Veronica Franco and Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz
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FINDING A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN: VERONICA FRANCO AND SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ by Marianna De Tollis A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL May 2019 Copyright 2019 by Marianna De Tollis ii FINDING A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN: VERONICA FRANCO AND SOR JUANA INES DE LA CRUZ by Marianna De Tollis This dissertation was prepared under the direction of the candidate's dissertation advisor, Dr. Yolanda Gamboa Tusquets, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature, and has been approved by the members of her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Yflanda Gamboa quets, Ph.D. D~=A~ fJrtrt£ tc Nora Erro-Peralta, Ph.D. Ilaria sd~~~ Frederic Conrod, Ph.D. Michael J orswell, Ph.D. Dean, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters ~--S~ Khaled Sob han, Ph.D. Interim Dean, Graduate College iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to start with a special thank to my advisor, Dr. Yolanda Gamboa, for her persistence, patience, encouragement, and friendship during the writing of this manuscript; her immense knowledge and gentle spirit gave me strength and guidance through the “selva oscura” of my Ph.D. years. I also wish to express sincere gratitude to my committee members, Dr. Nora Erro-Peralta, Dr. Ilaria Serra, and Dr. Frédèric Conrod, for all their help, advice, and constant support. I am grateful to the college of Arts & Letters, to Dr. Adam Bradford and Dean Michael Horswell, for providing emotional and financial support to conduct my study and research on Veronica Franco and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Also, I would like to have a note of appreciation for Dr. Daniel de Lira Luna and Mtra. Pilar María Moreno Juménez of the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Mexico D.F., for the inmense help and patience that they provided while I was gathering the last documents to complete my dissertation. Last, but not least, I would like to acknowledge other two professors, Dr. Nuria Godón and Dr. Carla Calargé, who persistently followed my academic advancements, supported me with their words, and enlightened my spirit with their presence and growing friendship. iv ABSTRACT Author: Marianna De Tollis Title: Finding a Room of One’s Own: Veronica Franco and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Institution: Florida Atlantic University Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Yolanda Gamboa Tusquets Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Year: 2019 During the Renaissance and the Baroque periods, both in the Old and the New World, the patriarchal social structure had created a set of fixed gender rules based on gender roles to control female sexuality, female voices, and their social freedom because it was considered a threat to male superiority. The Venetian Veronica Franco and the Mexican Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz are two extraordinary women from different places and a hundred years apart who, with their elaborated writing and body-related techniques, escape the gender patriarchal constrains and give voice to their new authorial persona in a female liminal environment. Veronica Franco and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz represent the two facets of the same coin that symbolizes the phallocentric patriarchal structure in which these two women happened to live, struggle, and write. These women were pushed to the margins of society, confined in convents, brothels/patrician houses, or the streets, to silence their personae and reinforce their inferiority and, at times, inexistence. v There are no works that focus on the comparison between the well-known Mexican nun and the forgotten Venetian courtesan. Therefore, this dissertation aims to analyze the writings of Veronica Franco and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz through the lens of feminist theory (Cixous, Irigaray etc.) and the concept of the body as an instrument of subversion and female liberation. In their respective time and marginal places of confinement (the patrician house and the convent), both women were able to create a liminal space that allowed them to go beyond the rigidity of gender binaries and explore different venues of freedom. In this liminal space both Veronica Franco and Sor Juana stopped “performing” the fixed gender roles imposed by the patriarchal social order and created new female creatures at the margins of patriarchal society; a new type of woman who could, through her body and writing, destabilize the patriarchal gender identities and go from a passive silence object to an active writing subject. vi To zia Bruna who first “discovered” my inclination toward literature and humanities at a young age… To my parents, Rosella and Sergio, and my brother Luca who patiently dealt with my craziness and accepted, perhaps with rassignation, that I am, just like Sor Juana, la peor de todas… vii FINDING A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN: VERONICA FRANCO AND SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................... 20 HSTORICAL MISOGYNY AND WOMEN CONSCIUSNESS ................................. 22 a. Between the Madonna and Eve ......................................................................... 31 b. Objects of Exchange and Confinement ............................................................. 34 PROTO-FEMINISM AND THE FIRST FEMALE VOICES ...................................... 40 EMBODYING MARGINALITY: VERONICA FRANCO AND SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ ............................................................................................... 50 LIMINALITY AND THE DESTABILIZATION OF GENDER ROLES ..................... 52 CHAPTER TWO .............................................................................................................. 63 EARLY MODERN VENICE ....................................................................................... 63 WOMEN WRITING IN VENICE ................................................................................ 68 COURTESAN LIFE IN VENICE ................................................................................ 70 VERONICA FRANCO THE COURTESAN ............................................................... 74 VERONICA FRANCO’S CAPITOLI: (EM)BODYING THE CITY OF VENICE .... 87 FRANCO’S WILLS: THE PROBLEM OF A COURTESAN’S BODY ..................... 97 UNDRESSING THE COURTESAN: VERONICA FRANCO’S FAMILIAR LETTERS – LETTERE FAMIGLIAR AI DIVERSI .............................................. 110 viii FRANCO’S TERZE RIME (OR CAPITOLI): STRIPPING OFF THE MALE INTERLOCUTOR ................................................................................................ 129 CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................................ 147 SOR JUANA’S FIRST VERSES OF LOVE TO LAURA, THE VICEREINE LEONOR CARRETO ........................................................................................... 157 THE ALLEGORICAL NEPTUNE (1680) ................................................................... 165 VERSES OF LOVE TO LISI, THE MERQUISE MARÍA LUISA MANRIQUE DE LARA ............................................................................................................. 168 “RESPUESTA A UN CABALLERO DE PERÚ” – “ANSWER TO A GENTLEMAN FROM PERÚ” ............................................................................ 179 PRIMERO SUEÑO ..................................................................................................... 186 LA RESPUESTA A SOR FILOTEA DE LA CRUZ – THE ANSWER TO SOR FILOTEA DE LA CRUZ ....................................................................................... 203 CHAPTER FOUR ........................................................................................................... 229 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 243 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 The Creation of Matriarchal Sub-Societies ........................................................ 53 Figure 2 Liminality ........................................................................................................... 57 x INTRODUCTION Women have worked constantly, always and everywhere, in every type of society in every part of the world since the beginning of human time. – Heather Gordon Cremonesi The Great Goddess is the incarnation of the Feminine Self that unfolds in the history of mankind as well as in the history of every individual woman. – Erich Neumann, The Great Mother For much of the Western tradition, including the expanse of time framed by the Renaissance and the Baroque (approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century), literary and artistic production was strongly governed by longstanding structures of courtly and royal patronage tightly linked to patriarchal authority and control. This patriarchal authority expanded its rules and control to the city geography and structure, which helped establish misogyny in European culture and abroad. Each period articulated its own strict aesthetical and ethical codes whereas an individual’s social class dictated viable avenues of production. In this patronage environment, women and their feminine personae, were often subordinated to male authorship