Juan Belmonte y la renovación de la masculinidad nacional

Abstract

This historical study tries to show the influence of the bullfight on the evolution of the male national identity in the first decades of the twentieth century. The main objective of this research is to analyze the representations of the nation and masculinity generated by journalists, but also by personalities from the world of culture, based on the figure of bullfighter Juan Belmonte. His successful career and risky way of fighting were associated with a revival of bullfighting and therefore, the regeneration of Spanish manhood, claimed and theorized by a good number of Spanish intellectuals. The image of Belmonte, antithetical to the stereotype of the bullfighter, and his friendship with a large group of writers and artists, made him the personification of the archetype of a renewed, civilized and modern national masculinity.