems. This article aims to develop a better understanding of Campbell’s war images and literary references to the Spanish conflict, by analysing them in the light of the poet’s own political ideology. Campbell presents a paean to the ‘Nationalist’ leadership and this exaggerated idealising of the rebels and their deeds contrasts with the way he denigrates those in favour of the Republic. The article concludes that this exaggerated feat transforms most of these poetic works into quasi-Manichaean pamphlets resembling more a morality play than a work of modern literature.