The Carnival of cigarreras in La Tribuna: a social aesthetics of the «heteroclite»

Abstract

In this article, I inscribe the representation of the Carnival of the cigarreras, in La Tribuna by Emilia Pardo Bazán, in an aesthetic of the ”heteroclite”. In fact, the narrator juxtaposes and mixes distinct metapoetic references (e.g. the picturesque and the type, the exceptional and the miserable) with precise ideological connotations. I observe the way in which carnival detail is perceived as a social and moral sign of visibility and distinction, in accordance with the chroniclers and folklorists of that time.