By the Grace of God

dquo;By the Grace of God offers a compelling series of close readings and analyses of literary texts in Castilian and Catalan by five canonical poets and novelists from Spain and Catalonia. The analyses are thorough and original and they shed welcome new light on authors who have been studied widely and on others who are much less read but who should be studied more." -- Sebastiaan Faber, Department of Hispanic Studies, Oberlin College "By the Grace of God will fuel many discussions in Spanish literary circles with its first-of-the-kind approach. An innovative piece of scholarship, this is a very important contribution to the study of Iberian politics and the perception of literature during Franco's dictatorship." -- Enric Bou, Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies, Universita Ca' Foscari Venezia

Using Franco's Spain and la Espana sagrada as a counterpoint to European secularity's own development, By the Grace of God is the first sustained analysis within Spanish cultural studies of the sacred as a political category and a tool for political organization.

Though neither king nor priest, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco nevertheless conceptualized his right to sovereignty around a political theology in which national identity resembled a sacred cult. Using Franco’s Spain and la EspaÑa sagrada as a counterpoint to European secularity’s own development, By the Grace of God is the first sustained analysis within Spanish cultural studies of the sacred as a political category and a tool for political organization.

William Viestenz shows how imagining national identity as a sacred absolute within a pluralistic, multicultural state leads to dictatorship, scapegoating, and exceptional violence. Using novels and poetry from the Catalan literary tradition and stalwarts of the Castilian canon, his analysis demonstrates that the sacred is a concept that spills over into key areas of secular political imagination.

By the Grace of God offers an original theory of the sacred that challenges our understanding of twentieth-century political thought.