Paul Ilie

Autophagous Spain and the European Other

MY hypothesis in this essay is also a metaphor. I want to argue that Spain is a self-eater, in the sense of Unamunos image of the heautontimoroumenos who devours himself spiritually. This destructive turning against the self occurs on both the individual and national levels. Autophagia is the condition of the writers divided consciousness, and it has its parallel in Spains self-aggression as a collective entity that consumes itself in civil wars or in ideo-

Franklin and Villarroel: Social Consciousness in Two Autobiographies

SCHOLARS DEALING WITH THE ENLIGHTENMENT continue to recognize the documentary value of autobiography, a genre which discloses as much about collective social history as about individual private affairs. Not only does social consciousness weave itself into the autobiographical fabric, but the threads of class attitudes trace a sociomoral design of great subtlety. The perspectives suggested by this tapestry converge at the vanishing point of intellectual history, an infinitely large position capable of unifying all components of the picture. Among these perspectives, two important ones involve the relationship between the autobiographers value system and the direction taken by his societys historical development. For example, Benjamin Franklins personal code of behavior also summarized the ethos of a burgeoning society. The pragmatic character of American culture derived from the same axiological source as Franklins. Therefore his autobiography may be taken as a gauge measuring his nations bourgeois transformation and, eventually, its integration with the Enlightenment. In contrast, the problematic autobiography of Diego de Torres Villarroel1 raises other issues regarding Spains class structure and the value system which sustained it. By Spanish standards. Americas