Cuentos de amor

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

55514

Title

Cuentos de amor

Language

es

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

A collection of romantic tales by Emilia Pardo Bazán exploring the intense, often destructive nature of love. Blending realism with folklore, these stories feature characters battling passion, social constraints, and personal demons, ranging from tragic infidelities to the paralyzing effects of unrequited affection.

Summary up to 500 words

In *Cuentos de amor*, Emilia Pardo Bazán presents a vivid tapestry of romantic entanglements that often lead to ruin rather than bliss. The collection opens with allegorical pieces like *El amor asesinado*, where a woman's desperate struggle to escape the personification of Love ends in a tragic confrontation. Realism permeates tales such as *El amor asesinado* and *¿Justicia?*, which dissect the complexities of infidelity, societal judgment, and the psychological toll of betrayal. In *¿Justicia?*, a husband named Pablo Roldán adopts a philosophy of radical trust, believing a wife's conscience makes surveillance unnecessary. However, when he discovers his wife has stolen a string of pearls from a wealthy bride's gift to give to a lover, he chooses not to expose her, fearing public ridicule and the destruction of her reputation. Instead, he allows her to face prison, illustrating the cruel intersection of love, honor, and vengeance. The narrative shifts to the comedic and the poignant in *Más allá*, where a young couple's romantic escapades in Paris and Ávila are abruptly halted by parental intervention, highlighting the clash between youthful desire and social convention. Other stories delve into the paralyzing effects of shyness in *Sí, señor*, where a man's inability to speak to his beloved leads to years of silence and eventual acceptance of her marriage. Bazán frequently draws upon real-life incidents, as noted in her preface, weaving authentic human experiences into her fiction. Themes of penance, as seen in the austere life of Sor Aparición, and the blurred lines between fact and fiction, underscore the author's belief that the most profound truths often lie in reality rather than pure invention. Through these varied narratives, the author examines the enduring power of emotion, the cruelty of fate, and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming passion. The collection serves as a critique of societal norms that crush individual happiness, while celebrating the raw, often destructive, intensity of human feeling.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

Download URL

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55514.epub.noimages

Local file path

data/epubs/pg55514.epub

Removed after upload

Downloaded at

2026-07-01 13:05 UTC

Categories

• Short Stories
• Romance