Overview

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 Lopez de Cordoba, Isabel de Villena, Teresa of Avila) involved in creating textual exemplars for women. Contributors are: Pablo Acosta-Garcia, Andrew M. Beresford, Jimena Gamba Corradine, Ryan D. Giles, Maria Morras, Lesley K. Twomey, Roa Vidal Doval, and Christopher van Ginhoven Rey.

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Estamos ante una miscelanea de estudios sobre mujeres lectoras y escritoras de la plena Edad Media, su Otono y el primer Humanismo, que rompe topicos supuestamente feministas, contextualiza historicamente y analiza ideologicamente sus actitudes y formacion, sus gustos y anhelos, sin los consabidos prejuicios ni concesiones de la literatura de mujeres al uso. [...] Maria Morras es la encargada de firmar la introduccion general ( Introduction: Saints Textual: Embodying Female Exemplarity in Spanish Literature , pp. 1-39): un brillante articulo, como suyo, exhaustivo e impecablemente redactado, que da la rigurosa tonica de todo el volumen y que se centra en los tres conceptos que recorren las colaboraciones del volumen: genero, santidad y ejemplaridad. [...] Estamos de enhorabuena ante esta excelente, y muy bien coordinada, muestra del rigor con que debe abordarse la llamada literatura de genero en periodos literarios preteritos, que sienta las bases para estudios posteriores y plantea muy interesantes cuestiones, multiseculares, sobre la recepcion femenina de la literatura doctrinal, su emulacion y la consiguiente creacion. Bienvenido sea. Guillermo Seres, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, in eHumanista 46 (2020): 260-265 The essays explore a family of related genres-life-writing, chronicles, exempla, and romances-that shaped cultural identities within and beyond religious communities. Advocating an elastic notion of exemplarity, [Morras] she recommends transversal readings of the genres representing virtuous women as well as aspiring saints. [...] Collectively, the essays illuminate some of the unresolved issues [...], such as the role of ascesis in spiritual life, the difficulties of association with charismatic women, and more generally, the uncertain boundaries of orthodoxy in a period of tremendous spiritual ferment. Alison Weber, University of Virginia, in Journal of Jesuit Studies 8 (2021) 501-522 Gender and Exemplarity successfully meets its goal - to offer new perspectives on women's spirituality and its relationship to writing. [...] All the contributions are meticulously researched and well-argued. Biographical references are complete and the editors provide a useful Index. Gender and Exemplarity is a valuable resource for scholars interested in female spirituality, women's hagiography, early female-authored autobiographies, and theological developments in Spain from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Connie L. Scarborough, Texas Tech University, in Mediaevistik 34.1 (2021): 487-90.

Estamos ante una miscelanea de estudios sobre mujeres lectoras y escritoras de la plena Edad Media, su Otono y el primer Humanismo, que rompe topicos supuestamente feministas, contextualiza historicamente y analiza ideologicamente sus actitudes y formacion, sus gustos y anhelos, sin los consabidos prejuicios ni concesiones de la literatura de mujeres al uso. [...] Maria Morras es la encargada de firmar la introduccion general ( Introduction: Saints Textual: Embodying Female Exemplarity in Spanish Literature , pp. 1-39): un brillante articulo, como suyo, exhaustivo e impecablemente redactado, que da la rigurosa tonica de todo el volumen y que se centra en los tres conceptos que recorren las colaboraciones del volumen: genero, santidad y ejemplaridad. [...] Estamos de enhorabuena ante esta excelente, y muy bien coordinada, muestra del rigor con que debe abordarse la llamada literatura de genero en periodos literarios preteritos, que sienta las bases para estudios posteriores y plantea muy interesantes cuestiones, multiseculares, sobre la recepcion femenina de la literatura doctrinal, su emulacion y la consiguiente creacion. Bienvenido sea. Guillermo Seres, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, in eHumanista 46 (2020): 260-265 The essays explore a family of related genres-life-writing, chronicles, exempla, and romances-that shaped cultural identities within and beyond religious communities. Advocating an elastic notion of exemplarity, [Morras] she recommends transversal readings of the genres representing virtuous women as well as aspiring saints. [...] Collectively, the essays illuminate some of the unresolved issues [...], such as the role of ascesis in spiritual life, the difficulties of association with charismatic women, and more generally, the uncertain boundaries of orthodoxy in a period of tremendous spiritual ferment. Alison Weber, University of Virginia, in Journal of Jesuit Studies 8 (2021) 501-522 Gender and Exemplarity successfully meets its goal - to offer new perspectives on women's spirituality and its relationship to writing. [...] All the contributions are meticulously researched and well-argued. Biographical references are complete and the editors provide a useful Index. Gender and Exemplarity is a valuable resource for scholars interested in female spirituality, women's hagiography, early female-authored autobiographies, and theological developments in Spain from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Connie L. Scarborough, Texas Tech University, in Mediaevistik 34.1 (2021): 487-90. To consider the tensions between how religious communities and exemplarity provided additional freedoms for women while, at the same time, placing them under increasingly close scrutiny requires subtle minds, and the collection of essays that Maria Morras, Rebeca Sanmartin Bastida, and Yonsoo Kim have assembled proves itself more than up to such a nuanced task. The collection covers four centuries, as well as an array of different themes, disciplines, and critical frameworks, yet manages to prevent a cohesive insight into the larger notions of gender and exemplarity as the essays readily bolster one another. [...] the collection is a fascinating exploration of the strategies with which women asserted their own agency within medieval and early modern Christianity, as well as how the patriarchy sought to limit this agency. From tracing textual genealogies to close readings, the critics in this volume employ an impressive interdisciplinary array of strategies that makes every contribution a worthwhile, nuanced read as they draw on chronicles, legal documents, autobiographies, exempla, and other genres. [...] In sum, Gender and Exemplarity is an excellent case of what a collected volume should be, and it will appeal to any scholar of premodern Spain. David Reher, Oklahoma State University in La Coronica, 49.3 (2021)

Author Information

Maria Morras, Ph.D. (1992), is Professor of Hispanic Literature at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, and Special Lecturer at Magdalen College, Oxford. Her publications include numerous critical editions and studies on medieval literature. She has edited special issues on La configuracion de la santidad femenina en los siglos XVI y XVII (2015) and Santa Teresa (with R. Sanmartin, 2016). Rebeca Sanmartin Bastida, Ph.D. (2000), is Professor of Spanish Literature at the Universidad Complutense, Madrid. She has published on Spanish visionary women, including editions of Maria de Santo Domingo's Revelaciones (with Maria Luengo Balbas, 2014), Libro de la Oracion (with Maria Victoria Curto Hernandez, 2019), and written various monographs. Yonsoo Kim, Ph.D. (2006), is Associate Professor of Spanish at Purdue University. She works on gender and religion in medieval and Golden Age literature, with a special interest in disability. She is the author of a monograph in this series, Between Desire and Passion: Teresa de Cartagena (2012).

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