"Writing Teresa: The Saint from ?Avila at the fin-de-siglo examines the Teresa de Jes?us "boom" of roughly 1880-1930, and offers an in-depth study of five major Spanish participants in the turn-of-the-twentieth-century explosion of literary treatments ofSt. Teresa. This historical period's interest in the Saint from ?Avila relates to popularization and nationalization of aspects of Catholicism, technological advances, a modernist fascination with saintly heroes, the search for new Spanish identities, and the evolving role of women writers and intellectuals. Teresa was mysticism in its historical context, energy in a time of doubt, the possibility of reconciling science and spirituality, a new vision for writing, and a maternal figure linked to the religion of the past for those who had lost the faith of their childhood."--Publisher's website.