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The Novellas of Republican Intellectual Ángeles López de Ayala (Seville 1856–Madrid 1926)

2011; Routledge; Volume: 88; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14753820.2011.587967

1478-3428

Christine Arkinstall,

Spanish Culture and Identity

Abstract In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spain, recent memories of the First Republic (1873–1874) and aspirations to return a second Republic were the galvanizing forces that held together an often divided minority group of writers, intellectuals and political figures highly critical of Restoration governments. One of those writers was Ángeles López de Ayala (1856–1926), whose front-line presence in the radical press over the course of thirty-five years contributed to keeping alive the Republican flame. The purpose of this article is to initiate the recovery of López de Ayala's remarkable trajectory in Republican politics and freethinking culture. Focussing on her journalistic activity and its links with her aspirations for women and the working classes, my analysis centres on two novellas by López de Ayala published in Republican periodicals that she herself founded and edited in Barcelona: El abismo (1896) and Primitivo (1906-1907). The article explores how both works promote Republican values among an inter-class reading public, urge the necessity of alliances among the upper-middle, middle and working classes to effect socio-political transformation and demonstrate the writer's dedication to forging the modern citizen and woman. Notes 1Regarding the paradigm of the Angel in the House in the Spanish context, see Bridget Aldaraca, ‘El ángel del hogar: The Cult of Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century Spain’, in Theory and Practice of Feminist Literary Criticism, ed. Gabriela Mora and Karen S. Van Hooft (Ypsilanti: Bilingual, 1982), 62–87. With respect to women's participation in freemasonry, see María José Lacalzada de Mateo, Mujeres en masonería. Antecedentes históricos entre las luces y las sombras (1868–1938) (Barcelona: Clavell Cultura, 2006) and Natividad Ortiz Albear, Las mujeres en la masonería (Málaga: Univ. de Málaga, 2005). 2Kirsty Hooper, A Stranger in My Own Land. Sofía Casanova, a Spanish Writer in the European Fin de Siècle (Nashville: Vanderbilt U. P., 2008), 10. 3Maria Aurèlia Capmany, El feminisme a Catalunya (Barcelona: Nova Terra, 1973), 27. 4See Maryellen Bieder, ‘Woman and the Twentieth-Century Spanish Literary Canon: The Lady Vanishes’, Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea, 17 (1992), 301–24; Alda Blanco, ‘Introducción’, in María Martínez Sierra, Una mujer por caminos de España (Madrid: Castalia, 1989), 7–40; and Lou Charnon-Deutsch, ‘Gender and Beyond: Nineteenth-Century Spanish Women Writers’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel from 1600 to the Present, ed. Harriet Turner and Adelaida López de Martínez (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2003), 122–37. 5See Ángeles López de Ayala, El abismo. Novela original (Barcelona: Imp. de la Vda. de José Miguel, 1907 [1st ed. 1896]) and Primitivo. Novela recreativa y moral, in El Gladiador. Órgano de la ‘Sociedad Progresiva Femenina’ (23 June 1906–30 November 1907). All subsequent references to these novellas will be given parenthetically in the text. 8See López de Ayala, ‘¡¡Cuarenta años!!’, El Motín, Year XLI:22, 28 May 1921, p. 2. 6For details regarding López de Ayala's life and works, see Ángeles Carmona González, Escritoras andaluzas en la prensa de Andalucía del siglo XIX (Cádiz: Publicaciones Univ. de Cádiz/Instituto Andaluz de la Mujer, 1999), 161–64; Francisco Cuenca, Biblioteca de autores andaluces modernos y contemporáneos, 4 vols (Habana: ‘Tipografía Moderna’ de Alfredo Dorrbecker, 1921–1925), I, 192–93; D. Mario Méndez Bejarano, ‘López de Ayala y Molero (Ángeles)’, in Diccionario de escritores, maestros y oradores naturales de Sevilla y su actual provincia, 3 vols (Sevilla: Gironés, 1922–1925), I, 388–89; María Dolores Ramos, ‘La construcción de la ciudadanía femenina: las librepensadoras (1898–1909)’, in 1898–1998. Un siglo avanzando hacia la igualdad de las mujeres (Madrid: Dirección General de la Mujer/Consejería de Sanidad y Servicios Sociales/Comunidad de Madrid, 1999), 91–116; María del Carmen Simón Palmer, ‘López de Ayala y Molero, Ángeles’, in Escritoras españolas del siglo XIX. Manual bio-bibliográfico (Madrid: Castalia, 1991), 391–93, and ‘López de Ayala y Molero, Ángeles’, in Mujeres en la historia de España. Enciclopedia biográfica, ed. Susana Tavera (Barcelona: Planeta, 2000), 570–72. 