Making Modern Spain

Religion, Secularization, and Cultural Production

Azariah Alfante

• Publisher: Bucknell University Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781684484959
  9781684484966
• eBook ISBN:
  9781684484973
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Literature

In this elegantly written study, Alfante explores the work of select nineteenth-century writers, intellectuals, journalists, politicians, and clergy who responded to cultural and spiritual shifts caused by the movement toward secularization in Spain. Focusing on the social experience, this book probes the tensions between traditionalism and liberalism that influenced public opinion of the clergy, sacred buildings, and religious orders. The writings of Cecilia Böhl de Faber (Fernán Caballero), Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Benito Pérez Galdós, and José María de Pereda addressed conflicts between modernizing forces and the Catholic Church about the place of religion and its signifiers in Spanish society. Foregrounding expropriation (government confiscation of civil and ecclesiastical property) and exclaustration (the expulsion of religious communities), and drawing on archival research, the history of disentailment, cultural theory, memory studies, and sociology, Alfante demonstrates how Spain's liberalizing movement profoundly influenced class mobility and faith among the populace.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Note on Orthography and Translations
• Introduction
• 1 Modern Matter: Disentailment and the Religious Question
• 2 At the Heart of the Nation: Domestic Well-Being and Spiritual Patrimony in Cecilia Böhl de Faber’s La gaviota (1849), La familia de Alvareda (1856), Callar en vida y perdonar en muerte (1856), and Lágrimas (1862)
• 3 The Hallowed, the Haunting: Remembering and Restoring the Sacred Precinct in Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer’s Historia de los templos de España (1857), Cartas desde mi celda (1864), and Leyendas (1858–1864)
• 4 A New Vital Force: Reconstructing Spain’s Spiritual Body in Benito Pérez Galdós’s Doña Perfecta (1876), Gloria (1877), Mendizábal (1898), and Montes de Oca (1900)
• 5 The Abyss and the Mount: Questions of Faith, Family, and Tradition in José María de Pereda’s El Tío Cayetano (1858–1859 and 1868–1869), Blasones y talegas (1869), De tal palo, tal astilla (1880), and Sotileza (1885)
• Final Reflections
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author