Childhood, Gender, and Religion in the Poetry of Claudio Rodrguez: A Dialogic Response to

Francoist Discourse
Author(s): Martha LaFollette Miller
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Hispania, Vol. 91, No. 2 (May, 2008), pp. 342-351
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
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Childhood, Gender, and Religion

Rodr?guez: A Dialogic Response

in the Poetry ofClaudio

to Francoist Discourse

Martha LaFollette Miller

University ofNorth Carolina at Charlotte

The extraordinary oeuvre of Spanish poet Claudio Rodr?guez

has been examined in the
(1934-1999)
of communication, but the question of how his work
light of literary history and theory and of philosophies
relates to its social and historical context has received much
less attention. Through considering his treatment
of childhood and the sympathy for innocent, vulnerable creatures expressed in his poetry, we discover a voice
that rejects the predominant masculinist discourse of the Spanish postwar period and provides an alternative to

Abstract:

the militant Christianity espoused by the Franco regime. The application of Bakhtinian
theory to Rodriguez's
poetry reveals his contestatory response to rigid gender roles and to the discourse of power that characterized
the Franco regime, allowing us to question narrow genre distinctions that define poetry as monologic
and to
connect his poetry

to the wider

literary panorama

of the Spanish

postwar

period.

Bakhtinian
theory, children in literature, Franco regime, gender in literature, el nacionalcatolicis
Key Words:
mo, poetry and dialogism, poetry and social context, religion and poetry in postwar Spain, Rodr?guez
(Claudio),
Spanish Postwar Poetry, theory of genres
... me hab?is
vosotras,

que pod?is

tra?do aquellos
ir y volver sin perder

d?as,
nada.

Rodr?guez (1934-1999), who was born in the ancient Castilian city ofZamora two
the Spanish Civil War broke out and who grew up amid the scarcity and
before
years
the early post-war period, stands out as one of themost compelling voices
of
repression
of twentieth-centurySpanish poetry.1Michael Mudrovic, author of themost comprehensive
study of Rodriguez's poetry to date, declared Rodriguez "one of the greatestWestern poets of
the twentieth century" (13), and other importantcritics have seconded his opinion. Like others
writing at the same time, Rodriguez has been described as a "poet of discovery" who uses

Claudio

"language as means of inquiring into his identity" (Mudrovic 15). His complex poetry is often
hermetic, in part because, as Mudrovic puts it,Rodriguez is "self-consciously aware of the
equivocality and instabilityof language" (20). His poetry has been examined in the lightof literary
history and theory and of philosophies of communication, but the question of its "social moor
ings" (I borrow the termfromDonald Wesling) has received much less attention.A consideration
of how Rodriguez's poetry relates to its social and historical context allows us toquestion narrow
genre distinctions and to connect his poetry to the wider

literarypanorama of the Spanish

postwar.2

Although plotting the relationships between literatureand itshistorical context is always a

trickyand challenging business, as an article by Christopher Lane published inPMLA inMay
2003 points out, critics of Spanish poetry have sometimes erred on the side of caution inunder
contextualizing rather thanovercontextualizing works studied, and this is certainly the case with

respect to the poetry of Claudio Rodr?guez. For whatever reasons, but perhaps because of the
distance between his critical attitude and thatof his contemporaries, or because of the enigmatic
nature of his textsand what has been described as their sacramental quality, Claudio Rodriguez's
poetry has often been examined with little reference to the author's historical circumstances.

"Childhood,

Gender,

Miller, Martha LaFollette

in the Poetry of Claudio Rodr?guez:
and Religion
to Francoist Discourse"
A Dialogic
Response
91.2 (2008):
342-351
Hispania

Childhood, Gender, and Religion inClaudio Rodr?guez

343

JonathanMayhew has identifiedas a symptom of thisundercontextualization the "highly idealis

tic, even

reverential"

approach

of numerous

critics

to Rodriguez's

perceived

"'transcendence'

of

Perhaps Mayhew alludes in part to the influential scholar Andrew

everyday reality" (45^6).
who
included
Debicki,
Rodriguez among the "poets of discovery" and who attributed to the
Zamoran "an extraordinary ability tofind transcendence in the immediate" (113). Rodriguez him
self, though a contemporary of such poets as ?ngel Gonz?lez, Gloria Fuertes, and JaimeGil de
Biedma, whose social and political engagement was overt, once disavowed a lasting interest in
politics, stating thathe had been a political activist?for a total of 15minutes (Ca?as, Claudio
50). His poetry, in character with thispublic declaration, tends toward the depiction of a world
that in some senses seems ahistorical. Three poems fromAlianza y condena (1965) illustratehis

