Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants
De la Historia como Ciencia a la Historia como Sentimiento: Los dos Enriquillos de Manuel Arturo Peña Batlle
Department
Modern Languages & Literatures
College
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Date Range
2011-2012
Abstract
Manuel Arturo Peña Batlle stands as the most influential of the intellectuals at the service of the Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, having achieved a rare level of coherence in his theoretical effort to legitimize Trujillo's totalitarian rule. Such a feat is ever more striking if one considers that prior to his incorporation into the dictatorship Peña Batlle had made a reputation as a champion of a long-standing liberal tradition. In my paper I focus on two essays written by Peña Batlle on the mythical Taino rebel Enriquillo to examine the impact of this ideological leap on his interpretation of the national past. I argue that Peña Batlle's about face recreates the drama of love, separation and reconciliation between the Cacique and the Spanish empire, as has been transmitted to us by the romantic imagination of Dominican novelist Manuel de Jesus Galvan.
Conference Name
2012 Bi-annual Conference of the Dominican Studies Association
Conference Location
New Haven, Connecticut
ScholarWorks Citation
Serrata, Médar, "De la Historia como Ciencia a la Historia como Sentimiento: Los dos Enriquillos de Manuel Arturo Peña Batlle" (2011). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 288.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/288
