Women in the Discourse of Early Modern Spain

"The questions and approaches . . . really get my respect by the way they are argued. Some of these essays will spark controversy as to method; all of them will make changes in the way we teach the Spanish classics and in what classics we do teach."--Michael L. Perna, Hunter College

"Covering various critical approaches to the study of feminine discourse, this collection helps the reader understand important issues in the field of women writers of Early Modern Spain and includes in one volume both the masculine and the feminine point of view of women writers and women characters in the Golden Age literature of Spain."--Maria Castro de Moux, U.S. Naval Academy

Women in the Discourse of Early Modern Spain addresses the important methodological and conceptual issues surrounding the lives, works, and representations of women in the literature of Early Modern Spain. It offers a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of feminine identity and discourse both in the writings of both women and men. The essays move beyond the theme of women and literature in Early Modern Spain to reassess the economic, legal, political, and religious systems that articulate the parameters of women's access to power and self-determination in the past as well as in the present. Written by internationally known contributors, the discussions treat those writers of Early Modern Spain who have a broad appeal to today's readers and critics: the major authors of Spain's literary canon, as well as several authors who have recently inspired recognition and keen interest.

Contents
Introduction, by Joan F. Cammarata
Part I. A Woman's Self-Fashioning: The Private Gendered Spaces of Feminine Authority
1. Authorizing the Wife/Mother in 16th-Century Advice Manuals, by Carolyn Nadeau
2. Identity, Illusion, and the Emergence of the Feminine Subject in La Lozana andaluza, by John C. Parrack
3. Skepticism and Mysticism in Early Modern Spain: The Combative Stance of Teresa de Avila, by Barbara Mujica
Part II. Appropriation and Authenticity of Feminine Identity
4. The Price of Love: The Conflictive Economies of La gitanilla, by William H. Clamurro
5. The Problematics of Gender/Genre in Vida i sucesos de la monja alferez, by Rainer H. Goetz
6. Relaciones de fiestas: Ana Caro's Accounts of Public Spectacles, by Sharon D. Voros
Part III. Cultural Constructs of the Feminine Psyche: Body, Mind, and Desire
7. Masquerade and the Comedia, by Anita K. Stoll
8. Dreams, Voices, Signatures: Deciphering Woman's Desires in Angela de Azevedo's Dicha y desdicha del juego, by Frederick A. de Armas
9. Galatea's Fall and the Inner Dynamics of Góngora's Fabula de Polifemo y Galatea, by Joseph V. Ricapito
Part IV. Power Stratagems of the Feminine Word: Constraints of Silence and Authority of Discourse
10. De voz extremada: Cervantes' Women Characters Speak for Themselves, by Sara A. Taddeo
11. Silence Is/As Golden . . . Age Device: Ana Caro's Eloquent Reticence in Valor, agravio y mujer, by Monica Leoni
12. Woman of the World and World of the Woman in the Narrative of Mariana de Caravajal, by Louis Imperiale
Part V. Transforming Literary Conventions: Feminine Aesthetics and Gender Norms
13. A Cry in the Wilderness: Pastoral Female Discourse in Maria de Zayas, by Deborah Compte
14. Zayas's Ideal of the Masculine: Clothes Make the Man, by Susan Paun de Garcìa
15. Desire Unbound: Women's Theater of Spain's Golden Age, by Lisa Vollendorf

Joan F. Cammarata is professor of Spanish at Manhattan College.