Los rostros del criminal: una aproximación a la literatura de patíbulo en España

• Main Author: Juan Gomis
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad de Cádiz 2016-07-01
• Series: Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo
• Subjects: Popular literature; broadside ballads; gallows; execution; crime; public opinion
• Online Access: http://revistas.uca.es/index.php/cir/article/view/2385/2200

This paper aims to shed light on a subgenre inside cordel literature: the execution ballads, texts which were written, printed and sold around the gallows, informing about offender’s crimes and execution. While English, French or German historiographies have deepened on their respective gallows literature, in Spain there is not even a delimitation of this printed corpus. The aim of this contribution is, on the one hand, to collect evidences about the existence of a Spanish gallows literature between 16th and 19th centuries. On the other hand, it analyzes two examples from 18th century in order to explore the possibilities offered by this literature to study the wrondoing’s cultural representations.