'Gender and Exemplarity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain' gathers a series of studies on the interplay between gender, sanctity and exemplarity in regard to literary production in the Iberian peninsula. The first section examines how women were construed as saintly examples through narratives, mostly composed by male writers; the second focuses on the use made of exemplary life-accounts by women writers in order to fashion their own social identity and their role as authors.
The volume includes studies on relevant models (Mary Magdalen, Virgin Mary, living saints), means of transmission, sponsorship and agency (reading circles, print, patronage), and female writers (Leonor López de Córdoba, Isabel de Villena, Teresa of Ávila) involved in creating textual exemplars for women.
Author(s): María Morrás, Rebeca Sanmartín Bastida, Yonsoo Kim (eds.)
Series: The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World, 79
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 310
City: Leiden
Preface / Yonsoo Kim and Rebeca Sanmartín Bastida ix
Abbreviations x
Notes on Contributors xi
Introduction: Saints Textual: Embodying Female Exemplarity in Spanish Literature / María Morrás 1
Part 1. Rewriting Models
1. Hagiography, Corporeality, and the Gaze: Sexual/Ascetic Tension in the 'Vida de Santa María Egipciaca' / Andrew M. Beresford 43
2. Under Suspicion: Mary Magdalene in Late Medieval Castile, Virtuous and Illustrious? / María Morrás 75
3. Discernment of Spirits and Spiritual Authority: The 'Tractatus de vita spirituali' and Its Afterlife / Rosa Vidal Doval 112
4. Women Prophets for a New World: Angela of Foligno, 'Living Saints', and the Religious Reform Movement in Cardinal Cisneros’s Castile / Pablo Acosta-García 136
5. Models of Female Spirituality in Sixteenth-century Spain: Women Accused of Lutheranism / Jimena Gamba Corradine 163
Part 2. Inscribing Models
6. 'No hay quien vele a Alonso': 'Imitatio Mariae' and the Problem of Conversion in Leonor López de Córdoba’s 'Memorias' / Ryan D. Giles 193
7. Speaking of Heaven in Conventual Women’s Writing (Constanza de Castilla, Teresa de Cartagena, Isabel de Villena, and Teresa de Jesús) / Lesley K. Twomey 212
8. Torn to Pieces: Textual Destruction in Teresa de Jesús’s 'Vida' / Christopher van Ginhoven Rey 252
Index 283
