Tiempo de Silencio

The context in which Tiempo de Silencio was published, as well as the setting and themes of the book seem to reflect the official censorship that existed in Spain at the time. However, if one reads the novel from a philosophical instead of sociological perspective then the influence of censorship could be viewed as secondary to the purpose and themes of the text.

Luis Martín-Santos’ novel Tiempo de Silencio was written and published during the time of Franco’s regime, and because of this, as one would expect, the book reflects the climate of the time. In fact the difficulty that the author encountered in his attempt to publish the book is the first reflection of the censorship of the era; although the novel was finished in 1960 it was not published until 1962, in the form of an edition with 20 pages removed by the censor. The full uncensored edition was not released in Spain until 1981, by which time Franco’s regime was almost unrecognisable from the heavily oppressive nature that it had at its beginning, and was in comparison extremely liberal. In the post civil war era the state held tight control over all forms of media and art, and in fact most aspect of Spanish life, and obviously within this context antigovernment works or those that were critical of the state were not tolerated.

Although as I have described it was extremely difficult to speak out against the state at the time, Martín-Santos’ work is in fact highly critical of the regime. The first indication of this is the title itself, Tiempo de Silencio, which is usually interpreted to be in reference to the silence of intellectualism at the time. The sciences and academia were highly restricted by the regime as they were perceived to have the potential to be dissenting...

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...nd, more philosophical manner then the effects and influence of censorship become secondary to the existentialist themes, and as such do not play such an important role In the text as the first viewpoint would suggest. It is perhaps best to say then that in some ways the silence is indeed a reflection of the censorship of the time, but that there are many ways to interpret the book, which of course one would expect based on its extensive use of ambiguity, and many levels of meaning which one must take into account when reading the novel.

Works Cited

Martín-Santos, L Tiempo de Silencio (1962, ed. 2009) Editorial Crítica, Barcelona

Roberts, G Temas existenciales en la novela española posguerra (1978) Gredos, Madrid

Ugarte, M Tiempo de Silencio and the language of displacement (Mar. 1981) MLN, Vol. 96, No. 2, Hispanic Issue, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore