Spanish literature includes some of the world's greatest works and authors. It is also one of the most widely studied. This reference looks at the literature of Spain from the perspective of women's studies. Though the volume focuses on the literature of Spain written in Castilian, it also includes survey entries on the present state of women's literature in Catalan, Galician, and Basque. Included are hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries for numerous topics related to Spanish literature, including: -Literary periods and genres -Significant characters and character types -Major authors and works -Various specialized topics Each entry discusses how the topic relates to women's studies. Entries for male authors discuss their attitudes toward women. Female writers are considered for the restrictive cultural contexts in which they wrote. Specific works are examined for their representations of female characters and their handling of women's issues. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and closes with a brief bibliography. The volume concludes with a list of works for further reading.

"Spanish literature includes some of the world's greatest works and authors. It is also one of the most widely studied. This reference looks at the literature of Spain from the perspective of women's studies. Though the volume focuses on the literature of Spain written in Castilian, it also includes survey entries on the present state of women's literature in Catalan, Galician, and Basque. Included are hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries for numerous topics related to Spanish literature, including literary periods and genres, significant characters and character types, major authors and works, and various specialized topics. Each entry discusses how the topic relates to women's studies. Entries for male authors discuss their attitudes toward women. Female writers are considered for the restrictive cultural contexts in which they wrote. Specific works are examined for their representations of female characters and their handling of women's issues. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and closes with a brief bibliography. The volume concludes with a list of works for further reading."--Back cover.

Gender and Exemplarity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain gathers a series of studies on the interplay between gender, sanctity and exemplarity in regard to literary production in the Iberian peninsula. The first section examines how women were con¬strued as saintly examples through narratives, mostly composed by male writers; the second focuses on the use made of exemplary life-accounts by women writers in order to fashion their own social identity and their role as authors. The volume includes studies on relevant models (Mary Magdalen, Virgin Mary, living saints), means of transmission, sponsorship and agency (reading circles, print, patronage), and female writers (Leonor López de Córdoba, Isabel de Villena, Teresa of Ávila) involved in creating textual exemplars for women. Contributors are: Pablo Acosta-García, Andrew M. Beresford, Jimena Gamba Corradine, Ryan D. Giles, María Morrás, Lesley K. Twomey, Roa Vidal Doval, and Christopher van Ginhoven Rey.

A valuable survey and reference resource It is hard to imagine a more needed and more useful literary reference work than this one, which gives students and readers quick access to the lives and work of a wide range of notable female writers from England and the Continent, from Aphra Behn to Emily Bronte, from Simone de Beauvoir to Isak Dinesen, from Bridget of Sweden to Hannah Arendt. Writers in more than 30 languages are included: French, Czech, Greek, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, German, Russian, Portuguese, Serbian, Catalan, Arabic, Hebrew, Dutch, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovak, and more. Covers 1,500 years and all major genres Going back 15 centuries, the Encyclopedia covers the authors of novels, short stories, poetry, plays, criticism, social commentary, feminist manifestos, romances, mysteries, memoirs, children's literature, biography, and other genres. In signed entries, some of which are mini-essays, experts in the field examine writers' lives and achievements, comment on individual works, place artistic efforts in historical context, provide insights and analyses, and present more information than can be easily found elsewhere without undertaking more exhaustive research. Each entry is followed by a bibliography of primary works. Indexed by language, nationality, genre, and century. Spotlights the interesting lives of notable writers In these pages students and readers will meet hundreds of interesting women writers who made lasting contributions to the intellectual and popular culture of their countries while often leading fascinating lives, among them: * AGATHA CHRISTIE , who wrote her first book in response to her sister's demand for a detective story that was harder to solve than the popular fiction of her day, and whose work has been translated in more languages than Shakespeare's. * HILDEGARD VON BINGEN , the 12th-century German mystic, who wrote profusely as a prophet, a poet, a dramatist, a physician, and a political moralist, often communicated with popes and princes, and exerted a tremendous influence on the Western Europe of her time * MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY, whose 1818 masterpiece Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus became a literary sensation around the world * ILSE BLUMENTHAL-WEISS, one of the few concentration camp survivors to memorialize the victims of the Holocaust in German verse * LINA WERTMULLER, who in addition to her work in films, has written plays for the stage and a novel, and who once was a member of a short-lived puppet theater that staged the works of Kafka. Special features: Ideal for quick reference and student research * Multicultural-covers over 30 languages and 15 centuries * Includes many contemporary writers * Provides essential biographic data on each writer * Each entry is followed by a chronological listing of the writer's published book-length works * Offers critical evaluations of major works * Indexes help find writers by country...research by time period...survey genres...focus on languages

Few events have stirred the emotions and caught the imaginations of intellectuals as did the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. The Spanish Civil War in Literature examines the diverse literatures that the war inspired: a literature relating directly to the war, a literature of exile arising from the forty-year dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and a polemical literature embracing pro-Franco and Loyalist sympathies.In this book, specialists from a variety of fields explore these literatures within comparative and interdisciplinary frameworks. They reflect upon film, poetry, novels, painting, discourse, biography, and propaganda. The essays are grouped according to the original languages of the works they discuss—French, Russian, English, and Spanish.

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