About Love Customs in Eighteenth-Century Spain by Carmen Martín Gaite

Abstract

This article deals with a reflexion about Love Customs in Eighteenth-Century Spain by Carmen Martín Gaite with a double purpose. On the one hand, to summari­ze, following the focal point of this essay, the «cortejo», a wide range of information about the origin, introduction, apogee and decline is offered by the author in a pioneering work. On the other hand, to show her attraction for this period, which is reflected not only in her fiction but also in her literary researches and both reach its climax in this essay, initially presented as a doctoral thesis. A reading on Love Customs in Eighteenth-Century Spain is offered from the point of view of four personal and recurrent interests in her work: language, communication, freedom and woman.