An Affair of State? Public Uses of Literary Memory

Abstract

The article aims at explaining critically the role of public institutions in managing the memory of so-called "canonic" writers and thus of interest, to a greater or lesser extent, to several institutions. More specifically, it will examine the theoretical and practical problems around public management of the tombs of poets, as well as the cultural policies that have arisen (or not) in relation to this. The cases of Miguel de Cervantes, Rosalía de Castro and Federico García Lorca will be taken as testing ground to find out to what extent the State delegates literary heritage to other entities – and in that case, which ones – considered also, in relation to parentage law, copyright or death, as a heritage of biopolitical nature that demands a deeper collective reflection and responsibility in terms of public use.