preference for seemingly unremarkable details thatcould be observed inmany times and places
within nature: The poetic speaker in "Espuma" is transfixedby the beauty and meaning of "las
espumas imperecederas" (151); in "Gorri?n" he notices a sparrow giving itself over to its
dustbath; in "Girasol," he celebrates a sunflower head bent over, gravid with seeds. Rodriguez's
reliance on vocabulary from ruralCastile, throughwhich he re-creates a "mundo remoto y en v?as
de desaparici?n," in thewords ofDionisio Ca?as {Claudio 53), likewise contrastswith the topical
bent of poets like Gonz?lez and Fuertes.3 Ca?as, although clarifying that Rodriguez was
politically active enough tobe "fichado durantemucho tiempo por lapolic?a," affirms thatRodr?
guez "no pod?a hacerse miembro incondicional de ning?n partido." He states: "Claudio es un
poeta de lo sagrado, no de lo religioso institucional; de la solidaridad con el hombre, no de lamili
tancia partidista y sectaria" {Claudio 51). At the same time,Ca?as describes Rodr?guez as an

"[alquimista de la palabra," who does not recreate external reality but ratherviews thepoem, as
thepoet declares ina 1973 interview cited by Ca?as, as "'un objeto enigm?tico, como dec?a G?n
gora, la b?squeda a trav?s de un ritmo,de las im?genes'" {Claudio 88-89; fromMary Carmen de
Celis, "El para?so abierto de Claudio Rodr?guez," El Adelanto 3March 1973).
Rodr?guez, then, did not overtly join forces with other members of the "Generaci?n del
as Angel Gonz?lez?by
Medio Siglo"?such
enlisting in the effortto topple Franco using words
as weapons. This does not mean, however, thathis poetry cannot be situated in relation to the
as his focus on elements of
ideological postures and conflicts of his day. His emphases?such
to
do with "lo religioso institutional"?are not neutral gestures but
religion thathave nothing
instead oppositional stances thatrun counter toFrancoist policies of authoritarianism inmatters
of state as well as religion. Although Rodriguez does notwrite with explicit political intentions,
his poetry nevertheless responds to and takes a position within his ideological context. Not
surprisingly, then, he affirmed in an interview published the year he died the connections of
poets with their times and those of poetrywith society and with ideas (Ochoa Hidalgo 12).
As scholarly emphasis on the importance of contextualization, whether biographical, histori
cal, political, social, or literary,has increased ingeneral, new tools forcontextualizing poetry have
appeared. In his 2003 book, Donald Wesling explored applying Bakhtinian theory to poetry.
Although Bahktin held theopinion thatunlike prose, poetry is, inhis terminology, a "monologic"
genre, nevertheless his general theory of enunciations as necessarily contextualized can be
profitably applied toRodriguez's poetry. Bakhtin emphasized thatany formof enunciation, from
a short conversational reply to a novel or scientific treaty, is located within a dialogic "conver
sation." Each enunciation has a definite beginning and end thatmark its insertion into this

conversation (82-83). For Bakhtin, "theword is born in a dialogue as a living rejoinderwithin it

[...]. The word in living conversation isdirectly, blatantly, oriented toward a futureanswer-word;
itprovides an answer, anticipates itand structures itself in the answer's direction" (Bakhtin 279

80). Bakhtin refers to the interplaybetween the "authoritativeword"?of which the official dis
course of the Franco regime is a prime example?and
the "internally persuasive word" in the
formation of an individual's ideology (Bakhtin 341-46). Further resources that contextualize

Spanish postwar poetry, from thefield of cultural studies, complement theBakhtinian theoretical
perspective. These resources, by illuminating the character of official discourse during the
Franco regime, enable us to recognize thatRodriguez's enunciations formpart of a dialogue with

344

Hispania 91May 2008

that discourse.4

As scholars have stressed, three of themain loci of ideological divergence and social dis
cord in the period surrounding the Spanish Civil War were class, religion, and gender. In the
forties and fifties,within the context of Franco's project of building a new Spanish statebased on
the premises of el nacionalcatolicismo, these three elements were not separate and distinct but

rather closely intertwined linchpins of the repressive state. Religion, in the form of a militant
Catholicism, was harnessed to combat the remnants ofMarxism, with Catholic thought seen as a

tool for "reinforcing cultural nationalism" (Richards 56). The Regime also espoused a "highly
conservative biological determinism, which saw the nature ofmale and female as absolute and
irreducible." The female essence, from thisviewpoint, comprised passivity, sacrifice, and purity,
other female behaviors being perceived as betrayingwomen's truepersonality (Richards 52-54).
Rodriguez, whose poetry has been seen as transcending boundaries in achieving a fusion
between poetic voice and poetic object, might also be seen as transcending the gender polarities
so fundamental to theFrancoist perspective. This process has been touched upon by thework of
JonathanMayhew. Whereas Ca?as, departing from a phenomenological perspective, speaks of
"[u]na coexistencia, en elm?s entra?able sentido de esta palabra" that"se ha establecido entre el
poeta y las cosas" throughwhich "[ejllas son ?l y ?l son ellas" {Poes?a 92), Mayhew moves
closer to the social spherewith his article "Claudio Rodr?guez and theWriting of theMasculine

