Discourses of the body in Juan sin tierra by Juan Goytisolo.

Abstract

Published in 1975, Juan sin Tierra is the last novel of the Alvaro Mendiola trilogy composed of Senas de identidad (1966) and Reivindicacion del conde Don Julian (1970). The trilogical text showcases and glorifies practices then considered repugnant by the Spanish tradition, practices to which the hero Alvaro willingly adheres. In fact, these works offer themselves, on the one hand, as a critical analysis and a deconstruction of dogmas and values considered by the Franco regime as being consubstantial with the Hispanic identity, and, on the other hand, they propose a conception news of the Spanish cultural subject, that is, of the cultural paradigm of 20th century Spain. In Juan sin Tierra, this revisitation of Hispanic Being and identity is realized through the theme of the “Body”. Indeed, the discourse on the Body radiates right through the text; it is an exuberant presence of its signifiers that configure and subjugate the textual space of the novel where the debate of the full liberation of the body and the satisfaction of the demands of society (procreation, education or civilization, religion, etc.). In this debate, the romantic text, which establishes a homology between the body and writing (text) and also an analogy between the liberation of the body and the liberation of signs, postulates a revaluation of the Body and its total expression. Juan sin Tierra offers his own definition of humanist discourse as being only the "Body" and therefore condemns any repressive practice of the body, whatever it may be.