Spanish Affairs! Liberal nation and romantic stereotypes in the middle of the XIX century

Abstract

By mid-nineteenth century, just when the Spanish Liberal Revolution was reaching its climax and a national political sphere was beginning to set up in Spain, discourses about the nation of the Spanish liberals were deeply marked by a foreign image of Spain that excluded this country from the European modernity (or, at best, it left it at its margins) and they had to negotiate with it. The Spanish authors complained about the predominance of the foreign representation in the Spanish political sphere and about the little significance of its own. Fearing a denaturalization of their compatriots, these liberals took a nationalistic attitude, more aggressive in its demands.