Abigail Lee Six

Spanish Vampire Fiction since 1900: Blood Relations, as that subtitle suggests, makes the case for considering Spanish vampire fiction an index of the complex relationship between intercultural phenomena and the specifics of a time, place, and author. Supernatural beings that drink blood are found in folklore worldwide, Spain included, and writers ranging from the most canonical to the most marginal have written vampire stories, Spanish ones included too. When they do, they choose between various strategies of characterization or blend different ones together. How much will they draw on conventions of the transnational corpus? Are their vampires to be local or foreign; alluring or repulsive; pitiable or pure evil, for instance? Decisions like these determine the messages texts carry and, when made by Spanish authors, may reveal aspects of their culture with striking candidness, perhaps because the fantasy premise seems to give the false sense of security that this is harmless escapism and, since metaphorical meaning is implicit, it is open to argument and, if necessary, denial. Part I gives a chronological text-by-text appreciation of all the texts included in this volume, many of them little known even to Hispanists and few if any to non-Spanish Gothic scholars. It also provides a plot summary and brief background on the author of each. These entries are free-standing and designed to be consulted for reference or read together to give a sense of the evolution of the paradigm since 1900. Part II considers the corpus comparatively, first with regard to its relationship to folklore and religion and then contagion and transmission. Spanish Vampire Fiction since 1900: Blood Relations will be of interest to Anglophone Gothic scholars who want to develop their knowledge of the Spanish dimension of the mode and to Hispanists who want to look at some canonical texts and authors from a new perspective but also gain an awareness of some interesting and decidedly non-canonical material.

Blood Relations

Spanish Vampire Fiction since 1900

This is a scholarly edition of three stories by Carmen de Burgos (1867-1932), including the unabridged texts, vocabulary, notes, chronology, bibliography, 'temas de debate y discusión', and a critical introduction. De Burgos, also known by her pen-name of 'Colombine', was an influential journalist, socio-political activist, and a key literary figure in the cultural ferment of pre-war Madrid. She is currently being rediscovered, having languished in a long and regrettable oblivion during the Franco years. Confidencias (1920) is the fictional diary of a young married woman, describing her first adulterous relationship and exploiting the narratological possibilities of the diary form. La mujer fría (1922) is a vampire story featuring perhaps the very first pitiable vampire, or at least one of the earliest examples of this type, whilst ingeniously maintaining undecidability as to whether the protagonist is supernatural. Puñal de claveles (1931) narrates a wedding-day elopement and was inspired by a news item, the so-called 'Crimen de Níjar' of 1928. Federico García Lorca drew on de Burgos's story and the real-life crime for his Bodas de sangre, but while his play is tragic, Puñal is bathed in a golden glow of nostalgia for the author's native Andalusia and ends optimistically. As well as making accessible three individually interesting and entertaining stories, this book offers a varied selection, with some of the issues closest to Colombine's heart tackled from different perspectives, but adding up to a coherent critique of marriage conventions, women's poor education, and prevailing ideals of femininity.

Three novellas: Confidencias, La mujer fría and Puñal de claveles

Carmen de Burgos

Upgrade your Spanish is the ideal guide for students wanting a better grade in their Spanish exams. It offers a thirty day revision programme that is guaranteed to improve your results. In the countdown to exams, students should simply spend between 30 minutes to an hour a day with this book, and see their mark go up a grade! This short revision guide focuses on three key strategies for improving your exam results: 1) Eliminating basic errors and slips of the pen; 2) Increasing and consolidating your vocabulary; 3) Moving on from school-book Spanish.

Upgrade Your Spanish

"Gothic Terrors brings together two discursive fields that have had very little contact hitherto: Gothic Studies and Hispanism. Though widely accepted in English studies, Hispanists seldom invoke the concept of a Gothic mode existing beyond its first appearance in the eighteenth century. Highlighting Gothic elements in mainstream Spanish fiction from the nineteenth century until the present day, Lee Six challenges the view that Spanish writers rejected what the Gothic had to offer. Through close study of texts by Benito Pérez Galdós, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Miguel de Unamuno, Camilo José Cela, Adelaida García Morales, Espido Freire, and Javier García Sánchez, Lee Six traces the evolution of three staples of the Gothic: the heroine imprisoned on grounds of madness, the doubled or split character, and the use of violent, gory description. Persuasively argued and well researched, Gothic Terrors reflects on the Gothic presence in Spanish mainstream literature and identifies two important ways in which it crosses cultural divides: the traditional gulf between high and low culture within Spain, and the engagement of Spanish creative writers with transnational literary trends. Gothic Terrors will thus appeal to Gothic scholars who are interested in the Spanish dimension of their field, as well as to Hispanists who may have been unaware of how relevant and useful Gothic studies could be for them."--Publisher's website.

Incarceration, Duplication, and Bloodlust in Spanish Narrative

Gothic Terrors

By highlighting features common to the Gothic classics and the works of Adelaida García Morales, this monograph aims to put the Gothic on the map in Hispanic Studies.

Haunting Words

The Gothic Fiction of Adelaida García Morales

Emily Jeremiah

Gill Rye

Adalgisa Giorgio

Victoria Browne

Motherhood remains a complex and contested issue in feminist research as well as public discussion. This interdisciplinary volume explores cultural representations of motherhood in various contemporary European contexts, including France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the UK, and it considers how such representations affect the ways in which different individuals and groups negotiate motherhood as both institution and lived experience. It has a particular focus on literature, but it also includes essays that examine representations of motherhood in philosophy, art, social policy, and film. The book’s driving contention is that, through intersecting with other fields and disciplines, literature and the study of literature have an important role to play in nuancing dialogues around motherhood, by offering challenging insights and imaginative responses to complex problems and experiences. This is demonstrated throughout the volume, which covers a range of topics including: discursive and visual depictions of pregnancy and birth; the impact of new reproductive technologies on changing family configurations; the relationship between mothering and citizenship; the shaping of policy imperatives regarding mothering and disability; and the difficult realities of miscarriage, child death, violence, and infanticide. The collection expands and complicates hegemonic notions of motherhood, as the authors map and analyse shifting conceptions of maternal subjectivity and embodiment, explore some of the constraining and/or enabling contexts in which mothering takes place, and ask searching questions about what it means to be a ‘mother’ in Europe today. It will be of interest not only to those working in gender, women’s and feminist studies, but also to scholars in literary and cultural studies, and those researching in sociology, criminology, politics, psychology, medical ethics, midwifery, and related fields.

Abigail Lee Six

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