7López de Ayala, Cuentos y cantares para los niños (Madrid: José Matarredona, 1888), and De tal siembra, tal cosecha (Barcelona: Maucci, 1889). 9María Cruz Seoane, Historia del periodismo en España. El siglo XIX, 3 vols (Madrid: Alianza, 1996 [1st ed. 1983]), II, 15. 10Joan B. Culla and Àngel Duarte, La premsa republicana (Barcelona: Diputació de Barcelona/Col·legi de Periodistes de Catalunya, 1990), 15. 11Seoane, Historia del periodismo en España, III, 65. 12Culla and Duarte, La premsa republicana, 46. For specific details regarding press censorship laws from 1874 until 1923, see pp. 44–48. 13References to the censorship of El Progreso can be found in López de Ayala's articles, ‘Los pueblos bárbaros’ (El Progreso, Year I:5, 26 December 1896, p. 1) and ‘El Progreso’ (El Progreso, Year I:11, 6 February 1897, p. 1). With regard to the censorship of El Gladiador, see López de Ayala's article, ‘La mudez por decreto’ (El Gladiador del Librepensamiento, Year VI:86, 5 August 1916, p. 1) and ‘El cuento del abuelo’ (El Gladiador del Librepensamiento, Year VII:107, 7 July 1917, p. 1). 14Duarte, El republicanisme català a la fin del segle XIX (Vic: Eumo, 1987), 82. In the 1890s, Cánovas’ Liberal Conservative Party was in power during the following periods: July 1890–December 1892 and March 1895–August 1896. Cánovas was assassinated on 8 August 1897. See Raymond Carr, Spain 1808–1975 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982 [1st ed. 1966]), 356–57, n. 2; 386. 15Seoane, Historia del periodismo en España, II, 263. 16Culla and Duarte, La premsa republicana, 28–29. 17Accounts from Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento reveal that López de Ayala was especially active in the numerous meetings held in 1899 to lobby for the review of the Montjuich trial; see ‘La señora López de Ayala en Madrid’, Las Dominicales, Year XVII:887, 30 June 1899, p. 1; ‘El meeting de Capellades’, Las Dominicales, Year XVII:894, 17 August 1899, pp. 1–2; ‘Meetings revisionistas’, Las Dominicales, Year XVII:896, 30 August 1899, p. 1, and ‘Meeting revisionista en Caldas’, Year XVII:900, 28 September 1899, p. 3. 18Duarte, El republicanisme català, 82–83. 21López de Ayala, ‘Preparados’, El Progreso, Year II:13, 20 February 1897, p. 1. In fin-de-siècle Spain, the term pueblo did not necessarily refer to specific social classes but could designate all those who opposed the governing elites (see Demetrio Castro Alfín, ‘Jacobinos y populistas. El republicanismo español a mediados del siglo XIX’, in Populismo, caudillaje y discurso demagógico, ed. José Álvarez Junco [Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas/Siglo XXI, 1987], 181–217 [p. 199]). On this point, see also José Álvarez Junco, ‘Los “amantes de la libertad”: la cultura republicana española a principios del siglo XX’, in El republicanismo en España (1830–1977), ed. Nigel Townson (Madrid: Alianza, 1994), 265–92 (p. 282). 19López de Ayala, ‘Energías femeniles’, Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento, Year XIV:743, 23 October 1896, p. 2. 20López de Ayala, ‘El Progreso’, El Progreso, Year II:11, 6 February 1897, p. 1. 22See López de Ayala, ‘Nueva publicación catalana. ¡¡¡El Progreso!!!’, Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento, Year XVII:913, 28 December 1899, p. 4. 23On the third reappearance of El Progreso in 1899, López de Ayala states that the periodical will continue to publish El abismo, begun in previous issues, because it had been ‘estimadísima’ by subscribers. Moreover, collections of previous instalments of El abismo could be purchased for two pesetas from López de Ayala at calle Planeta, 27, Gracia, Barcelona (ibid., p. 4). 24Regarding these periodicals, see also Joan B. Culla i Clarà, El Republicanisme lerrouxista á Catalunya (1901–1923) (Barcelona: Curial, 1986), 443; Culla and Duarte, La premsa republicana, 43 and 105, and Seoane, Historia del periodismo en España, III, 195. 25The sources for El abismo are as follows: pages 3–8 from El Gladiador, pages 9–20 from El Progreso (numbered from page 7 onward); pages 21–24 from El Libertador, and pages 25–64 and 81–88 from El Progreso (page references will be placed in the text). Missing altogether are pages 65–80 and those subsequent to page 89. All extant numbers of the three periodicals are available on microfilm at the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat, Barcelona. 26Leonardo Romero Tobar, La novela popular española del siglo XIX (Barcelona: Ariel, 1976), 29–30. 27Regarding this practice, see Jean-François Botrel, ‘La construcción de una nueva cultura del libro y del impreso en el siglo XIX’, in Orígenes culturales de la sociedad liberal (España siglo XIX), ed. Jesús A. Martínez Martín (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2003), 19–36 (p. 32). 