Disabled Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature: Prostitutes, Aging Women and Saints REPRESENTATIONS: HEALT H , DI SA BI L I T Y, CULTURE AND SOCIETY Series Editor Stuart Murray, University of Leeds Robert McRuer, George Washington University This series provides a ground-breaking and innovative selection of titles that showcase the newest interdisciplinary research on the cultural representations of health and disability in the contemporary social world. Bringing together both subjects and working methods from literary studies, film and cultural studies, medicine and sociology, ‘Representations’ is scholarly and accessible, addressed to researchers across a number of academic disciplines, and prac- titioners and members of the public with interests in issues of public health. The key term in the series will be representations. Public interest in ques- tions of health and disability has never been stronger, and as a consequence cultural forms across a range of media currently produce a never-ending stream of narratives and images that both reflect this interest and generate its forms. The crucial value of the series is that it brings the skilled study of cultural narratives and images to bear on such contemporary medical concerns. It offers and responds to new research paradigms that advance understanding at a scholarly level of the interaction between medicine, culture and society; it also has a strong commitment to public concerns surrounding such issues, and maintains a tone and point of address that seek to engage a general audience. Other books in the series Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination Stuart Murray Idiocy: A Cultural History Patrick McDonagh Representing Epilepsy: Myth and Matter Jeannette Stirling Anatomy as Spectacle: Public Exhibitions of the Body from 1700 to the Present Elizabeth Stephens Disability Studies and Spanish Culture: Films, Novels, the Comic and the Public Exhibition Benjamin Fraser Disabled Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature Prostitutes, Aging Women and Saints Encarnación Juárez-Almendros LIVerpOOL UniVersitY Press First published 2017 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2017 Encarnación Juárez-Almendros The right of Encarnación Juárez-Almendros to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN: 978-1-78694-078-0 epdf ISBN: 978-1-78694-844-1 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 I The Creation of Female Disability: Medical, Prescriptive and Moral Discourses 17 II The Artifice of Syphilitic and Damaged Female Bodies in Literature 56 III The Disabling of Aging Female Bodies: Midwives, Procuresses, Witches and the Monstrous Mother 83 IV Historical Testimony of Female Disability: The Neurological Impairment of Teresa de Ávila 116 Conclusion 167 Works Cited 170 Index 195 Acknowledgments riting Disabled Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature: Prostitutes, WAging Women and Saints has been a long journey of scholarly investigation and self-exploration. My initial interest in investigating disability in literature arises from my reading of the fifteenth-century Spanish nun Teresa de Cartagena’s autobiography Arboleda de los enfermos, written as a consolation for deafness and rejection by her community. The fact that Cartagena’s critics hardly acknowledged the obvious main issue of her work, the stigma created by her impairment, made me wonder why disability was an invisible subject and what constituted disability in early modern Spanish cultural production. In order to answer these questions I enthusiastically embraced a new field of research that related to my own personal experiences and political thinking. I would like to thank the many Disability Studies scholars who have emboldened my own social–political position and provided meaningful approaches to literary criticism. I am particularly indebted to the works of feminist disability studies scholars such as Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Susan Wendell and Margrit Shildrick, who have helped me discover the profoundly disabling effects of being born with a female body. I deeply appreciate the Modern Language Association of America’s commitment to supporting this field of crit- ical inquiry. My service in the MLA Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession (2005–2008) and in the MLA Executive Committee Division on Disability Studies (2009–2014) was an enriching experi- ence. In addition, I wish to express my warm gratitude to the colleagues who invited me to give seminars and presentations about my project at their institutions: Ignacio Arellano (University of Navarre, Spain), Elisabeth Davis and Brenda Brueggemann (Ohio State University) and viii Disabled Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature Carol J. Gill (University of Illinois, Chicago). I would like to thank my colleagues Anne J. Cruz and Edward H. Friedman for their continuous support of my frequent applications for external funding. I also appre- ciate the encouragement of my colleagues at the University of Notre Dame, especially Essaka Joshua, who initiated the Notre Dame Forum for Disabilities Studies, as well as The Medieval Institute and the Program for Gender Studies, which promoted my research. Lastly, I thank my graduate students for their enthusiastic responses, always a source of inspiration. I would also like to recognize the financial funding and institu- tional support for this project. The University of Notre Dame Faculty Research Program Award made possible two months of archival research in Madrid during the summer of 2007 that was pivotal to the initiation of the project. The Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spanish Ministry of Culture and United States Universities and the AAUW American Summer/Short-Term Research Publication Grant sponsored my work during the summers of 2007 and 2009. A grant from The Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame) has supported the editing work. Travel funding from The College of Arts and Letters and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures has allowed me to present my research in progress in numerous national and inter- national conferences during the last ten years. Finally, I am indebted to the University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Library and especially to the Interlibrary Loan Department for their expertise and efficiency in providing multiple materials online and locating hard to find works. I would not have endured the ups and downs—including a year of medical leave—during this lengthy project without the emotional reassurance of my family and friends. My deep loving appreciation goes to my husband Robert Martin, who not only became my personal research assistant, with his numerous trips to the library, but also cheered me up during the difficult moments. I am eternally grateful to my wonderful colleague Kristine Ibsen for her wise comments and meticulously editing of my manuscript. My dear friend Isis Quinteros has been my best audience as I progressed in this project. My chil- dren Kirk and Leonor’s perpetual belief in me, and the zest for life of my beautiful grandchildren, Apolonio, Olivia and Octavio, have always been a source of joy and comfort. Finally, I would like to thank Liverpool University Press and its editorial director Alison Welsby for her expert assistance during the process of publishing the manuscript, and the anonymous readers for their helpful suggestions. Introduction he purpose of Disabled Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature: TProstitutes, Aging Women and Saints is to examine, from the perspec- tive of feminist disability theories, the concepts and roles of women in selected Spanish discourses and literary texts from the late fifteenth to the seventeenth century. My central argument is that the traditional notions and segregation of female bodies, considered imperfect and inferior in comparison to the prototype of the corporeal male, consti- tute a major paradigm of disability in the period. The female body, as with the disabled body, has been stigmatized, subjugated and deprived of freedom and opportunities. In the Western conceptualization, women and the disabled symbolize imperfection, corruption, impurity and, ultimately, human vulnerability. Disability Studies is an area of intellectual inquiry that originated in the social sciences and in political movements from the 1970s and that has since been adopted by the humanities.1 It is interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary in nature, with practical social and political ends: to investigate, uncover and denounce constructions of concepts and institutional barriers that have traditionally resulted in the segre- gation of individuals that do not conform to bodily ideals. The political movement resulted in the social awareness of injustice leading to the establishment of various laws and initiatives. In the theoretical realm, such awareness highlighted the need to develop analytical methods of study, as matters pertinent to the field became an object of scholarly investigation.2 Disability Studies utilizes a variety of methodologies