Wringing Life from the Dead: Rhetoric of the Nation in the Eulogies for Miguel de Cervantes

An analysis of three eulogies (1876-1916) given for Miguel de Cervantes to commemorate the day of his death demonstrates the ways in which the discursive qualities of the eulogy—mourning, celebration, and resurrection—align with regenerative discourses regarding the Nation at particular moments in Spanish history. The eulogized depictions of Cervantes and the figure of Don Quijote articulate anxieties regarding the state of the Nation at significant historical junctures represented within each eulogy, particularly the Second Carlist War and the years following the Spanish-American War. Ultimately, the eulogy embodies a discursive mode that serves to "resuscitate" the dead of the past and engage those reanimated "corpses" with contemporary issues facing the Nation.