The parody of the King Arthur and the Celtic Galicia myth: La saga/fuga de J. B. (1972) by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13136/2284-2667/1708

Keywords:

King Arthur, Celticism, parody, Torrente Ballester, La saga/ fuga de J. B.

Abstract

From the 19th century onwards, Spain and Portugal participated in the pan-European revival of Celtic culture and literature, which was very productive in the new Europe. The ancient matter of Brittany, that of King Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, Camelot or the Holy Grail, played a leading role in this revival, which also reached the regions and languages of Iberia, especially misty Galicia, whose people dreamed of being a Celtic nation, and strove to translate their belief into reality, in their popular culture and native literature. Over the years, near the end of the 20th century, the master of Galician letters, Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, published his monumental novel La saga/fuga de J. B. (1972), a hilarious parody of Celtic and Galician Arthurianism.

Author Biography

  • Juan Miguel Zarandona Fernández, Universidad de Valladolid

    Juan Miguel Zarandona es profesor de traducción en la Universidad de Valladolid (Uva). Es docente de dicha universidad desde el año 1989, donde se licenció en Filología Hispánica, Filología Inglesa y Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada. Completó su formación con estudios de posgrado en traducción en la University of South Africa (UNISA) y es doctor por la Universidad de Zaragoza, donde defendió su tesis doctoral en torno a la recepción española del poeta británico Alfred Tennyson: traducción, imitación, adaptación, influencia, etc., en especial de sus poemas artúricos victorianos. Dos de sus principales líneas de investigación giran en torno a las Estudios Africanos, cuyos resultados, siempre orientados hacia el universo de la traducción, pueden consultarse en la página del proyecto de investigación Afriqana (www.afriqana.org), y los Estudios Artúricos, integrados en el proyecto de investigación CLYTIAR (Cultura, Literatura y Traducción Iberoartúrica (www.clytiar.org), todos ellos parte del GIR de la Uva TRADHUC (www5.uva.es/tradhuc) [Traducción humanística y cultural]. Es miembro de la Rama Hispánica y de la North America Branch de la Asociación Artúrica Internacional / International Arthurian Society. Es director de la revista Hermeneus de Traducción e Interpretación, de los monográficos Vertere de dicha revista, y de Disbabelia o serie de traducciones ignotas.

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Published

2025-12-29

Issue

2025: Special Issue 3: Dialoghi cavallereschi │Chivalric dialogues

Section

Monographic

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Copyright (c) 2025 Juan Miguel Zarandona Fernández

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