José Ortega y Gasset and the Pioneers of Feminist Literary Criticism in Spain (1925-1930)

Abstract

This article analyzes José Ortega y Gasset’s influence in 1920s Spain from a new perspective: it focuses on how some women authors recurred to the central concepts of his aesthetic theory to promote a debate around female literature during the pre-civil war period. Following a review of his ideas aboutfeminine writing and the so-called “arte nuevo”, I study the article “3 proyecciones” (1929), by Ernestina de Champourcin, and the volumes En torno a nosotras(1927) and Las escritoras españolas (1930), by Margarita Nelken. As it is demonstrated, these texts anticipate part of the hypothesis formulated by feminist literary criticism in thesecond half of the twentieth century, and, thus, this research aims to reintroduce feminist thought in the Spanish history of literary ideas.