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Writing Teresa

The Saint from Avila at the fin-de-siglo

Denise DuPont

Writing Teresa: The Saint from Ávila at the fin-de-siglo examines the Teresa de Jesús “boom” of roughly 1880–1930, and offers an in-depth study of five major Spanish participants in the turn-of-the-twentieth-century explosion of literary treatments of St. Teresa. This historical period’s interest in the Saint from Ávila relates to popularization and nationalization of aspects of Catholicism, technological advances, a modernist fascination with saintly heroes, the search for new Spanish identities, and the evolving role of women writers and intellectuals. Teresa was mysticism in its historical context, energy in a time of doubt, the possibility of reconciling science and spirituality, a new vision for writing, and a maternal figure linked to the religion of the past for those who had lost the faith of their childhood.

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 341 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-61148-406-9 • Hardback • December 2011 • $133.00 • (£102.00)

978-1-61148-407-6 • eBook • December 2011 • $126.00 • (£97.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / Spanish & Portuguese, History / Europe / General, History / Europe / Spain & Portugal, Religion / Christianity / Catholic, Religion / Christianity / Saints & Sainthood, Religion / Mysticism

Writing Teresa

The Saint from Avila at the fin-de-siglo

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Writing Teresa: The Saint from Ávila at the fin-de-siglo examines the Teresa de Jesús “boom” of roughly 1880–1930, and offers an in-depth study of five major Spanish participants in the turn-of-the-twentieth-century explosion of literary treatments of St. Teresa. This historical period’s interest in the Saint from Ávila relates to popularization and nationalization of aspects of Catholicism, technological advances, a modernist fascination with saintly heroes, the search for new Spanish identities, and the evolving role of women writers and intellectuals. Teresa was mysticism in its historical context, energy in a time of doubt, the possibility of reconciling science and spirituality, a new vision for writing, and a maternal figure linked to the religion of the past for those who had lost the faith of their childhood.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 341 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-61148-406-9 • Hardback • December 2011 • $133.00 • (£102.00)

978-1-61148-407-6 • eBook • December 2011 • $126.00 • (£97.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / Spanish & Portuguese, History / Europe / General, History / Europe / Spain & Portugal, Religion / Christianity / Catholic, Religion / Christianity / Saints & Sainthood, Religion / Mysticism

Author

Denise DuPont is associate professor of Spanish at Southern Methodist University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction. An Hour with Teresa: The Saint and Her Interpreters
Science, Mysticism, Spiritualism, and the Feminine
Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Spain: Teresa as Popular Holy Mother
Nationalizing Teresa: The Third Centennial, and Political Divisions
Creating National Culture: The Role of Scholars
Fin-de-siglo Exploration of Spanish Identity: The Saintly Hero in Literature
Teresa in Turn-of-the-Century Spain: Male and Female Perspectives
Stories of Teresa in Clarín, Pardo Bazán, Unamuno, Azorín, and Blanca de los Ríos
An Hour with Teresa (1880-1930)

Chapter One. Clarín’s Teresa: the faith of the mother
Teresa: national pathology or national project?
Clarín as critic: On Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo and Benito Pérez Galdós
La Regenta: Female Affliction and Male Desire
Mothers, Nuns, and supercherías
Saintly Pairs: Salvation for Clarín and the Nation

Chapter Two. Emilia Pardo Bazán and Teresa de Jesús, in public and privateFranciscanism, Mysticism and the Heroic Woman WriterA Model for Women: Teresa on the National Stage
Sainthood and Superiority: La Quimera and Dulce Dueño
Postscript: Teresa and the Return to Community

Chapter Three. Unamuno and the Agony of Teresa
En torno al casticismo: Teresa’s Interior Castles
Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho: Divine QuijotessDel sentimiento trágico de la vida: The Agonies of Teresa as Super-SelfLa tía Tula: Teresa and Her FamilyUnamuno, Poet: A Lyrics of Teresa
Additional Agony, and Dreams of Liberty
Chapter Four. Heroism and Humility: Azorín Writes Teresa
The Early Years, and the Unbearable Whiteness of the Eternal Feminine
The Past is not Present: Teresa’s Inaccessibility and the Author’s Doubts
Bringing the Classics to Life
Authority and Intervention: Rescuing Teresa
Fictions and Fantasies of Teresa’s Savior and Disciple
“La humildad es la verdad”: Final Lessons from Teresa

Chapter Five. Blanca de los Ríos: Teresa as Mother of Tradition
The Women of Tirso: Teresa in Gabriel Téllez
Teresa as Hero: Linguistic Maternity and the Woman’s Pen
Addressing Women: Teresa in Blanca de los Ríos’s Present
A Teresa for the Future

Conclusion. Public and Private Teresas
Works Cited

Writing Teresa

The Saint from Avila at the fin-de-siglo

Denise DuPont

Writing Teresa

The Saint from Avila at the fin-de-siglo

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