Réquiem Por Un Campesino Español

THE ROMANCE' IN SENDER'S REQUIEM POR UN
CAMPESINO ESPANOL'
Though no more than a long short story of 17,000 or so words, Requiem por un
campesino espanol h as a place of honour in the canon ofRamon J. Sender, having been
described by its author as 'mas cerca dc mi corazon que otros Ubros mios'' and
acclaimed by its most thorough commentator to date as 'su mas acabada realizacion'.^ ThatSender should have felt an attachment to this narrative of pathos set in
the Civil War is hardly surprising, given his own involvement and the loss of both his
wife and his brother at the hands of theNationalists;' but it is remarkable that
material which goes straight to the heart of the tragic conflict should be hatidled with
the consummate control and sober objectivity which makes Requiemsuch a finished
literary artefact. While many features combine to forge a classical tone in the work,
one of the foremost, it seems to me, is the felicitous interspcrsion in the prose
narrative of aromance. Admissible here on realistic grounds, in that the events of the
Civil War gave this supreme form of popular poetry a new vogue,* this romance not
only serves to highlight and intensifythematic, temporal, and stylistic features in the
prose, but is, as I wish to show, the matrix of the work's mythic dimension.
The romance is recounted in the text in the form of twelve fragments, allbut one
recited by the monaguillo who comes and goes between the church and the sacristy,
where the village priest, Mosen Millan, sits recalling events in the life of Paco e) del
Molino, the hero ofthe romance. T he only fragment not uttered aloud is the eighth,
which is recalled in remorseful silence by the priest himself. T he full text of the
romance is as follows:
Ahi va Paco el delMolino,
que ya ha sido sentendado,
y que llora por su vida
camino del camposanto.
(p.ir)'
. . . y ai llegar frcnte a las tapias
el centuribn echa el alto.
(p. 12)
. . . ya los llevan, ya los...