Aporia and Spectrality in La tierra de Alvargonzález

This article offers a critical analysis of Machado’s longest poem, his romance La tierra de Alvargonzález in the light of deconstructive criticism to reveal its haunted character. The unresolved quality of the poem, its disjunction between description and narrative, between natural and man-made landscape has baffled Machado’s most lucid critics. Instead of seeking a consistency of intention, this essay explores the poem’s moments of self-contradiction favoured by deconstructive criticism, highlighting its uncanny spectrality. Whilst the Gothic elements in Alvargonzález’s story can be read in connection with social and political issues, the poem’s disturbances of meaning reveal anxieties associated with the legacy of the romance tradition and the problems of origins.