Perfect Wives, Other Women

Black Georgina Dopico Black Dopico

Description

In Perfect Wives, Other Women Georgina Dopico Black examines the role played by women's bodies-specifically the bodies of wives-in Spain and Spanish America during the Inquisition. In her quest to show how both the body and soul of the married woman became the site of anxious inquiry, Dopico Black mines a variety of Golden Age texts for instances in which the era's persistent preoccupation with racial, religious, and cultural otherness was reflected in the depiction of women.Subject to the scrutiny of a remarkable array of gazes-inquisitors, theologians, religious reformers, confessors, poets, playwrights, and, not least among them, husbands-the bodies of perfect and imperfect wives elicited diverse readings. Dopico Black reveals how imperialism, the Inquisition, inflation, and economic decline each contributed to a correspondence between the meanings of these human bodies and "other" bodies, such as those of the Jew, the Moor, the Lutheran, the degenerate, and whoever else departed from a recognized norm. The body of the wife, in other words, became associated with categories separate from anatomy, reflecting the particular hermeneutics employed during the Inquisition regarding the surveillance of otherness.Dopico Black's compelling argument will engage students of Spanish and Spanish American history and literature, gender studies, women's studies, social psychology and cultural studies.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Southern Europe
• Spain
• Latin America
• History of Europe
• Spain (groupe)
• 1500

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 13 février 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822383079
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Perfect Wives, Other Women

erfect ives,

ther omen

      

eorgina opico lack

  

Durham & London 

©  Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper  Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Monotype Fournier by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

    

    

ontents

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xiii

  Visible Signs: Reading the Wife’s Body in Early Modern Spain 

  ‘‘Pasos de un peregrino’’: Luis de León Reads the Perfect Wife 

  The Perfected Wife: Signs of Adultery and the Adultery of Signs in Calderón’s El médico de su honra

  Sor Juana’sEmpeños:The Imperfect Wife

Conclusion: ‘‘Como anillo al dedo’’ 

Notes  Bibliography  Index 

cknowledgments

Perfect Wives’ past life was as a Yale University dissertation, so it seems only fitting to first mark my debts to the two individuals who advised the text out of which this one grew and who have played no small part in its transformation into this book. Since the day I met him, more than a dozen years ago, Roberto González Echevarría has not stopped giving me books, both figuratively and literally. It is a privilege, then, to acknowledge the tremendous role he has played in the making of this one. Jacques Lezra, who first sent me in search of a definition in Covarrubias’Tesoro—of the wordmurmullo,as I recall it—deserves more thanks than I can possibly express for his always brilliant and generous advice. This project has benefited in countless ways from theruido mansoof his friendship for all these many years. James Fer- nández has not only readPerfect Wivesin all its incarnations but has patiently nurtured each one. Like the Cervantineamigo, gracioso y bien entendido,he is always there when I need him most, asking the right questions and pointing me in the right directions, with extraordinary warmth and intelligence. Having Reynolds Smith of Duke University Press as my editor has been a singular stroke of good fortune; I cannot thank him enough for his belief in this project and for all he has done in bringing it to its present form. I am grateful to my anonymous readers at Duke for their very helpful suggestions; to my copyeditor, Kim Hastings, for the elegance and rigor of her purple pencil; and to Sharon Parks Torian and Rebecca Johns-Danes for their fine work in preparing the manuscript. This book could not have been completed without the intelligent and tireless help of John Charles, my research assistant in –, who proved not only a formidable sleuth of sources and translations but a superb translator and meticulous reader and indexer. To Colleen