1st Edition

Spanish Women Writers and Spain's Civil War

By Maryellen Bieder, Roberta Johnson Copyright 2017
    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    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.

    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

    Biography

    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.