Body." By examining the relationship between Rodriguez's poetry and his gender, Mayhew
countered the idealized view of Rodriguez as expressing transcendent, essential, and non
political meanings. Criticizing the tendency of traditional literaryscholarship to focus on gender
when the poet is female but to construe the poetic voice as transcending gender if the poet is
male, Mayhew interprets
Rodriguez's poems "Como si nunca hubiera sidom?a" and "Espuma" as

inscriptions of themasculine body. In both cases, according toMayhew, Rodriguez explores the
temporary dissolution of ego-boundaries associated with ejaculation. ForMayhew, Rodriguez's
poems belie the following assertion of feminist criticChodorow: '"the selves ofwomen andmen
tend to be constructed differently?women's selfmore in relation and involved with boundary
negotiations, separation and connection, men's selfmore distanced and based on defensively

firm boundaries and denials of self-otherconnection'" (110). Mayhew sees Rodriguez as renoun
cing autonomy, but in a manner consistent with his masculinity.
I would like now to explore a different aspect of the issue of gender as it relates to
Rodriguez's poetry. By examining not thephilosophical desire for fusion expressed in "Como si
nunca hubiera sidom?a" nor the contemplation of sexual unionMayhew discovered in"Espuma"
but rather the poet's empathetic portrayal of innocent and vulnerable creatures and his
transcendence of his own circumstances through identificationwith them, I suggest that he
evinces a "permeability" thatwould probably be attributed to his gender ifhe were female. Thus
he also transcends themodels of gender socialization described not only byNancy Chodorow
but also by JudithKegan Gardiner, which contrast the "independence and autonomy" typical of
males with the "capacities fornurturance, dependence, and empathy" more easily developed by

women (Gardiner 182). His attitude, I hope to show, aligns him with religious currents that run
counter to themilitant Catholicism of theFranco regime.
Martha LaFollette Miller has examined the elements of romance that turnedRodriguez's
speaker into a knight-like hero, accompanied and aided by elements of nature thathave at times
child-like attributes and at others traditionally feminine ones ("Oracular Lyricism"). This view
positing Rodriguez's speaker as a quester recognizes themasculine component of the poet's

voice that struckRam?n de Garciasol in 1954 (Mayhew 40). Yet Rodriguez's appreciation for
child-like creatures (who as quester he viewed as allies) can be interpreted,as well, as a departure
from strictlymasculine gender roles. His response to elements thatare innocent and vulnerable,
as well as his turningaway from the loci of social power?materialism, productivity, fame?sug
gest thathis speaker embodies, in addition to heroics, the nurturing and empathy thatmight be
attributed to his gender ifhe were female. As the readings thatfollow will show, his portrayal of
innocent, vulnerable creatures not only suggests a rejection of the premium society places on

Childhood,
children

turning
times

Gender,

into "productive"
with

associated

maternal

adults

and Religion
but

also

in Claudio
an

reveals

345

Rodr?guez

emotional

protectiveness

some

connectedness.5

"Oda a la ni?ez" (187-91), fromAlianza y condena, portrays growing up as a process that

separates the human being from "la gran aventura de nuestra raza": childhood. This adventure,
is complex

for Rodriguez,

and paradoxical,

a "hierro

/que

nos marca,

y nos

sana,

y nos

da amo.

Amo que es servidumbre, bridas que nos hermanan" (190). With its"intimidad de lecho y guiso,"
childhood constitutes an "hondo oficio de inocencia"?a figurative firstcommunion outfit,as he
puts it, thataccompanies us throughoutour lives. Unlike the literal clothingworn in childhood,
thismore essential, sacramental childhood garb is never leftbehind, remaining accessible as a

source of innerwealth and, paradoxically, making our eyes "ricos [...] de oscuro se?or?o" (188;
emphasis mine).6 In contrast, theworld of adults, with its "calles sin piedad y sin bulla," its
"sucios ladrillos sin salud," embodies a baser sortofwealth, one of "[a]?os de compra y venta"
y "hombres llenos de precios." Rodr?guez evokes theviolence, injustice, and indifferenceof his
world (perhaps a post-war world) inaway thathighlights itsmilitarism allied with empire7 and its
advocacy of a triumphalist religion lacking the spiritual essence of Christianity. "La palma" [the
traditionalpalm branch put out on Palm Sunday] adorns thebalconies, but in the sense of victory,
glory, or prize, without "el blanco lazo de nuestra honda orfandad" thatwould have allied it to

Christ's

as a

crucifixion

metaphor

for the universal

sacrifice,

the "escarmiento"

and

abandon

ment, thatcharacterize thehuman condition:

Culpa ha sido
de todos el que oyesen
tan s?lo el ciego pulso

de la injusticia, la sangrienta marcha

del casco fr?o del rencor. La puesta
del sol, fue s?lo puesta
del coraz?n

?Qu? hacen ah? las palmas

de esos balcones sin el blanco lazo de nuestra honda orfandad?
?Qu? este mercado
por donde paso ahora;
los cuarteles, las f?bricas,
la vida, el aire, todo
sin la borrasca
que

alza

las nubes,

de nuestra ni?ez

ola para

siempre?

