Women And The Law: Carmen De Burgos, An Early Feminist (monografías A)

cap 0 2.qxd 01/01/97 0:28 Página i Colección Támesis SERIE A: MONOGRAFIAS, 221 WOMEN AND THE LAW CARMEN DE BURGOS, AN EARLY FEMINIST This study in the interdisciplinary field of law and literature analyses the representation of law in the work of twentieth-century Spanish writer Carmen de Burgos (1867-1932). Drawing on Anglo-American legal theory and Spanish historical practice, it argues that her narratives of legal critique were used as a means of political propaganda, in which she introduced the question of women’s right into the public domain. Burgos can be considered one of the most important proponents of the feminist movement in the leadup to the Second Republic and presents a particulary interesting case study, since she combined her writing career with a political agenda. Given the remarkable similarities between Burgos’s critical analysis and recent feminist legal theory, her writings are still disturbingly relevant today. This study also explores the relationship between melodrama as a genre of manichean worldviews and law as a system of binary oppositions and discusses Burgos’s subversion of the former as a means to criticise the latter. ANJA LOUIS is lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Sheffield. cap 0 2.qxd 01/01/97 0:28 Página ii cap 0 2.qxd 01/01/97 0:28 Página iii ANJA LOUIS WOMEN AND THE LAW CARMEN DE BURGOS, AN EARLY FEMINIST TAMESIS © Anja Louis 2005 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Anja Louis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2005 by Tamesis, Woodbridge ISBN 1 85566 121 7 Tamesis is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for This publication is printed on acid-free paper from camera-ready copy provided by Anja Louis Printed in Great Britain by Athenaeum Press Ltd, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear cap 0 2.qxd 01/01/97 0:28 Página v CONTENTS Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Intro