"Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) was the most prolific and influential woman writer of late nineteenth-century Spain," write the editors of this volume in the MLA's Approaches to Teaching World Literature series. Contending with the critical literary, cultural, and social issues of the period, Pardo Bazán's novels, novellas, short stories, essays, plays, travel writing, and cookbooks offer instructors countless opportunities to engage with a variety of critical frameworks. The wide range of topics in the author's works, from fashion to science and technology to gender equality, and the brilliance of her literary style make Pardo Bazán a compelling figure in the classroom. Part 1, "Materials," provides biographical and critical resources, an overview of Pardo Bazán's vast and diverse oeuvre, and a literary-historical time line. It also reviews secondary sources, editions and translations, and digital resources. The twenty-three essays in part 2, "Approaches," explore various issues that are central to teaching Pardo Bazán's works, including the author's engagement with contemporary literary movements, feminism and gender, nation and the late Spanish empire, Spanish and Galician identities, and nineteenth-century scientific and medical discourses. Film adaptations and translations of Pardo Bazán's works are also addressed. Highlighting the artistic, social, and intellectual currents of Pardo Bazán's writings, this volume will assist instructors who wish to teach the author's works in courses on world literature, nineteenth-century literature, and gender studies as well as in Spanish-language courses.

Emilia Pardo Bazán, born in the north-west Spanish region of Galicia in 1851, remained active as a prolific novelist, short-story writer and literary critic almost up to her death in 1921. David Henn examines Bazán's main thematic concerns in her first decade as a novelist: social tensions; environment and heredity as influences on character; the Feminist Question and the narrative portrayal of the female; political controversies. She is revealed as an acute, if tendentious, commentator on the affairs of her day. She was also vigorously engaged with current French and Spanish literary polemic; and her contributions to this area of vital literary debate are collated in this study, which makes the first full and systematic test of her fictional practice in relation to her theoretical stance.

A facing page translation of Emilia Pardo Bazán's classic novel

Women have been writing in the Catholic tradition since early medieval times, yet no single volume has brought together critical evaluations of their works until now. The first reference of its kind, Catholic Women Writers provides entries on 64 Catholic women writers from around the world and across the centuries. Each of the entries is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography of the author; a critical discussion of her works, especially her Catholic and women's themes; an overview of her critical reception; and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Authors writing in all genres, including fiction, autobiography, poetry, children's literature, and essays, are represented. The entries give special attention to the authors' use of Catholic themes, structures, traditions, culture, and spirituality. The writers surveyed range from Doctors of the Church to mystics and visionaries, to those who employ Catholic themes primarily in historical and cultural contexts, to those who critique the tradition. An introductory essay places the writers within the historical and literary contexts of women's writing in the Catholic tradition, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.

The book is the first to analyse the textual construction of a national Spanish cuisine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This book looks at the textual attempts to construct a national cuisine made in Spain at the turn of the last century. At the same time that attempts to unify the country were being made in law and narrated in fiction, Mariano Pardo de Figueroa (1828-1918) and José Castro y Serrano (1829-96), Angel Muro Goiri (1839 - 1897), Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) and Dionisio Pérez (1872-1935) all tried to find ways of bringing Spaniards together through a common language about food. In line with this nationalist goal, all of the texts examined in this book contain strategies and rhetoric typical of nineteenth-century nation-building projects. The nationalist agenda of these culinary textscomes as little surprise when we consider the importance of nation building to Spanish cultural and political life at the time of their publication. At this time Spaniards were forced to confront many questions relating to their national identity, such as the state's lackluster nationalizing policies, the loss of empire, national degeneration and regeneration and their country's cultural dependence on France. In their discussions about how to nationalize Spanish food, all of the authors under consideration here tap into these wider political and cultural issues about what it meant to be Spanish at this time. Lara Anderson is Lecturer in Spanish Studies at the Universityof Melbourne.

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Franciscan Principles -- 2. Imitation and Deviation -- 3. Travels through Catholic Europe -- 4. Toward the Lamb, with the Lamb -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index