Spanish literature--Classical period, 1500-1700--Criticism and interpretation

In their comparative study of Medieval and Renaissance European women
writers, Pamela Benson and Victoria Kirkham, exploring the relationship between Italian
women writers and their English and French counterparts, assumed a "dynamic
interaction" existed.
Despite the absence of Spanish women writers in that collection when observing
the themes and writing strategies ofModerata Fonte and Maria de Zayas Sotomayor, one
can observe a number of similarities that points toward a dynamic interaction and
moreover, to the transmission of proto-feminist ideas along "memory chains".

In my thesis, I argue that the 1 ih -century Spanish writer, Maria de Zayas y
Sotomayor, in a unique form of 'mimesis,' uses elements of magic to transform the
popular concept of the Spanish witch. Drawing on theories from Jacques Lacan's
mirror phase, Homi Bhabha and Barbara Fuchs's notion of mimesis, and Judith
Butler's idea of gender performitivity, I demonstrate how Zayas frees the witch from
the subjugated language constructed by the Catholic Church and society of her time.
I examine six of the short stories in her two novels to show how the author alters the
role of the witch associated with the devil, transforming her to a saint associated with
"lo magico de los cielos, " assigning the diabolical role to the man.