About the Book
The contradictory nature of the work of Benito Pérez Galdós Spain's greatest modern novelist is brought to the fore in Catherine Jagoe's innovative and rigorous study. Revising commonly held views of his feminism she explores the relation of Galdós's novels to the "woman question" in Spain arguing that after 1892 the muted feminist discourse of his early work largely disappears. While his later novels have been interpreted as celebrations of the emancipated new woman Jagoe contends that they actually reinforce the conservative bourgeois model of frugal virtuous womanhood—the angel of the house.
Using primary sources such as periodicals medical texts and conduct literature Jagoe's examination of the evolution of feminism makes Ambiguous Angels valuable to anyone interested in gender culture and narrative in nineteenth-century Europe.
Using primary sources such as periodicals medical texts and conduct literature Jagoe's examination of the evolution of feminism makes Ambiguous Angels valuable to anyone interested in gender culture and narrative in nineteenth-century Europe.