Las Novelas amorosas y ejemplares de María de Zayas: una poética del atrevimiento femenino

Abstract

Taking as a starting point the expression ‘virtuosa osadía’ that appears in the prologue Al que leyere, this study proposes to consider the theme of feminine boldness as a possible key for reading María de Zayas's Novelas amorosas y ejemplares. Indeed, the ‘virtuosa osadía’ that the feminine authorial voice claims in the paratext resonates with a network of words in the text (atrevimiento, locura, libertad, determinación, ánimo, arrojarse, aventurarse) that form the contours of a «feminine boldness» that truly inhabits Zayas’s text. The second part of our study analyses the different figures of feminine boldness, studying in particular the expression of female desire, the women who appropriate male roles and attributes (weapons, the act of speaking and writing in a culture where the models offered to women are models of silence), and finally, their impact on space. Finally, the study analyses the limits of this feminine boldness, in particular through a systematic study of the resolutions (or denouements) of the plots in the fiction.

Keywords

• Baroque literature
• short novel
• Zayas María de
• female boldness
• intrigue
• space