The necessary memory: The Vida literaria of Joaquín Lorenzo Villanueva

Abstract

The Vida literaria of Joaquín Lorenzo Villanueva (1825) is included in the autobiographical literature genre, but with the limitations of the time about privacy. It is a text of a political and religious nature, which according to the author, is born to reconstruct a crucial period in the events of the Spanish liberal revolution; and that also is useful to justify his change of position, from the conservatism to the defence of a representative government, placing the text in the political justificative memories. Despite the partialities and interests, the Vida literaria is also a necessary document revising the past to understand it and look for explanations, sometimes dissidents, who could bring clarity to the collective memory in the interpretation of the story written by the official authorities, and that probably had not come out, if not by Villanueva.