(188)

Thus, inaddition to exalting childhood's courageous impulse to live, even in the face of universal
orphanhood, "Oda a la ni?ez" sets the stage for Rodriguez, in Vuelo de la celebraci?n, to
approach children (or child-like creatures) and their experiences with a tenderness and
protectiveness frequently associated with thematernal.
Several poems fromEl vuelo de la celebraci?n illustrateRodriguez's nurturing attitude
toward the child-like. The first stanza of "Ballet del papel" (212-13), with its two sentences of 15
and 5 lines respectively, captures the rhythmof a dance thatfirstunfolds, then dies down in the
coda-like second sentence. In Stanza 2, the speaker injects himself into the action of the poem.
Although the approach of nightfall gives an elegiac air to thepoem, the speaker has regained his

"ni?ez perdida" through the spectacle the scrap papers blown about have freely offered.Charac
terizing these papers as homeless streeturchins who "se van de puntillas ligeros y descalzos, con
sonrisa y con mancha," he presents them as emblems of theuniversal orphanhood alluded to in
"Oda a la ni?ez." On the one hand, these scraps awaken his gratitude; at the approach of nightfall

(inevitably evocative of death), they renew his contactwith his own childhood, not as a concrete
experience but as an awareness of theparadoxes of thewisdom and innocence, the freedom and
dependence, of the child. On the other hand, thepapers arouse his pity and tenderness: he is all
too cognizant that theworld of adults, unable to recognize the beauty of such creatures and
perceiving only their lack of power and productivity,will destroy them.Thus his partingwords:
"Adi?s y buena suerte. Buena suerte." The painful maternal consciousness of what innocence
will be subjected to ingrowing up ispart of Christian iconography, embodied in theVirgin Mary

346

Hispania 91May 2008

as themother of the baby Jesus. Here, the fact that the innocents are personified pieces of scrap
paper strongly suggests poetry as a vehicle to express and to transmit to others the capacity of
the human being to revisit and reawaken the knowledge/innocence
sense

the poem

possesses

metapoetic

of childhood, and in this

dimension.

In "Lo que no semarchita" (225-27), the speaker gratefully receives thegift thatwitnessing
a children's circle game confers upon him. Like the scrap-paper urchins in "Ballet del papel,"
these children dance. Paradoxically, theyexhibit knowledge and innocence simultaneously rather
than the quantification and materialism of theiradult counterparts. Instead ofmeanly hoarding
money, "rompen el dinero /como si fuera cascara de huevo," almost as if, in celebration, they
were cracking confettieggs. For them,numbers do not represent the"bottom line" but instead are
infusedwith life: these children know that"los n?meros no saltan a la comba porque tienen las
piernas /flojas,menos el tres."Their knowledge has amagical quality that transcends rationality:
"al sue?o lo han visto /azul celeste, con lunares blancos, /bailar con un rat?n entre losmuebles
/generosos y horribles de la infancia, y misteriosos." Their dance is gratuitous and without the
value society assigns tomaterial possessions: their"corro" is "ofrecido e in?tilhasta ahora." The

poem's title reinforces the suggestion of timelessness and of eternal repetition associated with
children's games and, in this case, with theircircular structure.Much as the reference topaper in
"Ballet del papel" suggests ametapoetic dimension, the children's representational play could be
seen as another form of symbolic inscription,giving thispoem a metapoetic aspect as well.
In theheart of thepoem, stanzas 4 and 5 out of 7, the speaker singles out the smallest child:

ahora a la ni?a m?s

Contemplo
la que pone su infancia
bajo

peque?a:

la le?a.

salvarla. Canta y baila torpemente

y hay que salvarla.
Esa delicadeza
que hay en su torpeza
hay que salvarla.

Hay

Da

que

amor. Es una ni?a

rubia de ojos azules,

casi entristecen. ...

tan azules que

Rodriguez's reference to "saving" the small child hints at her similarity toChrist (something the
reference to "bajo la le?a" reinforces) and at the speaker's likeness to the conventional portrayal
of the Virgin Mary who with tenderness and prescient grief contemplates her infant son?
significantly,both comparisons involve a reversal of gender, thegirl in the role of theChrist child
being female,while theone in the role of theVirgin Mary is themale poetic voice. Thus Rodriguez
celebrates the bonds thatwithin thehuman experience represent an almost sanctified process of
mutual salvation. At the same time,he employs imagery from theversion of Spanish Catholicism

thatFranco's regime tried to reinforce, but overturning its thrustand its strictgender categories.
As he views the circle game, he is captivated by the children. But alluding perhaps to games in
which an encircled child plays the role of prisoner, he describes himself as "Nunca cautivo sino
con semillas feraces en el alma." Though captive in thismagic moment, he isparadoxically not a
prisoner fromwhom something is taken away (freedom or even life itself)but rather the recipient

of thegift of new life.

In "Perro de poeta" (215-17), the child-figure is the dog, Sirio, that accompanied Vicente
Aleixandre. Although not literally a child, Sirio shares several qualities Rodriguez elsewhere

attributes to children. He is innocent and defenseless, free yet connected. Words and concepts
found in "Odas a la ni?ez" reappear here: "bridas," "amo," "servidumbre." Like the childrenwho
"no tienen sombra," Sirio lives in a "reino sin huellas." ("Huellas," like "sombra," suggest both
words and deeds?in a sense, the human history thatRodriguez associates with "la sangrienta
marcha del casco fr?odel rencor" in "Oda"). Again, as in "Lo que no semarchita," mutual bonds

paradoxically do not restrict.The distinction between "amo" and "servidor"?a permutation of

the master/servant analogy conventionally applied to God and his human worshippers?is

and Religion

in Claudio

347
Rodr?guez
erased. The speaker has been drawn to thepoet's garden by freewill; just as between Sirio and
thepoet, connections are purely voluntary: "mi cadena era de aire, como la que tu amo / tepuso
Childhood,

Gender,

en el jardin." Power isparadoxically a two-way street:"?Qui?n era el servidor? ?Qui?n era el amo?
/Nadie lo sabr? nunca [...]." (Here Rodr?guez, inhis adaptation of thepopular wisdom embodied
in the notion thatwe thinkwe trainour pets but they actually trainus, could be said to inject a

note of gentle and touching humor.) In contrast to the sterling relationship between poet and
dog and to its intangible bonds, the jockeying for fame and recognition in the largerworld leads
the children of the "malos poetas" to tie to Sirio's tail "la ruidosa hojalata cruel e impresa /de sus

vendidos padres"?whose
poetry, evidently, is tinny and ungenuine. Sirio, who like Christ is
tormentedbyworldly powers, likeChrist goes to live in the heavens.
IfSirio plays a Christlike role,Aleixandre, the"master," is also portrayed as divine. Rodriguez

exploits the frame to suggest reverence towardsAleixandre, whom thepoem celebrates without
naming or portraying as if to do so would be sacrilegious. Aleixandre remains outside our pur
view except forhis hand, a sin?cdoque forhis poetic gift. (The envy of the "malos poetas" toward
his power furthersuggests the story of Christ, and the fact that Sirio must sufferpersecution
erodes the difference between dog and master.) In "Perro de poeta," Rodr?guez celebrates the
purity, truth,and love that innocent ties embody, creating his own alternative iconography that
in a context of the icons of nacionalcatolicismo might even be considered sacrilegious.

Rodriguez's speaker clearly embodies in some cases qualities associated with thematernal
?tenderness
and protectiveness towards the powerless and innocent.8Perhaps the experience
of those of his generation, whom some have viewed as a kind of "lost generation," influenced
Rodriguez.9 His own personal history, inwhich he experienced conflict with his parents and
suffered a serious illness during which he perceived himself as having been abandoned by his
parents (Ca?as, Claudio 16, 19),may have awakened his empathy toward vulnerable creatures.
At the same time,he projects distaste for attributes of power and for ambition. In this sense, he
deviates from a pattern of socialization inWestern society, described by Chodorow, through
which themale child, identifyingnot justwith his actual fatherbutwith theworld ofmen, must
distance himselffrom theworld ofwomen. Unlike, forexample, his contemporary?ngel Gonz?lez,
Rodr?guez explicitly distanced himself from thepoetry of engagement (Mangini 157). Also unlike
many inhis situation,Rodriguez disengaged himself from theworld of literarypolitics, preferring,
inMadrid, an ordinary, anonymous existence rooted in his own neighborhood over public
prominence as an important literaryfigure (Ca?as, Claudio 83).
The full thrustofRodriguez's portrayal of childhood and innocence, and its relationship to
gender issues, can best be understood in the historical context of Franco's Spain as delineated
by scholars working in the area of cultural studies.10Helen Graham describes Spain in the 1940s,
when Rodriguez was growing up, in termsof amanipulation of social structures in the service of
the state. In particular, the idealization of themother-centered household became a way to disar

ticulate the "horizontal solidarities" in society (186). The Secci?n Femenina preached amessage
of the "virtues of female submission, subservience, and joy through domesticity" (193). Un
married women were given the task of caring for the sick, the orphaned, the aged, and thepoor.
But public rhetoricdifferedgreatly fromprivate reality.Though the statepromoted large families,

low birth rates persisted. Poverty and high infantmortality prevailed. Although themother in the
home was idealized, many women were without men due to large-scale imprisonment and death
( 188). Some were forced to turntoprostitution,which was toleratedand notmade illegal until 1956
'
(189), despite theRegime spuritanism on other fronts(seen, forexample, ina law thatdictated the
immediate donning of a bathrobe on emerging from a swimming pool). The hypocrisy of the
idealization ofmotherhood and family is obvious: even though the statewanted to encourage the
birth of more children, corruption {el estraperlo) diverted needed food frommany of those
already born (189). The statedemanded purity ofwomen, yet, again, el estraperlo forcedmany to
prostitute themselves with powerful men inorder to survive (191).
Rodriguez might be said to appropriate and subvert certain cornerstones of Franco's
ideology. His view that childhood, and not the apotheosis of conquest?the year 1492?

