María Rosa de Gálvez


María Rosa de Gálvez or María Rosa Gálvez de Cabrera, was a Spanish poet and playwright during the Age of Enlightenment and Neoclassicism periods.

Early years and family

María Antonia Rosalía de Gálvez y Ramírez was born on 14 August 1768 in Málaga. She was the adopted daughter of Antonio de Gálvez y Gallardo, colonel of the army, and Mariana Ramírez de Velasco. She was a niece of José de Gálvez, minister of Charles III of Spain as well as a cousin Bernardo de Gálvez, Viceroy of New Spain and 1st Count of Gálvez. Before her marriage, she had a daughter María Josefa de la Pastora Irisarri y Gálvez, with José de Irisarri y Sarti.

Career

In Málaga, Galvez married a distant cousin on 1789, Captain José Cabrera y Ramírez, and the couple moved to Madrid perhaps before 1790, as her name was mentioned several times in the "Diario" of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos in that year. There, she frequented the enlightened intellectual circles and developed a friendship with Manuel José Quintana and especially with Manuel Godoy, which made her husband jealous. Shortly after this, her husband was appointed as an attaché of the Spanish legation in the United States. Galvez stayed in Madrid, where she continued her alleged love affair with Godoy, the prime minister of Charles IV of Spain, which brought her the rebuffs of some as he sponsored Galvez's Obras poéticas without the corresponding payments for publication. This, in turn, affected judgment regarding the quality of her work as well as her status as a woman. In these years, the couple had one child, born in 1793, who died. Galvez moved temporarily to Madrid to follow closely some of the lawsuits of her husband. Three years later, shortly after a marriage reconciliation and possibly leaving behind some of the husband's debts, the couple moved to Puerto Real in Cádiz, where they held various properties. Modern scholarship describes alternate problems within the marriage.
Galvez devoted herself to developing her career as a writer, focused mainly on theater, journalism and lyricism. She wrote for Variedades de Ciencias, Literatura y Artes, the magazine published by Manuel José Quintana, as well as La Minerva o El Revisor General. Her Obras poéticas, which, despite the title, also incorporated the dramatic, appeared in three volumes. Some of her plays were incorporated into the volume El teatro nuevo español.
Straddled with great economic hardships, she died prematurely, in Madrid, 2 October 1806, at the age of 38, and was buried in the San Sebastian Church.

Criticism and legacy

Something about her character made her appear modern and independent, vaguely disturbing her male contemporaries in a way which they could not understand. She was attacked by considerations unrelated to her intrinsic literary merit. Modern day criticism has put Galvez's work in a just, worthy and deserved place.
Galvez's name was honored in several ways, including the municipal library of Macharaviaya; while in Malaga, a street, a public primary school, and a lecture hall of the University of Malaga were named after her.

Selected works

Obra original