Los secretos de las damas muertas : dos reelaboraciones de lo fantástico en la obra de Emilia Pardo Bazán

Abstract

Literary criticism has usually not paid much attention to the relation between the work of Emilia Pardo Bazán and the fin-de-siècle models of femininity. This essay will try to do so by means of an intertextual analysis of two short stories by the author -"Mi suicidio" (1894) and "La resucitada" (1908)- and two key works of fantastic literature -"Ligeia" (1938), by E.A. Poe and "Véra"(1874), by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam- which establish an image of the feminine that will be present in the art from the end of the century. The subversion of the fantastic model that Emilia Pardo Bazán masters in her short stories has, thus, a direct correlation with the treatment of femininity, and this thematic displacement makes clear her position in relation to the discourses on women of her time.