Review

Playwright, feminist, mountaineer, poetess, regenerationist, freethinker, female mason, poultry farmer, columnist, exiled, iberist, puritan, pro-socialist, theatre producer, self-taught, deist, republican, music lover, traveller, publicist, etc.

The total work of Rosario de Acuña, very extensive, covers in practice most of the genres of written creation. The scandalous success of her play was very important during her life, but the quality of much of the rest of her production is not less.

Justifications

• Successful playwright and journalist.
• Commitment to social equality for women and the most disadvantaged.
• Republican and provocative, she was harshly attacked by the most conservative sectors, even going into exile.

Biography

She was born into an aristocratic family and received an education despite suffering from an illness that left her almost blind at the age of 16. She travelled to several European countries and lived for a time in Rome with her uncle, Ambassador Antonio Benavides. At the age of twenty-five she married Commander Rafael de la Iglesia, from whom she separated due to repeated infidelities.

Her literary career began brilliantly as a poetess and playwright. Her first journalistic collaboration is documented in 1874, in La Ilustración Española y Americana, and her literary baptism occurred on 12 January 1875, date on which her first play, Rienzi el tribuno, un alegato contra la tiranía, was released in Teatro del Circo.

She was the second woman to premiere at the Spanish theatre in Madrid, something that had only been achieved before by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. She was also the first to occupy the gallery of the Ateneo de Madrid, in 1884, and four years later she would do so at Fomento de las Artes, a reception centre for liberal writers.

As a journalist, Rosario developed an entire program to denounce social inequality between women and men. She collaborated in La Iberia, La Ilustración Española y Americana, La Mesa Revuelta, Revista Contemporánea, El Imparcial, El Correo de la Moda and Los Dominicales del Librepensamiento, among other publications.

In 1885 she began her collaboration with Las Dominicales del Libre Pensamiento and, a year later, she joined Freemasonry in the Constante Alona lodge in Alicante under the name of Hypatia. She never wanted to join any party or school. As a freethinker, she directed harsh attacks on the Catholic Church, which earned her the antipathy of a large part of society, as some contemporaries point out. She always defended the need to live in contact with nature and take care of the countryside, something she did during her stay in the province of Santander, where she had a poultry farm. 

In 1891 she premiered her anticlerical drama El padre Juan at the Alhambra theatre in Madrid, which was a resounding success but led to the closure of the premises by the authority on the very night of the performance. She used literary creation as a platform to express her ideals, presenting a drama on stage in which she denounced the false values of the institutionalized Catholic religion. In opposition to false and distorted religious beliefs and practices and to paralysing fanaticism, she presented us with heroes who embodied reason, justice and goodness. Characters who tried to introduce all kinds of improvements in the small town in which they live and before which the town rises, manipulated by the mysterious priest who gives the work its title […]

In 1911, two North American students enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in Madrid were stoned by the male students and published an article in L'Internationale of Paris, entitled "Los chicos de la Facultad de Letras". This is reproduced in El Progreso of Barcelona. All the Spanish faculties were closed due to such an offence towards the students and Catholic Action files a criminal complaint against Rosario. The author was forced to leave for Portugal, where she remained until the King granted her pardon, four years later, at the proposal of the Count of Romanones. 

From then on her life was even more withdrawn. She went to Gijón, where she bought a modest house on the beach, which became a place of pilgrimage for her admirers, until her death at the age of seventy-two.

Biblioteca virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 16/03/22, https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/rosario_de_acuna/autora_biografia/ 

Wikipedia, 16/03/22, https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosario_de_Acu%C3%B1a 

Works

Bibliography

Bolado, José (2007). Rosario de Acuña. Obras reunidas. Oviedo: KRK Ediciones. 

Fernández Riera, Macrino (2009). Rosario de Acuña y Villanueva. Una heterodoxa en la España del concordato. Gijón: Zahorí.

Hernández Sandoica, Elena (2019). Rosario de Acuña, Hipatia (1850-1923) Emoción y Razón. Madrid: Abada. 

Fernández Riera, Macrino (2017) ¿Quién fue Rosario de Acuña? Unoeditorial.com

Gullón, Ricardo. Dir. (1993). “Acuña y Villanueva de la Iglesia, Rosario”, en Diccionario de literatura española e hispanoamericana, vol. I. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, pág. 12.

Rosario de Acuña y Villanueva. Vida y obra, 31/03/2022, www.rosariodeacuna.es

Didactic approach

It can be included in the subject of History in 4th ESO, on the 19th century in Spain.

It can also be included in Spanish Language and Literature in 4th ESO and in Ethical Values. You could consider reading his article in L'Internationale, its consequences and compare it with similar current issues.

It can be worked on in Secondary Education for Adults: Module IV Social and Module IV Communication.

Documents