Specters, Monsters, and the Damned : Vanderbilt University Press : 9780826507129 : 0826507123 : 15 Nov 2024 : Specters, Monsters, and the Damned examines a rich selection of Spanish fantastic literature to illustrate how the language of the supernatural expresses the fears of complex societies beset by dizzying change and perceived decline. Throughout the nineteenth century, amid governmental upheavals and imperial losses, Spain's dominant political, legal, and scientific voices constructed the prototypical citizen as male, middle?class, and "ethnically pure." The role of realist novels by canonical authors like Benito PÉrez GaldÓs, Emilia Pardo BazÁn, and Leopoldo Alas in forging this Spanish identity has been meticulously examined over the last half century, to the exclusion of many other genres. This book complements existing scholarship by demonstrating how a neglected corpus of late nineteenth? and turn?of?the?century fantastic short fictions, many by the same canonical authors, e