This collection of thirteen specially commissioned essays by international scholars takes a fresh look at the profound impact of the Peninsular War on Romantic British literature and culture. The expertly authored chapters explore the valorization of Spain by nineteenth-century poets such as Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, Robert Southey, S.T. Coleridge, the Shelleys, and Felicia Hemans in contrast to the Enlightenment-era view of Spain as a backwards nation in decline. Topics discussed include the vision of Spain in Gothic fiction, Spanish experiences of exile as exemplified by the conflict between Valentin de Llanos and Joseph Blanco White, and British women writers' approach to peninsular fiction. Spain in British Romanticism: 1800-1840 is essential reading for scholars and enthusiasts of Romantic literature and Spanish history.
British culture of the Romantic period is distinguished by a protracted and varied interest in things Spanish. The climax in the publication of fictional, and especially poetical, narratives on Spain corresponds with the intense phase of Anglo-Iberian exchanges delimited by the Peninsular War (1808-14), on the one hand, and the Spanish experiment of a constitutional monarchy that lasted from 1820 until 1823, on the other. Although current scholarship has uncovered and reconstructed several foreign maps of British Romanticism - from the Orient to the South Seas - exotic European geographies have not received much attention. Spain, in particular, is one of the most neglected of these 'imaginary' Romantic geographies, even if between the 1800s and the 1820s, and beyond, it was a site of wars and invasions, the object of foreign economic interests relating to its American colonies, and a geopolitical area crucial to the European balance designed by the post-Waterloo Vienna settlement. This study considers the various ways in which Spain figured in Romantic narrative verse, recovering the discursive materials employed in fictional representation, and assessing the relevance of this activity in the context of the dominant themes and preoccupations in contemporary British culture. The texts examined here include medievalizing and chivalric fictions, Orientalist adventures set in Islamic Granada, and modern-day tales of the anti-Napoleonic campaign in the Peninsula. Recovering some of the outstanding works and issues elaborated by British Romanticism through the cultural geography of Spain, this study shows that the Iberian country was an inexhaustible source of imaginative materials for British culture at a time when its imperial boundaries were expanding and its geopolitical influence was increasing in Europe and overseas.
This publication "makes available two decades of work by the pioneering scholar of Spanish cultural studies, Jo Labanyi, covering literature, cinema, painting, photography, and memory studies, with a frequent focus on gender. The essays explore the ways in which cultural texts serve as a vehicle for negotiating cultural anxieties, through their encoding of emotional structures that reveal social tensions and contradictions. The discussion of a wide range of Spanish texts, from the early nineteenth-century to the present, traces stages in the history of the emotions and their imbrication in political processes. The essays have in common an attempt to read against the grain; in many cases, the focus on gender is what makes that possible."--Publisher's website.
"A deep and genuine analysis of the women writers who are the objects of each chapter, utilizing the most modern methods of literary criticism . . . this book will be viewed as essential not only by scholars of women in literature but also for specialists dealing with the nineteenth century."--Gregorio C. Martin, Duquesne University "She shows us things we have not seen before. . . . This is a sophisticated, elegant, and important text. It demonstrates clearly, and for the first time, how women helped to shape Spanish Romantic discourse--both as subject and as object--and how prevailing attitudes shaped their writings."--David T. Gies, University of Virginia "A deep and genuine analysis of the women writers who are the objects of each chapter, utilizing the most modern methods of literary criticism . . . this book will be viewed as essential not only by scholars of women in literature but also for specialists dealing with the nineteenth century."--Gregorio C. Martin, Duquesne University
This book offers a comprehensive account of modern Spanish culture, tracing its dramatic and often unexpected development from its beginnings after the Revolution of 1868 to the present day. Specially-commissioned essays by leading experts provide analyses of the historical and political background of modern Spain, the culture of the major autonomous regions (notably Castile, Catalonia, and the Basque Country), and the country's literature: narrative, poetry, theatre and the essay. Spain's recent development is divided into three main phases: from 1868 to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War; the period of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco; and the post-Franco arrival of democracy. The concept of 'Spanish culture' is investigated, and there are studies of Spanish painting and sculpture, architecture, cinema, dance, music, and the modern media. A chronology and guides to further reading are provided, making the volume an invaluable introduction to the politics, literature and culture of modern Spain.
This companion is the first book of its kind to focus on the whole of European Romanticism. Describes the way in which the Romantic Movement swept across Europe in the early nineteenth century. Covers the national literatures of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Spain. Addresses common themes that cross national borders, such as orientalism, Napoleon, night, nature, and the prestige of the fragment. Includes cross-disciplinary essays on literature and music, literature and painting, and the general system of Romantic arts. Features 35 essays in all, from leading scholars in America, Australia, Britain, France, Italy, and Switzerland.
"... the authors assess British Romanticism's creative and polemical engagements with the Peninsular War, the bid of Spanish American colonies to establish independence with British support, and the impact of travel narratives about Spain and the Americas."--P. [4] of cover.
