Arte y Literatura en La Cuestión Palpitante y las Novelas Cortas de Emilia Pardo Bazán

“Carmen Parrón begins with a thorough study and exegesis of this crucial text, showing that the interpretations purveyed by Pardo Bazán’s typically unsympathetic critics (who viewed criticism as a male entitlement) are neither impartial nor accurate. This contribution alone has the potential to change the future of Pardo Bazán scholarship . . . Parrón’s exhaustively researched and highly original, authoritative study deserves a place in the personal library of every serious scholar of nineteenth-century Spanish literature.” – Prof. Janet Pérez, Texas Tech University

“. . . an intelligent and informed study of Emilia Pardo Bazán’s nineteenth-century writings. . . . Prof. Parrón’s monograph adds to our knowledge of a period and an author that have become among the most important in Hispanic literary studies.” - Prof. Ricardo Landeira, University of Colorado at Boulder

“The concept of revisiting certain key writings of Emilia Pardo Bazán—namely La cuestión palpitante and her novellas—with a contemporary eye free from past prejudices is an excellent one. The texts chosen are crucial to an understanding of this important woman writer’s place in history, and it is true that they have been marginalized or distorted in much extant criticism. This critic proves to be an insightful and informed reader capable of transmitting her perspectives vividly.” - Prof. Elizabeth Scarlett, SUNY at Buffalo

Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) gained fame upon the publication of her two-part novel Los Pazos de Ulloa (1886) and its sequel, La Madre Naturaleza (1887). Her refusal to employ a pseudonym made her vulnerable to male critics and writers whose dismissal of her talent was contrasted with the fine reception it received from international critics and the Spanish public.
A woman ahead of her time in a suffocating patriarchal society, Pardo Bazán advanced beyond the aristocratic sphere in which she was reared to become a feminist pioneer. Utilizing her study with tutors and opportunities to travel and reside abroad, most notably in France, Pardo Bazán went on to become economically independent of her parents and supported her three children entirely through her writing after her separation from her husband. She openly criticized industrialization’s inability to sufficiently advance women’s social standing. Pardo Bazán’s arguments continued to resonate in the second half of the twentieth century in a Spain where many traditional societal constraints on women prevailed.

Foreword by Prof. Janet Pérez, Texas Tech University
Agradecimientos
Introducción
1. La cuestión palpitante
2. La literatura como arte. La cancelación del Naturalismo
3. La mujer en la perspectiva del canon y del arte
4. Mujuer, arte y canon en la novela breve – Las novelas anteriores al fin de siglo (1884-1896)
5. Antiguos y nuevos temas en las novelas de 1907-1913
6. Revisitas literarias y homenaje a Cervantes. Las novelas de 1916-1920
Conclusiones
Bibliografía
Índice de materias