348

Hispania 91May 2008

represents

"la gran

aventura

de nuestra

raza,"

as well

as his ambivalent

portrayals

of Castile

and

his willingness to endow his poetic voice with roles associated with women, might be examined
as responses to themasculinist exaltation?and Fascist?of
the heroic and the centrist in Span
ish history of the Franco regime. Rodriguez also undermines the Spanish church under Franco,
allied with themilitary and the aristocracy, by evoking Christ's more subversive teachings: the
Beatitudes: "blessed are themeek" (Matthew 5:5); "except ye be converted, and become as little
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3); "Whosoever shall
receive one of such children inmy name, receivethme; and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth

not me but him that sentme"

(Mark 9:37). And by his subversion of gender role distinctions

throughhis rejection of the struggles of theworld ofmen and his sympathetic portrayal of child
ren and other innocent creatures, he by implication criticizes the hypocrisy, lies, and corruption
of Spanish post-war society and in a sense subverts gender-role distinctions by his stance of
tenderness

toward

innocence.

In such

poems

as "Lo

que

no

se marchita"

and

"Perro

de poeta,"

he exploits the frame, theborders between what is and isnot inview. By celebrating thepure, free,
and innocent,he tacitly comments on the corrupt, interested,and materialistic society of adults.
We can enlarge our consideration of the context of Rodriguez's poetry by examining other
key literaryworks of thepostwar thataddress thequestion of theCatholic Church as either foe or

advocate of the innocent and humble. Like Rodriguez's poetry, these works raise questions
about the hypocrisy and venality of national Catholicism. The social context theyprovide, and
their giving voice to characters with different points of view, perhaps explains Bakhtin's
preference for novels as the dialogic genre par excellence. Nevertheless, the social situations

theseworks make explicit and theways they counterpose Christianitywith national Catholicism
bear a certain similarity towhat Rodriguez's poetry suggests. Particularly striking is a scene from
what might be called thepostwar period's first authenticmasterpiece, Cela's La familia de Pas
cual Duarte {1942). Although JoLabanyi minimizes the critical thrustof thisnovel (as well as that
of the same author's La colmena), due to her perception thatany social criticism therein is "sub
sumed into a mythical vision of history as evil" (42),11 nevertheless one particular episode from
La familia can certainly be read as strongly counterdiscursive in regards to Francoist religious
rhetoric. In the scene in question, the young protagonist, Pascual, makes a poignant visit to the
parish priest to arrange tomarry his pregnant girlfriend,Lola (67-69). Although Cela presents
their encounter with a casual understatement that contrastswith the pointedness with which he
narrates

Pascual's

own

violent

crimes

against

animals

and

human

beings,

nevertheless,

seem

ingly insignificantdetails serve as a stinging indictmentof theChurch. As Pascual recounts the

scene, he ismade towait while thepriest saysmass for don Jes?s, the local aristocrat, and a few
other parishioners. Pascual's religious education has been so neglected that now, as a grown
man, he has to be instructedon the spot as to how to proceed duringmass. When at last able to
attend to his troubled parishioner, thepriest shows no genuine interest in the details of Pascual's
situation.He seems concerned only about dispatching his priestly duties as quickly as possible
and is glad to learn that the case will be simple to handle, as Pascual and Lola are not related and
theirmarriage will not require a papal dispensation. Cela scathingly portrays a church that serves
the poor in a cursory and mechanical fashion, following the letterof the law,while making the
daily mass for the town aristocrat his principal priority.Pascual and don Jes?s (though ironically
both are associated with Christ through theirnames) are counterposed in this scene as through

out the novel. The socially significant and affluent don Jes?s contrasts with Pascual, a social
cipher and even outcast. Just as Pascual gets the dregs of the services of the priest, he affirms,
referringto the eels he catches in the polluted creek near his house, thathe eats what don Jes?s
eats, only a day later.This counterposition and interdependence between Pascual and don Jes?s
will become a fight to the death during the early days of theCivil War, when Pascual strangles
don Jes?s.While Pascual's previous violent acts did notmerit capital punishment (after all, his
victims were of his own class), this crime earns him the death penalty, fornot only has he broken
one of the Ten Commandments but (what is seemingly more important in the eyes of the
authorities) he has also violated the social norm of privilege and protection for the powerful.

