Spanish Women Writers and Spain's Civil War / Edition 1

by Maryellen Bieder, Roberta Johnson

Overview

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) pitted conservative forces including the army, the Church, the Falange (fascist party), landowners, and industrial capitalists against the Republic, installed in 1931 and supported by intellectuals, the petite bourgeoisie, many campesinos (farm laborers), and the urban proletariat. Provoking heated passions on both sides, the Civil War soon became an international phenomenon that inspired a number of literary works reflecting the impact of the war on foreign and national writers. While the literature of the period has been the subject of scholarship, women's literary production has not been studied as a body of work in the same way that literature by men has been, and its unique features have not been examined. Addressing this lacuna in literary studies, this volume provides fresh perspectives on well-known women writers, as well as less studied ones, whose works take the Spanish Civil War as a theme. The authors represented in this collection reflect a wide range of political positions. Writers such as Maria Zambrano, Mercè Rodoreda, and Josefina Aldecoa were clearly aligned with the Republic, whereas others, including Mercedes Salisachs and Liberata Masoliver, sympathized with the Nationalists. Most, however, are situated in a more ambiguous political space, although the ethics and character portraits that emerge in their works might suggest Republican sympathies. Taken together, the essays are an important contribution to scholarship on literature inspired by this pivotal point in Spanish history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472476838
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/15/2016
Series:	New Hispanisms: Cultural and Literary Studies
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Maryellen Bieder is Professor Emerita in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University.

Roberta Johnson is Profeesor Emerita at the University of Kansas and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: Spanish Women Writers and Spain’s Civil War

ROBERTA JOHNSON AND MARYELLEN BIEDER

María Zambrano’s Enduring Drama: Remembering the Spanish Civil War

SHIRLEY MANGINI

Living the War, Writing the War: Poetic Figuration in Mercè’s La plaça

del Diamant

MARYELLEN BIEDER

Spaces of Enclosure in Liberata Masoliver’s Barcelona en llamas

LISA NALBONE

Hybrid Discourses and Double Voices: Re-evaluating the Spanish Civil War in Mercedes Salisachs’s Novels

CHRISTINE ARKINSTALL

The Last Battle: Gloria Fuertes and the Politics of Emotion in Her Late Civil War Poems

REYES VILA-BELDA

The Theater of Maria Aurèlia Capmany and the Reverberations of Civil War (History, Censorship, Silence)

SHARON G. FELDMAN

Carmen Laforet's Inspiration for Nada (1945)

ISRAEL ROLÓN-BARADA

Carmen Martín Gaite's Concept of Ruins

ROBERTA JOHNSON

Novels as History Lessons in Ana María Matute’s Primera memoria (1960) and Demonios familiares (2014): From Betrayal to Solidarity

SILVIA BERMÚDEZ

The Phantasm of Civil War in Josefina Aldecoa’s Novelistic Trilogy

DAVID K. HERZBERGER

Impossible Neutrality: Civil War and Melodrama in Marina Mayoral’s Novels

ROSALÍA CORNEJO PARRIEGO

Montserrat Roig and the Civil War: Questions of Genre, Gender, and Authorial Presence

CATHERINE G. BELLVER

Family Documents, Analogy, and Reconciliation in the Works of Carme Riera

KATHRYN EVERLY

Dead Woman Walking: "Historical Memory," Trauma, and Adaptation in Dulce Chacón’s La voz dormida

MICHAEL UGUARTE

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES