Watching with Intent in the Mojigangas. Towards a Rereading of Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s Fin de un revolucionario

Abstract

This paper seeks a political and ideological reading of Ramón del Valle-Inclan’s novella Fin de un revolucionario. Aleluyas de la Gloriosa. It was published in the popular collection Los novelistas in 1928, whose second part was entitled "Vísperas de Alcolea", featuring the execution of Benjamín Fernández Vallín on September 25, 1868; this would not be collected later in any volume of El Ruedo Ibérico, receiving no special attention from literary criticism. Based on the selection and manipulation of historical sources by the writer did in order to build his story, both the peculiar structure of the novella in its relation to gender “aleluya”  and the narrative techniques focused in the literary mode of the esperpento are analysed, paying special attention to the characterization of the main character, and the narrator`s involvement in the story, whose unheroic and demystifying interpretation of pre-revolutionary historical events seeps into the narrative. In this way, Fin de un revolucionario is revealed as an instrument of unquestionable efficacy to approach the political message of the series and the vision of the history of Spain as an example of the tragic mojiganga that Ramón del Valle-Inclán reflected in his historical novels of the twenties.