El cuento galante en 1900: del amor idealizado a los peligros de la carne

Abstract

The present article analyses some of the features that characterize the erotic short stories at the end of the XIXth century. First of all, it focuses on the literary representations of the woman (eroticism’s main object), which is specially contradictory because she has at the same time the features of the virgin and those of the femme fatal. Next, it deals with the sacrilegious aspect of many of these short stories, since the carnal aspects are often associated with the religious and with the idea of sin. Finally, the conjunction of Eros and Thanatos is analysed as the last sign of de antibourgeois hedonism which was claimed around 1900 by an important number of artists.