Childhood,

Gender,

and Religion

in Claudio

Rodr?guez

349

Although Cela does not explicitly invoke Christ's teachings, somewhere in the background of
this episode lurksan indictmentof aworld where thehumble are given second-class access to the
ministrations of one of Christ's representatives on earth, as well as being treated as second-class
citizens by the judicial system. The relationship between Pascual and don Jes?s contrastswith
thatbetween Aleixandre and Sirio seen previously. The "bridas" between poet and dog are the
bonds of love, offering a kind of sacramental salvation to them both, whereas the fatal links
between aristocrat and peasant inCela's novel lead to an ignominious death for both of them.
The connection between institutionalized religion and class had been an issue during the
Spanish Civil War thathad concluded only threeyears before La familia de Pascual Duarte was
published. From the beginning of the civil war, in fact, Franco had moved Spain towards an
intense religious restoration and the creation of a church-state merger thatwas known as el

nacionalcatolicismo (Fusi 116-17). Spain's concordat with theVatican in 1953 publicly recog
nized thatFranco's uprising and the regime he created after thewar were Catholic-inspired (Fusi
119). But by this time, an alternative Catholic vision was taking shape and beginning to impact
public discourse regarding religious matters. I am referringto thevision of the Second Vatican

Council. The Council, whose meetings were announced by Pope JohnXXIII in 1959, took place
between 1962 and 1965, though theologians inFrance and Germany had been forging itspremises
for thepreceding two decades, premises thatwere based on a return"to the biblical and patristic
sources [...] thathighlighted the lifeof grace and charity at theheart of the church rather than a

juridical view [...]" (McCarthy 97). The Council proposed a religious vision that contrasted
starklywith thepractices of Catholicism under Franco, promoting ecumenism, greater tolerance,
decentralization, simplification, and greater social justice. Vatican IIwas certainlypart of thecon
textofRodriguez's Alianza y condena, writtenwhile theCouncil was inprogress. The impact of
Vatican II on the Spanish imaginary of the time ismade clear in a work by a fellow Castilian first
published in 1966, the year afterRodriguez published Alianza y condena: Miguel Delibes's

Cinco

horas

con Mario.u

By delineating the connections between Rodriguez's poetry and the context inwhich he
wrote, the social moorings of his poetry become apparent.While thenovel La familia de Pascual
Duarte inserts itsprotagonist intoa dialogic exchange inwhich societal voices define manhood
as something Pascual doesn't embody, leading him to respond with violence, inRodriguez's

poetry the readermust extrapolate dialogue fromonly one voice, incombination with information
about the context inwhich Rodriguez was writing. Nevertheless, thisneed for extrapolation does
not preclude us from considering his poetry as a contestatory response to societal discourse.
Along with protectiveness toward the powerless and innocent, one of the deep concerns
embodied in Rodriguez's poetry is the presence in Spanish society of social and religious
hypocrisy that,as we have seen, also makes a highly significant, ifbrief, appearance inLafamilia
de Pascual Duarte and inaddition plays a central role inCinco horas conMario. Dionisio Ca?as
speaks forcefully of Rodriguez's

condena

se encuentran

las denuncias

social criticism as follows: "En el libro primero de Alianza y

m?s

crudas

de

la farsa

social

de

sus compatriotas"

{Clau

dio 69). Ca?as states: "Lo que sorprende al poeta es la fragilidad de lo aut?ntico y la poca estima
que se le tiene a la verdad" {Claudio 70). Ca?as informsus thatwhen Rodriguez read, he read and
re-read the same books, especially themystics and the Bible, which according to Ca?as, "le
fascina en todos los sentidos" {Claudio 83), much as the Scriptures apparently fascinated Deli

bes's fictional characterMario. Ca?as points out that"[c]uando Rodr?guez define su solidaridad
con el hombre futuro, habla de una comunidad m?s cristiana que socialista o comunista"
{Claudio 51). Rodriguez's poetry, like otherworks of his time,allies itselfwith a spirituality that
embodied a discourse ofmaternal protectiveness thatwas at odds with themasculinist Catholi
cism of theFranco regime. The solidarity of his poetry (compatible with the teachings of Christ)
contrastswith themilitant, masculinist, and monumental national Catholicism thatunderpinned
theRegime and clearly aligns Claudio Rodr?guez with the ideals ofVatican II.

Hispania 91May 2008

350
NOTES

'With his first book, written when he was only 17, he won the Adonais Prize. Other accolades
included the
de Literatura, the Pr?ncipe de Asturias Prize, and election to membership
in the Real Academia
in 1987. His books of poetry are Don de la ebriedad (1953), Conjuros
de la Lengua
(1958), Alianza y condena
una leyenda (1991). All quotations from Rodriguez's
(1965), El vuelo de la celebraci?n
(1976), and Casi

Premio Nacional

poetry are taken from the anthology Desde mis poemas.

