Propuestas para (re)construir una nacion explores how Emilia Pardo Bazan (1851-1921) imagines and engenders the Spanish nation in her theatrical production staged and/or published between 1898 and 1909. In the aftermath of Spain's colonial losses, when Spain's male authors, in a growing mood of collective introspection, directed their attention to the homeland, Pardo Bazan generated a series of theatrical proposals to revitalize the nation. In her plays, she manifests her ideas about Spain's fin de siecle crisis, reflects on Spain's place in the international arena (emphasizing the nation's civilizing mission), critiques the intoxicating power of the so-called golden legend (Spain's glorious past), and sees the origin of the nation's hardship in the lack of education of its inhabitants and in the inequality between men and women. Pardo Bazan's vision of Spain is forward looking,and she imagines a future in which new social configurations will be possible. Instead of locating her plays in an ancestral Castile, she situates several ofher works in her native Galicia. For the author, Spain's regional issues are inseparable from the country's national issues and these can all be traced back to the woman question. The playwright appeals to the spectators/readers' reasonand emotions in order to let them think and feel that the problems the nation faces can all be attributed to the Spanish men. For Pardo Bazan, Spain's potential for national regeneration resides in the inner strength of women. In cross-fire with the main male players in the literary field of her time, Pardo Bazan offers her critique of national decadence in plays that cleverly subvert a broad range of by then outdated theatrical conventions, and that introduce the public to new currents of theatrical innovation (Ibsen, Maeterlinck, d'Annunzio). Propuestas offers a new perspective on the participation of female authors in the contentious debate about the Spanish nation. Pardo Bazan's theater is an overlooked area in the author's extensive creative production, and Propuestas challenges the so often repeated topic of the backwardness of the Spanish stage and the alleged lack of innovation during the fin de siecle.
Margot Versteeg is a professor of Spanish at the University of Kansas. She has published numerous articles on nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century literature and culture, and is the author of two books: one on nineteenth-century Spanish theater (De fusiladores y morcilleros: el discurso comico del genero chico, Rodopi 2000) and another on nineteenth-century proto-intellectuals (Jornaleros de la pluma, Iberoamericana/Vervuert 2011). Versteeg also coedited a volume on Teaching the Works of Emilia Pardo Bazan in the MLA Approaches to Teaching World Literature series, and is coediting a volume on Spanish Realism.
Prefacio Introduccion: El teatro de Emilia Pardo Bazan Capitulo uno: El vestido de boda (1898). Mujer y nacion en un monologo teatral Capitulo dos: Destino y muerte en La Suerte (1904) y La Muerte de la Quimera (1905) Capitulo tres: Violencia, perversidad y horror en Verdad (1906) Capitulo cuatro: Cuesta abajo (1906) y el problema de Espana Capitulo cinco: De/Regeneration en El becerro de metal (1906) Capitulo seis: Juventud o las (des)ilusiones del deseo (1909) Capitulo siete: Imperio, darwinismo y responsabilidad moral en Las raices (1909) Epilogo: La Malinche (esbozo de un drama) Apendices Apendice uno: Articulos escritos por Emilia Pardo Bazan y consultados en este estudio Apendice dos: Las obras teatrales de Emilia Pardo Bazan comentadas en este libro Notas Obras citadas Indice alfabetico
