front cover of Book for the Hour of Recreation
Book for the Hour of Recreation
María de San José Salazar
University of Chicago Press, 2002
María de San José Salazar (1548-1603) took the veil as a Discalced ("barefoot") Carmelite nun in 1571, becoming one of Teresa of Avila's most important collaborators in religious reform and serving as prioress of the Seville and Lisbon convents. Within the parameters of the strict Catholic Reformation in Spain, María fiercely defended women's rights to define their own spiritual experience and to teach, inspire, and lead other women in reforming their church.

María wrote this book as a defense of the Discalced practice of setting aside two hours each day for conversation, music, and staging of religious plays. Casting the book in the form of a dialogue, María demonstrates through fictional conversations among a group of nuns during their hours of recreation how women could serve as very effective spiritual teachers for each other. The book includes one of the first biographical portraits of Teresa and Maria's personal account of the troubled founding of the Discalced convent at Seville, as well as her tribulations as an Inquisitional suspect. Rich in allusions to women's affective relationships in the early modern convent, Book for the Hour of Recreation also serves as an example of how a woman might write when relatively free of clerical censorship and expectations.

A detailed introduction and notes by Alison Weber provide historical and biographical context for Amanda Powell's fluid translation.
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front cover of Teresa
Teresa
Neera, translated by Martha King
Northwestern University Press, 1999
Teresa, first published in 1886, is set in Italy's Po Valley near Cremona. The story relates the life of Teresa Caccia, an eldest daughter whose primary responsibilities at age fifteen include taking care of her younger siblings. When she falls in love, the union is deemed financially unsuitable and she's forced to spend the remainder of her youth caring for her family. Only when her brothers and sisters have left home can she emerge from her bleak existence and create her own life.

Through Teresa and other women characters, Neera addressed the injustice of such societal restrictions in nineteenth-century Italy. Neera's narratives are noted for their subtle psychoanalytical presentation of feminine states of mind as well as for an unflinching examination of society.
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