EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN: BIOGRAPHY AND WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

Emilia Pardo Bazán y de la Rúa Figueroa (1851-1921) was a Spanish writer who belonged to the nobility and aristocracy of the 19th century. She stood out for being a novelist, journalist, essayist, poet and playwright. In addition, she also did a good job as a literary critic, editor, translator and professor. She was one of the first feminists of her time.

The writer was part of the philosophical current of Naturalism, which considered nature as the origin of everything real. On the other hand, within her work to defend the position of women of the time, she asserted her right to be educated and educated, and not just relegated to housework.

Emilia Pardo Bazán. Source: José Fernández Cuevas

The passion that Emilia had for reading since she was little, led her to write from a very young age. In the new years she had already written her first verses. In her teens, at the age of fifteen, she wrote Un Marriage of the Twentieth Century. From then on her literary production did not stop.

Biography

Emilia Pardo Bazán was born on September 16, 1851 in La Coruña. She came from a family of high social and economic class. Her parents were the Count and politician José María Pardo Bazán y Mosquera, and Amalia María de la Rúa Figueroa y Somoza. Being an only child allowed her to have a good education.

Childhood and education

Emilia's father greatly influenced her ideas and tastes for reading. From an early age she began to read the great classics such as Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote de la Mancha, Homer's Iliad, and the Bible. In her father's library she found a paradise to learn and imagine.

Pardo Bazán was a regular reader of books related to history and the wars for independence and freedom. She read all the texts that she found about the French Revolution, in the same way she delighted with Plutarco and her Parallel Lives, and with The Conquest of Mexico by Antonio Solís.

While studying in Madrid at a French institution, he soaked up the works of authors such as Jean Racine and La Fontaine. It was in his childhood that he had already had contact with the French writer Victor Hugo. She strongly opposed receiving the proper education of the girls and young people of her time.

Privileged preparation

Leaving aside the conventional education that existed for women, teaching music and housework, she received private classes from prominent teachers. She learned English, French and German. In addition, she studied and learned various subjects, especially in the area of humanities.

The time in which Emilia grew up was difficult for the educational and academic development of women. Such a situation prevented the young woman from entering the university. However, she decided to continue learning about social and scientific advances through books and the friendships her parents had.

Bazán's early writings

At the age of 25, in 1876, her first writing Critical Study of the Works of Father Feijoo came out, who was a religious and essayist for whom Emilia had empathy and admiration. Later she published a collection of poems dedicated to her first son, which is why she named it Jaime.

Monument to Emilia Pardo Bazán. Source: Zarateman, from Wikimedia Commons

In 1879 he published what was considered his first novel: Pascual López, Autobiography of a Medical Student. The work was developed within the guidelines of Romanticism and Realism. It was published in the then renowned Spanish Magazine.

Married life

The nobleman José Quiroga y Pérez Deza became Emilia's husband when she was barely sixteen years old. He was a law student, and he was also three years older than her. As a result of the marriage, three children were born: Jaime, Blanca and Carmen.

Although from the beginning the young couple supported each other to achieve their goals, over the years they grew apart due to the constant intellectual activities of the writer.

Pardo Bazán refused to set aside the writing, although her husband had asked her to. For a long time she went to Italy, and then there was no longer room to keep the couple relationship firm. So they both decided to end it with a friendly separation and on good terms.

Tireless fighter for women's rights

From an early age Emilia showed herself to be different. Her concerns about education and training were different from those that Spanish society dictated for the time.

The education she received and the trips she made allowed her to educate herself in such a way that she knew that women could be and give more than they were limited to.

Throughout her life she fought for the rights of women; his interest made it clear both in his writings and in social action. He believed that a new society was fair, where the female gender could be educated and perform the same jobs as men, with equal benefits.

Last years and death

Emilia Pardo Bazán was always in the forefront. She did it both with her literary, academic and intellectual activity, as well as being an activist for women's rights. After their separation, she had a loving relationship with fellow Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós.

Scholars claim that the infatuation lasted more than twenty years. It was the letters that were written that attested to the romance, after being published in 1970. The novelist died in Madrid on May 12, 1921.

Plays

The work of Emilia Pardo Bazán was extensive. The writer had the ability to write novels, narrative, essays, reviews, travel books, lectures, speeches, as well as lyrical, theater, and journalistic material. Her style was detailed in the description, and with deep psychological aspects.

The following are some of the most important works of the author, within each genre.

Narrative

La Tribuna (1883), Bucolic (1885), The Young Lady (1885), Mother Nature (1887), Morriña (1889), Sunstroke (1889), Memoirs of a Bachelor (1896), Vampire (1901), Gods (1919) and La Serpe (1920).

Short narrative stories

The Legend of the Pastoriza (1887), Tales of the Earth (1888), Tales of Marineda (1892), Tales of Love (1898), Sacred Profane Tales (1899), A Ripper of Yesteryear (1900), Tales of the Homeland (1902) and Tragic Tales (1912).

