SOFIA CASANOVA: A LINK BETWEEN POLISH AND SPANISH LITERATURES (1862-1958).
Item
-
Title
-
SOFIA CASANOVA: A LINK BETWEEN POLISH AND SPANISH LITERATURES (1862-1958).
-
Identifier
-
AAI8319815
-
identifier
-
8319815
-
Creator
-
ALAYETO, OFELIA LUISA.
-
Contributor
-
Martin Nozick
-
Date
-
1983
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Literature, Comparative
-
Abstract
-
While virtually every Spanish woman writer of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has received her share of scholarly and critical attention, the life and works of Sofia Casanova (1862-1958) are forgotten. Poet, political journalist, foreign correspondent, novelist and public personality, Sofia received enormous public notice and some critical attention during her long and productive career. Her long life abroad, successful literary career, and active involvement in political journalism made her one of the most unusual Spanish women of her time. Yet today, aside from an occasional mention in works of general or encyclopedic nature, her reputation has suffered a total eclipse. This dissertation offers an account of her life, an analysis of her poetry and of the most important themes in her works, and a detailed record of her literary and journalistic works.;Sofia Casanova had begun to acquire a reputation as a poet in Madrid, when in 1886 she married a young Polish philosopher, Wincenty Lutoslawski, who was travelling in Spain as part of his grand tour. Although she travelled to Spain as often as she could, from 1887 to her death in 1958 she spent most of her life in Poland. She wrote thirty books and thousands of newspaper articles (over eight-hundred for ABC alone) on the aspirations and sufferings of Eastern Europe. She was the only cultural and informational link between Spain and Poland during those years. As Spain's only female correspondent in the Eastern Front during World War I, and as the only Spanish witness to the Russian Revolution during 1916 and 1917, she wrote about crucial decades of European history at the very front line of battle.;The creation of a Polish republic in 1918, and the desire to live with her family, drew Sofia back to Poland. She lived in Warsaw between 1920 and 1939, but spent long periods of time in Spain. Articles for ABC, Blanco y Negro and other publications, and a constant stream of books, kept her writing professionally until 1936. After the Iron Curtain fell around Poland, she was completely cut off from Spain. She died in Posnan in 1958, almost entirely forgotten.;Sofia Casanova's legacy of poetry, her journalistic achievements, her life-long commitment to peace and justice, and her passionate love for Spain, make her one of the most unusual and admirable Spanish women of her time.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
-
Program
-
Comparative Literature
