An Enlightenment poet between two centuries: the unknown verses of María Martínez Abello in the <em>Diario de Barcelona</em> (1797-1800)

Abstract

Between 1797 and 1800, María Martínez Abello published poems in the Diario de Barcelona, becoming the only woman poet writing to appear in this mass-circulation newspaper in the last five years of the eighteenth century, and one of the very few female authors to write for the national press in those years. The study of these unknown examples of her work, which provide a gendered perspective on the various tendencies towards individual expression and feeling in turn-of-the-century poetry, sheds new light on the lyric poetry of a period which is still perceived to have been almost entirely dominated by male writers.