Feminizing Spanish modernism
Description
This dissertation is an attempt to feminize Spanish Modernism, which has been traditionally gendered masculine. By studying several women writers who were actively involved in the literary productions of the first decades of the 20th century, I try to add my efforts to an ongoing collective endeavor to construct a female tradition in Spanish literature In the introduction Chapter, I analyze various reasons that have accounted for women's obscurity in Modernist literary history and present my arguments for constructing a female Modernism. In the second chapter, I study the poetry of Josefina de la Torre focusing on her concerns with language and her anxiety of symbolic power. In the third chapter, I read two of Maria Teresa Leon's prewar collections of short stories from perspectives of political and feminist critics in order to underscore the social dimension of Spanish Modernism. In the fourth chapter, I explore the spatial discourse in Concha Mendez's poetry to disclose a gradual interiorization of her poetic space, corresponding to different stages of her life. In the last chapter, I concern myself with the religious discourse of Ernestina de Champourcin's poetry and its various manifestations at different phases of her creations. In the 'Conclusion,' I stress the features that these women writers share with each other despite their apparent differences. By doing so, I intend to reinforce the feminist approach to Modernism, which is recast as a polyphonic, mobile but sexually charged literary movement