Gender and Modernity in Spanish Literature 1789-1920

Using each chapter to juxtapose works by one female and one male Spanish writer, Gender and Modernity in Spanish Literature: 1789-1920 interrogates the concept of Spanish modernity. Surveying literature beginning in the often-ignored Spanish Enlightenment, continuing to the nineteenth century of Romanticism and Realism, and ending in the early twentieth century of Modernism, Elizabeth Smith Rousselle offers insight into the changing roles of women, the male hysteric, positivism, dream research, secularization, the advances of science, the uneven development of Spanish feminism, the dominance of the discourse of motherhood, and the transformation of the Don Juan figure.

Elizabeth Smith Rousselle is Associate Professor in the Department of Languages at Xavier University of Louisiana, USA. She has published articles on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish, Spanish American, and French literature.

Introduction: The Female and Male Modern Spanish Subject
PART I: DISILLUSION AND OPTIMISM IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
1. (Dis)Order: Writing Spain's Chaos in José Cadalso's Cartas Marruecas and Righting Spain's Wrongs in Josefa Amar y Borbón's Discurso sobre la educación física y moral de las mujeres
2. Decorum and Love in the Spanish Enlightenment: José Mor de Fuentes's La Serafina and María Lorenza de los Ríos's La sabia indiscreta
PART II: (DIS)ENCHANTED PASSION AND CRITIQUE IN CONTEXTS OF ROMANTICISM AND REALISM
3. Masculine Extremes: The (Anti)-Flâneur and Male Hysteric in Articles by Mariano José de Larra and Short Novels by Rosalía de Castro
4. Religion, Race, Class, and Gender in the Age of Positivism: Female Empowerment in Fernán Caballero's Simón Verde and Female Uselessness in Benito Pérez Galdós's Marianela
PART III: PSYCHOLOGICAL, ARTISTIC, AND SPIRITUAL ALLUSIONS AND (DIS)ILLUSIONS BEFORE AND AFTER THE DISASTER OF 1898
5. Solipsistic Inertia: Decadent Dreams in Leopoldo Alas's Su único hijo and Emilia Pardo Bazán's La quimera
6. The Spiritual Solution: Mysticism as a Means to Individual Authenticity and Optimism in Benito Pérez Galdós's Nazarín and Emilia Pardo Bazán's Dulce Dueño
PART IV: SYMBOLS OF (DIS)ILLUSION IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
7. Lamenting the State of Science and Feminism: Negative Secularism in Pío Baroja's El árbol de la ciencia and Ambiguity in Carmen de Burgos's El Perseguidor
8. Maternal Abjection and the Death of Don Juan in Las hijas de Don Juan by Blanca de los Ríos and Dos madres by Miguel de Unamuno
Conclusion: Modern Spanish Subjects: Disillusioned Men and Hopeful Women