Abstract:
Ángeles López de Ayala’s early feminist play, De tal siembra, tal cosecha, was first performed in Barcelona at the Circo theater on 14 May 1889, against the backdrop of Restoration Spain.1 Nowadays, both work and writer have been all but forgotten by literary historians and critics. Yet López de Ayala, described by Pere Sánchez i Ferré as “la feminista més important d’entresegles a Catalunya” and “la peça clau en la lluita pels drets de la dona al nostre país” (169), was a highly significant figure in freethinking and feminist circles from the mid 1880s until her death in 1926, and a key player in the politics of republicanism. A prolific writer of essays, poems and novels, López de Ayala almost invariably deployed her literary skills at the service of her sociopolitical objectives. De tal siembra, tal cosecha is no exception. The purpose of this article is to explore how, in this neglected drama, López de Ayala rewrites clearly identifiable aspects of José Zorrilla’s late Romantic play, Don Juan Tenorio (1844), which represents the ethos of a conservative liberalism.
