The Absence of Allusion to Warfare in Álvaro Cunqueiro’s "Don Hamlet": A Galician Text of the Shakespearian Play

Abstract

The historical evolution of Galicia, a nation in the northwest of Spain, has been determined by the negation of its own tradition and language within the Spanish state, which only accepted the existence of one of the many languages that existed within the territory. Whereas Castilian literature benefited from the protection of the state, Galician, Basque and Catalonian literatures were prosecuted, banned and even subject to a degree of state repression. Galician-Portuguese literature, which developed in the Middle Ages with literary works of enormous importance, was not to be rediscovered until well into the nineteenth century. From this date on, the Galician Literary Revival, or Rexurdimento and later movements began a process of cultural normalisation-similar, in many aspects, to the language planning established in countries which felt the influence of Romanticism culminating in the early twentieth century with the work of a number of influential intellectuals, Galicia sought to place herself at the same level of other European nations. Unfortunately, this process was to be dramatically frustrated by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Some members of these minorities opted, as an alternative route to the so-called "Mediterranean Classicism", for their integration into the world of "Atlantism" (McKevitt, 2006). The result of this trend was the introduction of the literature of English-speaking countries to the field of Galician culture. We should not be surprised by the fact that Anglophone literature has thus played a major influence on Galician culture. Álvaro Cunqueiro is probably considered the writer who most contributed in offering an original Galician vision of English, French and oriental myths (Ricci, 1971). His major achievements, with novels such as Merlin and Company (1955) or plays like The uncertain Lord Don Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1958), are not the only prominent case studies so far. In fact, his dispersed international journalistic career in newspapers and magazines over three decades should also be afforded a degree of prominence (Jarazo and Domínguez, 2010). Nevertheless, one of the most well-known achievements of the Galician writer is the publication and performance of his Hamletian adaptation in during the post-civil war period. A Galician adaptation which is somehow accurate to the Shakespearian version, but devoid of certain symbols, characters and plots in order to