Álvaro Retana and Claudina Regnier: authorship, enigma and queer celebrity (1911–1917)

Abstract

Between 1911 and 1917, Álvaro Retana (1890-1970, a leading figure in the popular culture of Silver Age Spain , published dozens of newspaper and magazine articles, two kiosk novelettes and the prologue to his debut book under the name Claudina Regnier. Ostensibly the work of an unknown woman writer, the earliest of these texts prompted keen speculation in the Spanish press. The enigma surrounding their authorship drew Retana into an extended debate about the party or parties responsible for Regnier's writing. This essay examines the articles attributed to Regnier and argues that she began as a mysterious authorial persona who raised pressing concerns about authorship, gender and moral propriety. Debates about her identity and relationship to Retana brought him queer celebrity, or admiration and notoriety based on intense public scrutiny and indecision regarding his gender and sexual identities. They also shifted attention away from Regnier, whose first-person voice became less self-reflexive in articles bearing her signature after 1913. Ultimately, Retana's rise to queer celebrity had an ambivalent effect, both challenging accepted models of masculinity and heralding Regnier's disappearance as a seemingly autonomous woman writer at a time when ever more women were striving to publish in the Spanish press.