Essays and critiques

Critical Study of the Works of Father Feijoo (1876), The Heartbeat Question (1883), De Mi Tierra (1888), New Critical Theater (1891-1892), Modern French Literature (1910-1911) and, finally, The Future of Literature after the War (1917).

Travel books

My Pilgrimage (1887), For Picturesque Spain (1895), For Catholic Europe (1902) and Notes of a Journey from Spain to Geneva, from 1873.

Theater

The Wedding Dress (1899), Luck (1904), Truth (1906), The Metal Calf, and Youth.

Main works argument

Some of the most recognized works of the Spanish author are described below.

The Tribune

This novel is considered the first of a social and naturalistic nature made in Spain. The writer based the plot on the life of a woman who works in a factory, and at the same time describes the air that is breathed inside the workplace.

The author made clear the strength of women in the various situations that arise in life. In the case of the protagonist, fighting against employers for labor rights, in addition to the abandonment by a man who leaves her alone with a son, for whom she has to fight.

The Young Lady

This time it is a short novel, in which Pardo Bazán expresses the capacity that women can have to improve themselves, and at the same time the fear of facing the changes in a society that is constantly evolving.

Dolores and Concha are two sisters united by blood, but separated by their desires and beliefs. Dolores, after her love affair, lives in sadness and with hatred towards men. However, Concha strives to achieve social status through theater.

The Pazos de Ulloa

Los Pazos de Ulloa, by Emilia Pardo Bazán. Source: http://catalogo.bne.es/uhtbin/cgisirsi/0/x/0/05?searchdata1=bimo0001273995, via Wikimedia Commons

With this work Pardo Bazán managed to explain the objectivity and at the same time the realism typical of the naturalist current. In addition, he reflected his alignment with positivism as the method that takes for granted that scientific knowledge is the most genuine.

It is the story of the young priest Julián, who travels to the town of the town that gives the title to the letter to provide his services to the Marquis Don Pedro Moscoso. Once in the place the clergyman realizes that nothing is as they paint it, but a complete disaster.

Mother nature

With this writing the author expressed her knowledge about nature, botany and the traditions of the peoples, especially of her land Galicia. The novel is highly descriptive, and the lyrical content is broader than in her other works.

In Mother Nature, Perucho and Manolita are the main characters. They are brothers on the father's side and are involved in an attraction that is prohibited by the blood bond, but that ends in the incestuous act of excessive passion.

Fragment:

"The law of nature, Isolated, alone, invoke her

beasts: we invoke

another higher. That's what we are for

men, sons of God and

redeemed by him ”.

The Burning Question

At first they were a series of articles that the writer published in Spanish media about the works of the Frenchman Émile Zola, later grouped into a single work and published in 1883. Because of this work, Emilia was besieged.

It consisted in making known the new ideas of modernism in a Spain that was not yet ready. Besides that Naturalism, under the precepts that the work was written, was considered obscene and vulgar, and at the same time lacking in elegance and sobriety.

Insolation

With the publication of this novel, Pardo Bazán focused on the development of the psychology of the characters, and that is how he moved away from the characteristics of Naturalism to which he had accustomed his audience. His argument takes place within the ups and downs of a love relationship.

Sunstroke is the story of a widowed woman who decided to have a relationship with a man a few years younger than her. The writer took the opportunity to make maximum use of the feminism that she defended so much, as well as the debate over the morality of the society of her time.

The narration of the story begins in the middle of the events of the same. Although physically the protagonist Asís Taboada suffers a sunstroke after attending the fairs, it is more a reflection of the pain she feels for having been seduced by Diego Pacheco.

Vampire

In the case of this short novel, the author once again made a critique of society, and of people who seek to obtain things for their convenience. This time she argued about marriages that were performed without the couple loving each other, but only to solve economic problems and social conflicts.

The main characters are the wealthy and ill old man Fortunato Gayoso and the young fifteen-year-old Inés. The husband regains health through the girl's youth, while she deteriorates. Although it is a fiction, it reflects the vitality and energy that is lost when you are not comfortable with someone.

Emilia Pardo Bazán left an indelible mark. Her literary work and her constant work in search of a dignified treatment for women marked a before and after in society. Her passage through history paved the way for women to continue claiming their value and rights.

References

1. Emilia Pardo Bazán. (2018). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: wikipedia.org
2. Freire, A. (2018). Emilia Pardo Bazán. Spain: Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library. Recovered from: cervantesvirtual.com
3. López, A. (2017). Emilia Pardo Bazán, the aristocratic writer who defended the rights of women. Spain: The Country. Recovered from: elpais.com
4. Miras, E. (2018). Emilia Pardo Bazán, "Doña Verdades", the writer who shook confessional Spain. Spain: ABC History. Recovered from: abc.es
5. Emilia Pardo Bazán. (2018). (N / a): History-Biography. Recovered from: historia-biography.com.