Gamboa, Yolanda

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.

In medieval France, much of the written literature was dominated by the system
of courtly love, in which the married noble woman held the position of authority over her
lover or knight. Yet this courtly system was entirely literary and did not change women's
subjugated position in feudal society, and even propagated misogynistic ideals. In John
Beverly's theory of Subalternity, the struggle for power within different systems is shown
as having two main groups, the elite and the subaltern; the former having control over the
representation of the latter, and therefore control over how the subaltern shapes its selfimage.
In medieval, courtly love France, those who manufacture the literary
representations of women are male, and those texts that aided in the re-affirming of
feudal society; though some women, like Christine de Pizan, resisted those
representations. Conversely, in medieval Spain, courtly love does not take hold as a
literary phenomenon due to the different cultural and social environment of Spanish
noble women.

Religious ideology played a powerful role in the shaping of the Spanish Empire as
seen in the writings of Christopher Columbus, the first widely documented European
explorer to reach the Americas. Columbus was driven by intense feelings of divine
providence and saw his project in biblical and prophetic terms. In his diaries and letters,
as well as his Book of Prophecies, Columbus' religious fervor shows a messianic zeal
and his rhetoric mimics that of the newly emerging Spanish Empire who, in tum,
mimicked the messianic and imperialist rhetoric of the Catholic Church. This zeal was
not particular to Columbus' personality but rather it reflects the common beliefs of his
times. The cosmology of Columbus was a composite ofvarious Medieval and early
Renaissance philosophers whose erroneous conceptions of geography and apocalyptic
visions of the future were based on astrological patterns and various prophecies in the
Bible rather than empirical facts.

There are characters whose existence depends upon their stories being told, and the same may be said of authors. The Puerto Rican author Manuel Ramos Otero died on October 7, 1990, leaving a body of work that includes four collections of short stories, two books of poetry, and a novel. At present, his work is not well-known outside of Puerto Rico. His readership is limited to Spanish speakers since he wrote exclusively in Spanish and his works have not been translated. This study introduces the author to the English-speaking reader, locating the work in its literary context, and presents a critical analysis and, to my knowledge, the first English translation of his short story "Vivir del cuento." It includes a discussion of the controversy regarding the appropriateness of English in Puerto Rican literature.