Diálogos espirituales. Manuscritos Femeninos Hispanoamericanos, Siglos XVI-XIX (review)

Asunción Lavrin and Rosalva Loreto L. are two of the most respected scholars of colonial Spanish American nuns and beatas (lay religious women). In 2002 they co-edited a collection of largely unpublished texts (Monjas y beatas. La escritura femenina en la espiritualidad barroca Novohispana, siglos XVII y XVIII) in which well-known scholars presented background essays and transcriptions of archival materials for five women religious, dividing the collection into autobiography, spiritual diaries, and letters. The present book is similar, but much more extensive. It covers four centuries, and the nuns and beatas principally featured come not only from Mexico, but also from Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic. The editors have divided the texts into three parts: (1) Autobiography; (2) Biography and vidas espirituales (spiritual biographies); (3) Letters (Epistolarios), and Literature (poetry and two short dramatic pieces). I am not sure why these last two genres are grouped together, as the Letters section has a clearer identity and cohesion than the one in Literature (where it is also not evident who made the selections and wrote the introductions). In the transcriptions original spelling has been modernized, and punctuation inserted.

As in the previous collection, contextualizing essays precede the transcribed primary sources, and I appreciated the change in font between them. The scholars who have contributed to this collection are recognized specialists whose international scope is impressive: Nancy van Deusen, Nora Jaffary, and Nela Río from Canada; Asunción Lavrin, Fernando Iturburu, and Elia Armacanqui-Tipacti from the United States; Rosalva Loreto L. from Mexico; Alicia Fraschina from Argentina; Ellen Gunnarsdottir from Iceland; Concepción Zayas from Spain, and the research team of Alejandra Araya Espinoza, Ximena Azúa Ríos, Lucía Invernizzi Santa Cruz, and Raissa Kordic Riquelme from Chile. A list of the contributors with brief bio-bibliographical information would have been helpful, as some academic affiliations are listed, but others are not. The authors are scrupulous in documenting their sources, and several highlight the difficulty of transcribing archival materials which were either in disarray, undated, incomplete, or in lamentable condition. Most authors transcribed their original texts, but not always, and since this is heroic work, I wish the names of outside transcribers had been more prominently featured.

The introduction, by Lavrin and Loreto, is solid and informative, clarifying the differences between the three parts into which they have divided the texts, and justifying this division. The main essays cover eight nuns and three beatas. As the latter were not subject to enclosure, beatas could interact with the outside world, but for that reason were also more subject to scrutiny by the Inquisition. It would have been good to define the status of a beata in the introduction, as not all readers might be familiar with this. I also noticed a number of typographical errors throughout the book, especially—but not only—in bibliographical entries.

Having picked mostly technical nits thus far, let me now say unequivocally that this is a fine collection, whose essays offer fascinating insights into the transcriptions. I liked the section on Letters best, especially the contributions from Chile and Argentina, focusing as they do on women whose highly esteemed Jesuit confessors were expelled in 1767, leaving them more than bereft. Letters between confessors and nuns often dealt with issues of personal faith which could lead to perilously intimate relationships and thus were carefully watched by ecclesiastical authorities. The Chilean scholars note that an abbess could confiscate such correspondence at any time from a nun's cell, for as the letters were created outside the confessional, they were not considered private. (p. 271) Alicia Fraschina tells of the beata María Antonia de San José who, after the 1767 expulsion, travelled the country establishing and maintaining (with the explicit...