Co-Winner of the 2014 Publication Prize awarded by the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland

Esta monografia revela la importancia de las mujeres en la politica y cultura de la corte espanola pormedio del caso de Teresa Valle, consejera espiritual de Olivares, el favorito de Felipe IV. A traves del analisis de fuentes originales como son cartas, escritos literarios e inquisitoriales, la autora demuestra que las relaciones entre poderosos nobles y religiosas fue tambien un elemento esencial de mecenazgo barroco. Se trataba, entre otros, de un medio de publicidad y poder para ellos y una via de acceso a la cultura para ellas. Ademas, la autora analiza los escritos de Teresa, revelando su identidad literaria. El camino de la monja por los resortes literarios permite que se definan nuevos metodos de estudio de la escritura femenina y de las estrategias discursivas que utilizaron las religiosas de la epoca.

This monograph reveals the importance of women in political and cultural life at the Spanish court through the case of Teresa Valle, spiritual counsellor of Olivares, the favourite of King Philip IV. Through an analysis of diverse primary sources such as letters, literary writings, and Inquisition records the author demonstrates how relations between noblemen and religious women formed a key aspect of Baroque patronage and exchange, forming an essential tool of publicity and power for the former, and a way of access to the literary domain for the latter. At the heart of this book there is a study of the writings that Teresa produced, revealing her emerging literary identity. The nuns path into literature also allows the author to define new ways of understanding female writing in Golden Age Spain and clarify the discursive strategies that religious women negotiated.

Laura S. Munoz Perez is currently a Lecturer at the University of Oxford.