Gothic, Gender and Regenerationism in Emilia Pardo Bazán's Galicia
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Gothic, Gender and Regenerationism in Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Galicia Submitted by José Carlos Tenreiro Prego to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Studies in September 2013. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has been previously submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature:…………………………………………………… 1 ABSTRACT This thesis investigates Emilia Pardo Bazán’s fiction predicated on the idea of a Galician regional Gothic deriving from elements of English literary tradition and nineteenth-century Spanish costumbrismo. While the recurrent use of Gothic elements in her literary output has been acknowledged and studied by a number of scholars, my investigation aims to shed some light on the reasons why this writer ultimately resorts to this genre. My first level of analysis concentrates on Gothic manifestations in nineteenth-century Spanish fiction, and how Pardo Bazán adopts this genre and adapts it to her Realist and Naturalist conventions. I maintain that the primary choice for the Gothic aesthetic responds to a necessity to portray the most basic features of Galician peculiarities – its distinctive landscape and its rural Volksgeist –. In this way, Edmund Burke’s contribution to the theorization of the Sublime reveals itself to be a satisfactory resource to Pardo Bazán, who was well familiarized with the concept. The use of Gothic elements equally functions as an instrument of social criticism to raise empathy for the backwardness that Galicia suffered during the last third of the nineteenth century. Thus, while addressing the issue of women’s subordination, the author develops distinctive narrative patterns frequently associated with the so-called Female Gothic. Meanwhile, the depictions of rural characters as savage, superstitious and ignorant indicate the author’s preoccupation with the psychological processes of the Gothic and the reactions among the reading public. In depicting the plight of rural Galicia, she is actually making her readers aware of the necessity to bring this region closer to modernity, that is, to Europe. My second level of analysis focuses on the psychological dimension of the Gothic. In the exploration of such motifs as hallucinations, nightmares, uncanny locations, or hysterical attacks, Pardo Bazán’s texts call for a psychoanalytic reinterpretation of these terms. If readers of Gothic fiction seek to decipher hidden meanings within texts, I will attempt to demonstrate that a psychoanalytic approach to Pardo Bazán’s use of Gothic fiction happens to be a necessary step to the better 2 understanding of her work. Taking all this into account, this thesis will try to show that the use of Gothic devices Pardo Bazán employs are constant throughout her literary career and help her to describe the distinctive peculiarities of Galicia while functioning as a tool of social criticism. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction…………………………………………………………………….....................5 Chapter I: Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Literary World…………………………………………..37 Chapter II: Emilia Pardo Bazán and the Gothic Tradition…………………………………59 Chapter III: Understanding Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Vision of Galicia……………………...97 Chapter IV: The Female Gothic as a Response to Pardo Bazán’s Naturalism……………130 Chapter V: The Psychoanalytic approach to the Gothic in Los pazos de Ulloa....................................................................................................................................173 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………….218 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………….232 4 INTRODUCTION That Gothicism is closely related to Romanticism is perfectly clear, but it is easier to state the fact than to prove it tidily and convincingly. There is a persistent suspicion that Gothicism is a poor and probably illegitimate relation of Romanticism, and a consequent tendency to treat it that way. There are those, indeed, who would like to deny the relationship altogether.1 This thesis focuses on the circumstances in which Naturalist writer Emilia Pardo Bazán avails herself of elements of traditional Gothic fiction and elements of nineteenth-century Spanish costumbrismo, constructing in the process a Galician regional Gothic. I will try to demonstrate that the Gothic machinery to which she resorts, either through pictorial or psychological processes, allows her clearly to portray her vision of the Galician Volksgeist. This portrayal of Galicia is created through a rigid opposition against the defective values she observes in Mediterranean Spain. In reinforcing this opposition, Pardo Bazán appears to be participating in a regenerationist project consisting of bringing Galicia closer to Europe and so to modernization. The word “Gothic” has adopted different meanings and connotations in the course of Western history. Initially, the Goths were a Germanic tribe originated from Scandinavia who, in the decline of the Roman Empire, extended their influence throughout much of southern Europe. When dealing with architecture, the term has been used to refer to the revival of the medieval “Gothic” aesthetic in Great Britain during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which contrasted with the prevailing neo-Classical style. This revival, however, is usually referred to as “Neo-Gothic”. During these centuries, a large number of buildings 1 Robert Hume, “Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel”, PMLA, 84 (1969), 282-290 (p. 282). Hume explores the existent connections between these genres, and considers the early Gothic novels as precursors of Romanticism in their concern with sensibility, the sublime and their approach to the irrational. However, Hume himself points out that Romanticism, unlike the early Gothic fiction, assumes the existence of answers to the problems afflicting human beings. 5 where erected or reconstructed in Great Britain, the Houses of Parliament in London being the most emblematic example. In the sixteenth century, Renaissance humanists had attributed the medieval style of architecture to the northern tribes, which would give a clear explanation of why this revival would be immediately interpreted as a reconstruction of the past. The term Gothic has equally been associated with the warring, barbaric behaviour of the Germanic tribes. From the perspective of an enlightened mind, the Gothic architecture revival shared strong links with the uncivilized, brutish world of the Middle Ages to the extent that the noun “Goth” would become a synonym of “barbarian”. By the eighteenth century, “Gothic” had become a metonymic term to designate any cultural or social attitudes that resembled the Middle Ages or any akin, unenlightened period.2 The reconstruction of a dark past combined with the barbarian spirit of the Germanic tribes favoured the rise of the Gothic style of writing in the eighteenth century. This new literary mode, which I will refer to as traditional, classic or original Gothic, reacted against the rational precepts that neo-Classicism (or Enlightenment) predicated. Indeed, the Enlightenment’s rational thought had challenged ideas based on tradition, superstition and faith, and had alternatively promoted the scientific method and empirical observation as the only way to arrive at logical conclusions. Writers of the Gothic style sought to explore feelings that neo-Classicism had actually suppressed, usually by creating irrational scenes and rousing awe-inspiring emotions of terror. In other words, the Gothic was the immediate reaction to the necessity of experiencing extreme emotions through fear and mystery, emotions that had long been restrained. Not surprisingly, the first Gothic authors would often situate their stories in medieval times, a period deeply associated with superstition and barbarism, and would portray images of ruinous buildings as projections of the decay of human civilization. 2 Robert Mighall, “Introduction Outside in: Gothic Criticism and the Pull to Interiority”, in A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction: Mapping History’s Nightmares (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 11-26 (p. 16). 6 The most common channel to explore non-rational experiences was the novel, for it was the quickest mode to reach the reading public. While it is not easy to provide a direct definition of what Gothic fiction is, literary criticism has usually explained it by enumerating its recurrent characteristics: use of medieval settings or, alternatively, Catholic countries (Italy and Spain), mountainous landscapes (the Alps), places that exert great physical and emotional power (castles with labyrinthine passages, convents and prisons), a dominant male figure that acts like a villain, and a sensitive, naïve heroine. Through the repetitive use of these prominent features, Gothic authors projected the necessity to overcome the civilized and rational principles of Enlightenment. Spanish literature was not unfamiliar with the Gothic tradition, yet its cultivation was not as prolific as in England, France, Germany or the United States. While José Cadalso’s Noches lúgubres (1789/90) constitutes an isolated early manifestation of Gothic literature in Spain, the genre was not definitively introduced until the second decade of the nineteenth century, chiefly through translations