| This dissertation examines the literary production of Martin Luis Guzman (1887-1976) and his use of biographical and autobiographical writing to assure his place in the literary and political circles of Spain and Mexico during three periods: in the years before the Spanish Civil War (1925-1936), during the presidency of Lazaro Cardenas (1937-1940), and during the political consolidation of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (1954-1963).;The first chapter approaches Guzman's artistic and publishing activities during the 1950s and '60s as a single autobiographical project that culminates in the publication his Obras completas (1961, 1963). Beginning with his 1954 speech, "Apunte sobre una personalidad," the author forges a cohesive life-story that links his own artistic identity to the Mexican Revolution. However, his efforts to control that legacy later in Academia: Tradicion. Independencia. Libertad (1959), call attention to a glaring omission in his autobiography: an eleven-year exile in Spain and a role in the Second Republic.;The second chapter separates Guzman's writings during his exile in Spain from the editorial and interpretive boundaries placed on them years later, beginning with the numerous cronicas that would form part of Cronicas de mi destierro (1963). This leads to his novels El aguila y la serpiente (1928) and La sombra del Caudillo (1929), and the ways the author employed autobiography to strengthen his authority within those texts. The chapter closes with Jose Ortega y Gasset's cultivation of the New Biography among the writers of the Generation of '27 and his influence in Guzman's decision to write biographies on nineteenth-century Europeans.;The third chapter focuses Guzman's use of biography to meet his political needs upon returning to Mexico. The author begins with "Kinchil" (1938), where he changes the details surrounding the murder of a campesina leader, Felipa Poot, to compliment the political agenda of President Lazaro Cardenas. Poot opens a larger discussion on the marginalization of female subjects in the Obras completas . Guzman similarly courted Cardenas' favor in Memorias de Pancho Villa (1938-1940, 1951), where he appropriated Villa's voice, bringing him into the fold of institutionalized revolutionary heroes. The author would continue to invoke the image of Villa well into the 1970s, reinforcing the political hegemony of the PRI. |
