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

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.