28Jean-François Botrel, ‘La novela por entregas: unidad de creación y consumo’, in Creación y público en la literatura española, ed. Jean-François Botrel and Serge Salaün, pról. Francisco Ynduráin (Madrid: Castalia, 1974), 111–55 (p. 119). 29The correlation between financial solvency and the folletín is corroborated by the fact that El abismo coincides on the last page of the periodicals with advertisements so as to call the readers’ attention to the same, as was the practice of the day (Seoane, Historia del periodismo en España, II, 180). The precarious existence of minority periodicals is demonstrated by López de Ayala's repeated calls to subscribers to pay up, as evident in ‘Aviso’, El Progreso, Year II:10, 30 January 1897, p. 1 and ‘Á nuestros abonados’, El Progreso, Year II:15, 6 March 1897, p. 1. 30Readers of serialized novels came from all social classes; see Juan Ignacio Ferreras, La novela por entregas: 1840–1900. (Concentración obrera y economía editorial) (Madrid: Taurus, 1972), 27; Jesús A. Martínez Martín, ‘Las transformaciones editoriales y la circulación de libros’, in Orígenes culturales, 37–63 (p. 58), and Seoane, Historia del periodismo en España, II, 179. As far as periodicals were concerned, their readership could not be gauged from the number printed of any one issue; a single Republican paper might be read aloud and debated in a wide variety of public spaces, such as taverns, barber shops, workers’ athenaeums and Republican centres (Culla and Duarte, La premsa republicana, 30). In upper-class liberal households, it would often be passed on to the servants’ quarters (Botrel, ‘La construcción de una nueva cultura’, 33). 31Iris M. Zavala, Ideología y política en la novela española del siglo XIX (Salamanca: Anaya, 1971), 83, 86–87. 32Marie Claude Lecuyer and Maryse Villapadierna, ‘Génesis y desarrollo del folletín en la prensa española’, in Hacia una literatura del pueblo, del folletín a la novela: el ejemplo de Timoteo Orbe, ed. Brigitte Magnien (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1995), 15–45 (pp. 26–31). 33Brigitte Magnien, ‘Introducción’, in Hacia una literatura del pueblo, ed. Magnien, 7–12 (pp. 7, 9). 34See Lecuyer and Villapadierna, ‘Génesis’, 25, 43, and Romero Tobar, La novela popular, 206. 35Seoane, Historia del periodismo en España, II, 178. 36Ferreras, La novela por entregas, 254. 37Romero Tobar, La novela popular, 134. 38Ferreras, La novela por entregas, 270. 39Romero Tobar, La novela popular, 153–54. 40In this sense, Angélica and Julia recall the characters of Rosa and Plácida from López de Ayala's 1889 play, De tal siembra, tal cosecha, who similarly serve as foils to contrast models of femininity (see Christine Arkinstall, ‘Domestic Politics, National Agendas: Reforming Don Juan and the Liberal Subject in Ángeles López de Ayala's De tal siembra, tal cosecha’, Modern Language Notes, Hispanic Issue, 125:2 [2010], 326–47 [pp. 337–38]). 41For the supposedly innate illness and spirituality of nineteenth-century Woman, see Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity. Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture (New York: Oxford U. P., 1986), 3–63. 42For the New Woman in the Spanish context, see Charnon-Deutsch, ‘New Women’, in Narratives of Desire. Nineteenth-Century Spanish Fiction by Women (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State U. P., 1994), 141–85. Within a more general context, see Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy. Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (New York: Penguin, 1990), 38–58. 43Duarte, El republicanisme català, 63. 44Regarding these activities of the Sociedad Progresiva Femenina, see López de Ayala, ‘La sociedad progresiva femenina’, Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento, Year XVII:910, 7 December 1899, p. 3; J. Costa Pomés, ‘El Nivel Rojo’, El Gladiador del Librepensamiento, Year VI:72, 1 January 1916, pp. 2–3, and ‘Noticias’, El Gladiador del Librepensamiento, Year VI:83, 17 June 1916, p. 4. 45Mary G. Dietz, ‘Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal Thinking’, Political Theory 13:1 (1985), 19–37 (p. 14). 46Anne Phillips, Democracy and Difference (University Park: The Pennsylvania State U. P., 1993), 79. 47Anne Phillips, Engendering Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1991), 49. 48Phillips, Engendering Democracy, 81. 49Phillips, Engendering Democracy, 76–80. The premise that forging a more democratic society requires challenging the hierarchical, gendered principles of the domestic sphere is evident in López de Ayala's play, De tal siembra, tal cosecha (see Arkinstall, ‘Domestic Politics’). 