The nature of woman in selected Spanish works.

Abstract

This thesis is a study of the nature of woman in Spanish literature. Selected works from each of the five time periods reflect the images of woman. Poema de Mio Cid, Milagros de Nuestra Senora, and El libro de buen amor provide the image of woman in the Middle Ages. La Celeating, Don Quijote, and El buriador de Sevilla illuminate the woman's nature in the Siglo de Oro. Feijoo's essay "Defense de las mujeres" and El si de las ninas represent the Eighteenth Century. Don Juan Tenorio, Pepits Jimenez, La loca de la case, and "El diafaz" express woman's nature in Nineteenth Century Spanish literature; and La casa de Bernards Alba, La familia de Pascual Duarte, El cuarto de atras, and El amor es un juego solitario project the view of woman in the Twentieth Century. This selective study explores woman's image through the use of eight universal femine stereotypes: the Mother, the Wife, the Seductress/Mistress, the Spinster, the Educated Woman, the Lady, and the Liberated Woman. In addition to those fundamental female images, the image of the Virgin Mary and the Trotaconventos are introduced. This study clarifies woman's image in each of the selected works and demonstrates her importance in the development of Spanish literature.