FrançaisConference : National literary fields and European space
The process of autonomisation and the evolution of the functions of exterior relations in minority literatures (the Galician case).
Author/s : Antón Figueroa
The so called minority literatures and languages (Catalan, Basque and Galician) have, in current Spain, a weight that has been increasing since the 19th century. The analysis of these processes could help to contribute to show the usefulness, but also the necessary mobility of the notion of the field as a way of approaching reality. Observing the Galician process, we see how literary autonomy is initially raised especially against emerging political power, because literature is part of a process (cultural and political) of legitimisation, also heteronomous with respect to Spanish power. Literary values have difficulty in constituting themselves, given that the process of constitution of the “nation” tends to impose themes and even forms, especially in the beginning; that is why it also tends to create ways of reading that last more than their very causes. Literary agents appear in this way supplied with public power they sometimes use to resolve their own historical problems as artists. Public notoriety and eventually economic interests (also those obtained in the Spanish field through self-translation or simultaneous publication in both languages) appear as forms of late heteronomy. The notion of autonomy (literary) presents important problems to elucidate: the desired political autonomy seems to make the artistic autonomy of the field which it tries to support difficult. It is necessary then to distinguish between the autonomy of the literary field and its agents and introduce the relation between political commitment and autonomy. Galician literature initially has the political mission of speaking in the name of the people: there (the land, the folklore, the tradition...) it finds its “reasons” (themes and ways of expression); as the process advances, the popular rural outlines lose value in favour of an ' urban' literature (cf. Bourdieu, Choses dites, 178, 'parler au nom du 'peuple' […]force d'autant plus grande que l'autonomie relative du champ considéré est plus faible'.
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