Florinda perdió su flor. La leyenda of La Cava, the neoclassic Spanish theatre and the tragedy Florinda of M ª Rosa Gálvez de Cabrera

Abstract

Ever since the Middle Ages, Spanish historiography and literature echoed the legend circulating, both in Cchristian and Muslim Spain, about the tragic end of the lastkingdom of the Gohts, which linked the catastrophe of Guadalete with the rape of Florinda by Rodrigo, and with the implacable revenge of her father, count Julian. Until the nineteenth century, Florinda had several literary manifestations, especially theatrical ones, which had found La Cava's guilt an unparalleled ideological instrument to justify the shadows tarnishing the founding stage of the Spanish nation. In 1804, the poet and playwright María Rosa Gálvez published the tragedy named Florinda, where she gives the character a new symbolism and allows, by offering reading contrary toof the traditional myth, new interpretations consistent with the gender of the author and with the pre-romantic and pre-liberal context of her play.