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Negotiating Sainthood
Distinction, Cursileria and Saintliness in Spanish Novels
Introduction
This study demonstrates the previously unrecognised significance of discourses of saintliness for constructions of gender and national identity in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Spanish culture.
Kathy Bacon's innovative approach to sainthood leads to fresh readings of texts by Spain's three principal realist novelists: La familia de Leon Roch and Nazarin (Benito Perez Galdos, 1878 and 1895), La Regenta (Leopoldo Alas, 1884-85), and Dulce dueno (Emilia Pardo Bazan, 1911).
The author challenges the conventional distinction between anti-clerical and spiritual novels by these writers, and questions previous feminist assumptions about the negative role of religion for female identity.
Sainthood emerges as a key theme through which texts grapple with Spain's difficult transition to modernity.
