Self-Fashioning and the Intersectional Self: Teresa de Cartagena by Teresa de Cartagena

This article examines the way in which Teresa de Cartagena builds and presents her literary self in her literary works, Arboleda de los enfermos and Admiración operum Dei. The examination of this literary self-fashioning (a concept based, but different from, the one coined under the same denomination by Stephen Greenblatt) of Teresa de Cartagena is conducted under the theoretical framework of intersectionality, which allows to see the multi-layered and dynamic complex nature of this author’s literary self, and the implications this has for the understanding of her work.

La Voz Femenina Silenciada en los Textos Medievales: Una Carta de Teresa de Cartagena

In the context of medieval society, the situation of women and, more specically, the situation of women who want to be a writer, presents a series of features that make their situation, social as well as emotional or intellectual, a complex network of conicts, both internal and external, all related to the assumption of some male role: the desire for self-affirmation, for being an authorial self, for having the property of his thoughts, for example. Understanding and deepening in these aspects becomes a task, in many moments, exciting. This article reviews those aspects contained in the letter entitled Admiraçion Operum Dey, by Teresa de Cartagena, which are related to the feminine universe. That is, those elements that become essential to inquire into the work written by a nun in a medieval, patriarchal and eminently misogynist context in which her status as (1) woman, (2)judeoconversa and (3) deaf provide her with a triple marginalization. These three elements, above all, are those that shape the worldview of Teresa of Cartagena in which self-consolation becomes a means of survival in her first work, Arboleda de los enfermos and in a more brutal tone, she made a true allegation to favor the right of women to access to culture and, more specically, to writing, in her second work that we analyze in this paper.

La ortodoxia de una heterodoxa: Teresa de Cartagena y la Biblia

Examina este trabajo la presencia y uso de textos bíblicos en las dos obras de Teresa de Cartagena, autora castellana del siglo XV, Arboleda de los enfermos y Admiración Operum Dei, e inscribe estos usos literarios del texto bíblico en el contexto de los círculos y las corrientes de renovación espiritual, especialmente femenina, desarrollados en la península ibérica entre fines del siglo XV y comienzos del XVI, análisis que revela la afinidad de la mencionada autora con tales corrientes y círculos.

“Ynclinando la oreja del mi entendimiento”. Simbología mística en Arboleda de los enfermos de Teresa de Cartagena

Arboleda de los enfermos is a religious treaty written in the middle of 15th century by Teresa de Cartagena, a nun from Burgos, after her hearing loss. In her treaty, Teresa de Cartagena attemps to show to those who also suffer from an illnes a way to heal their souls. The text presents some characteristics of mystic Spanish literature, as it exposes the comprehension process of an inner reality in wich the soul needs to follow a crucial path of suffering. This paper analizes the symbolism in the treaty, from the Scholem and Lotman’s perspectives about the symbol as a vehicle of tradition and mystical experience, to later explain the relationship between symbols of the Christian and Jewish traditions presented on the text. Teresa de Cartagena could have known this second tradition due to the Jewish converso origins of her family, in wich her grandfather, the ex rabine Pablo de Santa María, and her uncle Alfonso de Cartagena were counted, both prominet humanist and educated in Hebrew tradition.