50Iris Marion Young, ‘Impartiality and the Civic Public. Some Implications of Feminist Critiques of Moral and Political Theory’, in Feminism As Critique: Essays on the Politics of Gender in Late-Capitalist Societies, ed. Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell (Cambridge: Polity, 1987), 57–76 (p. 73). 51In 1900, out of a total population of 18,618,086, those who were illiterate were numbered as 11,867,455 (see Jean-François Botrel, Libros, prensa y lectura en la España del siglo XIX, trans. David Torra Ferrer [Madrid: Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, 1993], 309, Fig. 7). 52Regarding López de Ayala's links with Claramunt, see Laura Vicente Villanueva, Teresa Claramunt (1862–1931). Pionera del feminismo obrerista anarquista (Madrid: Fundación de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, 2006), 107, 113–17, 152. References to López de Ayala's appearances with Claramunt and Josep Llunas can be found in the following articles and issues of La Tramontana: ‘A favor del Congrès de Lliurepensadors’, No. 579, 2 September 1892, p. 3; No. 637, 13 October 1893, p. 3; No. 674, 16 August 1895, p. 3, and Odón de Buen, López de Ayala, et al., ‘A los partidarios de la libertad de conciencia’, No. 675, 23 August 1895, pp. 1–2. 53Duarte, El republicanisme català, 87–88. 54Duarte, El republicanisme català, 85–86. 55Duarte, El republicanisme català, 89–91. 56Duarte, El republicanisme català, 54–55. 57Buenaventura Delgado, La escuela moderna de Ferrer i Guardia (Barcelona: CEAC, 1979), 30–31. 58Botrel, Libros, prensa y lectura, 321–23. 59See El Gladiador, Year I:1, 26 May 1906, p. 12. References to Primitivo will be placed in the text. 60Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1973 [1st ed. 1949]), 30, 36–38. 61Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years 1868–1936 (Edinburgh: AK, 1998), 49. 62For instance, López de Ayala's support for secular schools is evident in her poems, ‘A los sostenedores de las escuelas laicas’ (Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento, Year X:536, 23 December 1892, p. 4) and ‘En el acto de la inauguración de las Escuelas Laicas “Sócrates” (Invitación)’ (Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento, Year XII:645, 21 December 1894, p. 3), as well as in the column ‘En Sabadell’ by I. B., which refers to her speaking at the prizegiving of a secular school (El Progreso, Year II:7, 9 January 1897, pp. 2–3). In López de Ayala's column ‘Crónica’, she recommends to freethinkers Julia Aymat's secular school at calle Hospital, 124, Barcelona (El Progreso, Year II:12, 13 February 1897, p. 3). 63Delgado, La escuela moderna, 67. 64Delgado, La escuela moderna, 183–87. 65See Culla i Clarà, El Republicanisme lerrouxista, 17; José Álvarez Junco, El Emperador del Paralelo. Lerroux y la demagogia populista (Madrid: Alianza, 1990), 254. 66See, for example, the column ‘El meeting de anoche’ in the Barcelona periodical La Publicidad, regarding the commemoration of those executed in Montjuich prison (Year XXIV:8128, 4 May 1901, p. 2). 67Seoane, Historia del periodismo en España, III, 108. López de Ayala's advocacy that socio-political transformation be wrought through peaceful means is patent in her article ‘No queremos dinamita’ (El Gladiador, Year I:2, 23 June 1906, p. 1). Her anticlericalism is apparent in numerous articles (see, for example, her column ‘Orla negra’, which appeared in practically every issue of El Progreso between December 1896 and March 1897). As for her anti-Catalanist stance, it stemmed from her reiterated conviction that Republicans must unite to achieve their socio-political aims, rather than be further divided through the Catalan push for autonomy. Thus in her 1906 article, ‘Lo que somos’, she rejects being defined as supporting Alejandro Lerroux or the alliance of Nicolás Salmerón's Republican Union with Solidaridad Catalana, because ‘somos partidarios de la idea’ and ‘somos republicanos de la república’ (El Gladiador, Year I:4, 26 August 1906, p. 1). 68Delgado, La escuela moderna, 104–05. 69Delgado, La escuela moderna, 112. 70Delgado, La escuela moderna, 117–18. 71Delgado, La escuela moderna, 104–06. 72Delgado, La escuela moderna, 150, 175. 73Delgado, La escuela moderna, 106–07, 185. 74Delgado, La escuela moderna, 183. 75On the deployment of religious motifs in Republican discourse, see Castro Alfín, ‘Jacobinos y populistas’, 214–15. 76Adolfo Perinat and María Isabel Marrades, Mujer, prensa y sociedad en España, 1800–1939 (Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 1980), 330.