Perfect Wives, Other Women: Adultery and Inquisition in Early Modern SpainDuke University Press, 13. veebr 2001 - 328 pages 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. |
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Page 206
... hand that conspicu- ously crops up at the end of all three works . ' - It should perhaps not surprise us to discover the presence of hands at the end of three texts that so crucially turn on the question of matri- mony . In early modern ...
... hand that conspicu- ously crops up at the end of all three works . ' - It should perhaps not surprise us to discover the presence of hands at the end of three texts that so crucially turn on the question of matri- mony . In early modern ...
Page 207
... hand immediately following the ma- cabre perfecting of Mencía's body reinvests honor with ( or in ) a wife's body ... hand , very often there lurks a second . If the texts of Fray Luis , Calderón , and Sor Juana each end , as we have ...
... hand immediately following the ma- cabre perfecting of Mencía's body reinvests honor with ( or in ) a wife's body ... hand , very often there lurks a second . If the texts of Fray Luis , Calderón , and Sor Juana each end , as we have ...
Page 209
... hand behind it — is measured against the hands of Fray Luis and Calderón . Celia first denies Castaño her hand with the excuse that she has left it in the kitchen : her proper place as deter- mined not only by the position of her body ...
... hand behind it — is measured against the hands of Fray Luis and Calderón . Celia first denies Castaño her hand with the excuse that she has left it in the kitchen : her proper place as deter- mined not only by the position of her body ...
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Common terms and phrases
accident adultery aligned analogy anxieties argue baroque bien blood buena Calderón casa Castaño Christ comedia conduct manuals containment converso cosmetic Counter Reformation Covarrubias cross-dressing Cruz cuerpo cultural dagger desire Dios discourses early modern Spain empeños Enrique esto eucharistic female body feminine Fray Luis Fray Luis's gender Gutierre Gutierre's hand hermeneutic Hispanic hombre honor dramas honor plays honra Howard Bloch husband illegibility Inquisition inquisitorial inscribes interpretation italics Juan legibility lengua Leonor limpieza de sangre literal Luis de León Madrid makeup male marital marriage married means médico Mencía's Mencía's body metaphor Mexico misogyny Morisco mujer nombres de Cristo palabras passage Pedro perfect wife perfecta casada perhaps problematic pues question ramera reading relation Renaissance rhetoric sacrament semiotic sense sexual sino somatic Sor Juana Inés sort Spanish specifically suggests Tesoro textual threat tion trans transgression Translation transubstantiation transvestism treatise University Press vida wife's body wives woman women words