Between conservatism and romantic idealization. Traditional Spain by the social and literary imaginary / Entre el conservadurismo y la idealización romántica. La España tradicional en el imaginario social y literario

Abstract

Both, romantic foreign travelers, who visited Spain in the nineteenth century seduced by the exoticism they found on its spatial settings and people, and important currents of thought and national social sectors, shared a common tendency to overestimate the traditional and / or rural world. Such tendency oscillated between conservatism and a certain idealization of typical local customs. This overestimation was expressed with particular intensity regarding Andalusia, which was viewed something like the idealized paradigm of the essences of being Spanish. In contrast to these conservative and / or idealizing positions, this same period shows us other more critical social or intellectual attitudes and positions, such as the peasant anarchist movement or different representative authors of what may be called as the Spanish agrarian social thought.

Keywords

• Traditional Spain
• social and literary imaginary
• conservatism
• romantic idealization