Images de la femme en Espagne aux XVIe et XVIIe siecles: Des traditions aux renouvellements et a l'emergence d'images nouvelles (review)

The publication of Images de la femme en Espagne aux XVIe et XVIe siècles marks a new course in the history of mentalities in Early Modern Spain. This is the ninth volume in a series produced since 1983, including such titles as Les problèmes de l’exclusion en Espagne, XVIe et XVIIe siècles (1983), Amours légitimes, amours ilégitimes en Espagne (XVIe et XVIIe siècles) (1985), and the three-volume sequence on Le corps dans la société espagnole du XVIe et XVIIe siècles (1990–92). The latest volume inaugurates a new path of research centering on the relations between men and women in this period.

Redondo posits in his introduction that, beyond commonly spread stereotypes, the CRES research on the body led to a series of questions regarding the way in which bodily images serve as “perceptible signs of a new mentality, of new conceptions and . . . representations of women” among the spaces and social groups of Golden Age Spain (9). Redondo maintains that, in spite of the permanence of distinct traditions, there emerges in these centuries a significant transformation that produces a new perception of women, as iconographic, literary, and theatrical illustrations attest.

Distributed among five headings which indicate the conceptual framework of each section, these essays emphasize the dialectic between tradition and renewal even while privileging the appearance of unusual images of women in Early Modern Spain. Two views seem to emerge: At the end of the Middle Ages, women are valorized, even promoted, through a series of positive images which uphold a new “femininity” and a new role—political, social, religious, and intellectual—for females (Redondo 10). These notions, however, are opposed by others which pay heed to the misogynist legacy perpetuated by the Counter Reformation. Such views, in fact, tend to dominate, demonizing women, who are then subjected to masculine authority. As Redondo observes, these viewpoints may coexist in various types of representations, advancing a particularly ambiguous vision of women.

One cannot possibly do justice to all twenty-six articles in the space of a book review. I will attempt a cursory description of some of the essays in this collection, with the hope that even such a brief outline may convince readers to consult this remarkable work. In “De l’héroïsme féminin dans quelques légendes de l’Espagne du Siècle d’Or. Ébauche pour un mythologie matronale” (13–31), François Delpech studies the continuity and renewal of archetypes of feminine virtue, revitalized by the Medieval topos of the Doncella guerrera or the Varona de Castilla. Exploring the mythical dimension of the character of Doña Inés in El Caballero de Olmedo, Monique Joly connects the ritual elements associated with the songs of May to other works by Lope de Vega (“Plaidoyer pour Doña Inés: la femme florale dans quelques pièces de Lope de Vega” [33–39]). In her “Marie-Madeleine ou la conversion de la beauté dans la poésie religieuse de la fin du XVIe siècle” (63–75), Line Anselm examines the image of Mary Magdalene in Spanish collections of religious poetry published around 1582, which privilege the sinner’s beauty, both as a symbol of sin and of her conversion. Michel Moner’s “Deux figures emblématiques: la femme violée et la parfaite épouse, selon le ‘Romancero General’ compilé par Agustín Durán” (77–90) reviews the evolution of the legend of La Cava Florinda and its relation to dissenting images of woman—the perfect/adulterous spouse—in the marriage discourses of Early Modern Spain. Margit Frenk, in turn, argues for the existence of a specifically feminine voice, and of feminine viewpoints, in the domain...