Wood, Gareth;
(2025)
Post-Partum Illness in Emilia Pardo Bazán's Los pazos de Ulloa.
Journal of Romance Studies
, 25
(3)
pp. 465-484.
10.3828/jrs.2025.23.
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Abstract
This article takes a medical-humanities approach to the novel Los pazos de Ulloa (1886) by Spain’s first modern feminist writer, Emilia Pardo Bazán. It examines the post-partum illness suffered by its protagonist, Nucha Pardo de la Lage, against a background of cultural, social, and scientific discourse that tended to pathologize the bourgeois female body as weak and unreliable. By examining the representation of Nucha within the novel alongside Pardo Bazán’s public contestation of received medical opinion in speeches and published articles, the paper builds an argument which complicates and nuances the causes of post-partum illness. The article further argues that Los pazos de Ulloa exposes the squeamishness of Spain’s national novel at the sight of sexual activity, pregnancy, childbirth, and their realities for a legitimately married woman.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Post-Partum Illness in Emilia Pardo Bazán's Los pazos de Ulloa |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3828/jrs.2025.23 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3828/jrs.2025.23 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Emilia Pardo Bazán, post-partum depression, puerperal psychosis, Los pazos de Ulloa, childbirth |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > SELCS |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10204775 |
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