Tener voz y dar voces en una audiencia: Dos discursos procesales en Fuenteovejuna

The right to have a voice, as opposed to the voicing of a statement, is analyzed here in its relation to the role of women in both plays and society in the times of Lope de Vega. To have a voice is taken as a masculine attribute, a derivation from virtus; the presence of such a voice, with its rhetorical requisites, in a woman, results in a monster-like (amazona) presentation of conflict. Two discourses in Fuenteovejuna show the intricacy proper to legal oratory. One of them —by Flores— comes out quite naturally. The other —by Laurencia— does not. Appropriation of the technique by Laurencia implies a subversion of the feminine role like the one in the cliché of women dressed up like men.