Pardo Bazán was a multifaceted person, novelist, journalist, literary critic, poet, playwright, translator, editor, and teacher. She travels to several countries in Europe, which awakens in Emilia the concern for languages, with the desire to read the great authors of each country in their original language. Her multiple travels in Europe put her in contact with new literary movements, such as the naturalism that she is credited for introducing to  Spanish literature. The detailed descriptions of her prose present a crude reality always in the background of firmly believed feminist concepts, that she brings into the literature of her time. Her promotion of women's rights to education makes her a prominent pioneer figure in the Spanish feminist movement. She was known for openly criticizing the education received by Spanish women, in which values ​​such as passivity, obedience, and submission to their husbands were tirelessly promoted.

An indefatigable reader from an early age, she composed her first verses at the age of nine and her first story at fifteen.  In 1881 she publishes Un viaje de novios, whose prologue, along with a series of articles entitle  La question palpitante, is key to understand how she conceives the literary movement of Naturalism that she was introducing in  Spain. Differing from French Naturalism, hers has been later harshly criticized by drawing partially on the theories of racial inheritance and atavism of the late nineteenth century. Later in her life, Pardo Bazán writes numerous essays and lectures at renowned institutions. Around 1890, her work evolves towards greater symbolism and spiritualism. It is also during this time that she begins to assiduously intervene in political journalism and to fight for the right of women to social and intellectual emancipation that she will be so praise for. 

Pascual López (1879)

Un viaje de novios (1881)

Los pazos de Ulloa (1886)

Una cristiana

La quimera

Cuentos de mi tierra

The novel deals with the life of the Marquis de Ulloa, rude and passionate, he is forced to marry Nucha, a young lady from the city for whom the rustic atmosphere of the pazos is unbearable, especially living in the company of Sabel, the maid with which the marquis a few years ago had a bastard child.

Narrative

The term Naturalism was used at first as a synonym for Realism and later took the special connotation that designates a different literary trend, where determinism and materialism, influenced by experimental science, lead to a new conception of the human being. Naturalists try to modify the laws of inheritance in their fight against an unjust social organization, which makes equal opportunities for each individual impossible. 

This conviction led some of the naturalist writers to adopt a militant attitude in the politics of their time. Throughout the novels of this genre parade morons, alcoholics, psychopaths, and beings who obey their primary instincts without remedy. Naturalistic writers push the documentation methods put into practice by realist writers to their ultimate consequences, reflecting both material and moral misery often with a subversive purpose. In Spanish literature, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Galdós, and Blasco Ibáñez stand out as realist writers.

Naturalism

Emilia Pardo Bazán writes La tribuna, set agains the background of civil unrest, to discuss the position of women in Spanish society.

Emilia Pardo Bazán writes Los pazos de Ulloa, a diptych with mother nature.

Vicente Blasco Ibañez writes Arroz y tartana, a novel that recollects the life and customs of the city of Valencia in the late seventeenth century, where appearances and false pretenses abound.

Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch premieres Los amantes de Teruel,  a play of medieval environment that deals with the issue of the imposibility of love due to family prejudices.

Emilia Pardo Bazán writes La prueba, novel in which the author evolves towards a more spiritualist tendency.

Vincent van Gogh paints Los cipreses, a spiritual expresion of nature.

Émile Zola writes The Experimental Novel (1880), wich details his concept of a naturalistic novel.

Jack London sells his book The Call of Wild to the Sturday Evening Post.

William Faulkner writes the novel  A Rose for Emily, a story about a woman who killed her lover, considered an example of a narrative within the literary naturalism movement.

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Los pazos de Ulloa (1887)

By Emilia Pardo Bazán

Time Period: Naturalism

Genre: Narrative

Spanish Bites

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