Page numbers are indicated in parentheses in the text.
2Angel L. Prieto de Paula states: "No hay ausencia de actitud cr?tica, si la consideramos en su sentido m?s
amplio; pero apenas existe si la constre?imos a lo que por tal se entend?a en las d?cadas del 50 y del 60:
exposici?n acibarada de los males de la patria, al modo noventayochista, o propuesta pol?tica contra el r?gimen
sinuosa" (65).
franquista, de manera m?s o menos

in his focus on what Reyes

3A topic for further exploration is Rodriguez's
similarity to Antonio Machado
has termed "lo nimio." As she points out, Machado
counterposes the daily life of humble beings to a
Like Machado,
focuses on Castile,
163-66).
{Antonio Machado
Rodr?guez
representing
larger "Historia"
humble, small, or elemental entities against a backdrop of "History with a capital H."

Vila-Belda

sees Francoist discourse as an attempt to impose monoglossia

"en el discurso nacional,"
on the part of both novelists and poets of Rodriguez's
toward polyglossia
generation
provoked a move
less
(35). In the mid-twentieth century, according to Browne, the distinction between poetry and prose becomes
marked as poetry becomes more novelistic (37), a fact that justifies the application of Bakhtin's
concept of
to this poetry.
dialogism
5For a male Spanish poet to assume the posture thatRodriguez does is unusual. Machado, who as Reyes Vila
4Peter E. Browne

which

points out, indeed does focus on "lo nimio," nevertheless does not exhibit the protectiveness seen in the
Zamoran
poet.
6Rodriguez expresses a similar sentiment in "A las golondrinas," from Conjuros. The swallows that live on
the fringes of society embody the freedom of being able to "ir y volver sin perder nada" (89). He is grateful to
into the
them for returning to him "aquellos d?as," presumably the world of childhood before one is socialized

Belda

sordid dealings of adults.

7The image "La puesta

/ del sol, fue s?lo puesta / del coraz?n" (188) suggests empire, considering the clich?
set on the Spanish empire at its height.
8One is reminded of Rosalia de Castro who, unlike Rodriguez, has sometimes been dealt with dismissively
because of such elements in her poetry. Another poet who comes to mind is Gloria Fuertes, whose renown as a
itmore difficult for her to be taken seriously as a poet for adults (cf. Vila
children's author has probably made
that the sun never

Belda,

"Construcci?n").
9Jos? ?ngel Valente
Breve son. Milagros
Polo

has expressed the sentiment of a lost childhood, in the poem "Infancia: Eleg?a," from
own words) to be the "base l?rica" of Valen
considers "la ni?ez cercada" (in Valente's
"A Pancho, mi mu?eco"
expresses sentiments
(169-71),
touching poem by Valente,

te's production (32). A

in this essay.
discussed
that have something in common with the poems by Rodriguez
10Rodriguez's critique of the world of men is equally applicable to the United States, where male politicians
of mothers and children, where
rail against abortion while
ignoring and undercutting the economic well-being
and where political leadership is bought and sold
nurturers are devalued (child-care workers earn poverty wages),

campaigns and influence-peddling.

cause and his alignment with the dic
nLabanyi refers as well to Cela's military service for the Nationalist
tatorship as a censor (42). She notes that although La colmena "experienced more problems with the censor"
than the novels of writers who were identifiably opposition figures (43), Cela enjoyed "official protection" from
through media

the Regime
(250).
12The publication

re
fellow Castilian Miguel Delibes,
by Rodriguez's
the novel,
in the Spanish
imaginary of the time. Throughout
contrast with his wife's
interpretation of religion and reflect
readings
quotations from Mario's
debates spurred by the Council. At one point, Carmen denounces ecumenism and social justice in a single breath:
"Y, por favor, no me vengas con historias de que a Cristo le crucificamos todos, todos los d?as, cuentos chinos,
que si Cristo levantara la cabeza, da por seguro de que no vendr?a a rezar con los protestantes, ni a decir que los
veals

in 1966 of Cinco

horas

con Mario,

the extent of the role the Council

played
of the Bible

poniendo

[...]" (90). For Carmen, the Vatican Council, "dichoso Concilio que todo lo est?
she
in its advocacy for the poor. When
(75), has turned things upside down, especially
as a repository of spiritual values, Carmen echoes Francoist attitudes thatMartin Gaite identified

a la universidad

pobres vayan
patas

arriba"

depicts Spain
of
titled "Bendito atraso"?the
in the chapter of her Usos amorosos de la postguerra
commonplace
espa?ola
the day that claimed that Spain's backwardness was a virtue. In this spirit, Carmen cites her father: "ya le oyes
in this regard reduces
a pap?, 'm?quinas, no; pero valores espirituales y decencia para exportar'" (60). Carmen
(61) whose presence she contrasts with the rampant divorce and
Spain's moral failings to "cuatro pelanduscas"
adultery that in her mind

plagued

other countries.

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