Francisco Umbral: antinationalist discourse

Abstract

It has often been pointed out that Francisco Umbral’s literature (1932-2007) is highly poetic. Also, as a writer, he was the sort of agitator that was proud of it and used it as an intrinsic part of his aesthetics, so that he purposely vindicated slander and insult as his idiosyncratic literary genre. Analysing lyricism and agitation, this article will address his attacks against nationalism (in Spain and other countries), partly as an introduction to his political ideas, left-wing based, but mostly in what has to do with his discourse, from two different points of view – both for the arguments used in his attacks and, most particularly, for the literariness of that discourse.