Irrefutable arguments: Teresa de Cartagena defends her right to authorship

Abstract

Teresa de Cartagena wrote a masterful text of consolation for all who suffer illness or impairment entitled Arboleda de los enfermos [Grove of the Infirm] in which she recounts her spiritual response to the onset of deafness. The work was maligned, not for its content, but rather because detractors refused to believe that Arboleda could have been penned by a woman, especially one who suffered from a physical impairment. Teresa responded to those who doubted her authorship by writing a second text, Admiraçión operum Dey [Wonder at the Works of God]. She felt compelled to respond to her critics in order to assert a single, and irrefutable, truth: God gave her the ability to write Arboleda, and, since anything is possible for God, to deny her authorship is tantamount to denying the omnipotence of God. She declares that any reader who doubts her authorship does not believe that God is capable of miraculous deeds. She argues that it is rare for a woman to write but certainly not impossible if God so wills it. This article explores how Teresa constructs and builds what, on the surface, appears to be a simple, in not outright indisputable, tenet of Christian doctrine, i.e., God’s unlimited and inscrutable power.

KEYWORDS:

• Admiración operum Dey
• corteza/meollo
• female authorship
• Judith
• Teresa de Cartagena

Notes

Notes

1 All quotes from Arboleda de los enfermos and Admiraçión operum Dey are from the edition by Lewis Joseph Hutton (Anejo del Boletín de la Real Academia Española, Anejo XVI, 1967).

2 All English translations are from The Writings of Teresa de Cartagena by Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez (D.S. Brewer, 1998).

3 Fernando Gómez Redondo notes that “la habilidad de Teresa de Cartagena es extraordinaria, por cuanto no va a atacar directamente a aquellos que la habían criticado, sino que va a componer un tratado en el que, a la par de defender su capacidad para escribir sobre esas materias, impartirá lección de humildad y enseñará a sus detractores a ‘admirarse’ de lo que ella ha logrado con buen sentido y no con las malicias con que se acogiera su primer opúsculo…” (III: 3066) [“the ability of Teresa de Cartagena is extraordinary in that she does not directly attack those who had criticized her, but rather she composes a treatise in which, at the same time, she defends her ability to write about those materials and imparts a lesson in humility and teaches her detractors to ‘wonder’ at what she has accomplished with good sense and not with the malice with which her first work was received…”].

4 John Moore affirms that “patristic theology created a male/female dualism that associated the interior virtuous soul with the masculine and the exterior corruptible body with the feminine” (5).

5 See Yonsoo Kim's book Between Desire and Pasion: Teresa de Cartagena (Brill, 2012) and Juan-Carlos Conde’s review of it, published in vol. 45, no. 1, 2016 of La Corónica, pp. 157–67.

6 In this case, a woman with a disability.

7 It is worth noting that as a woman with a physical disability, Teresa cited immediately before this passage the Biblical story of the blind man asking Jesus to give him his sight, as a metaphor for asking for spiritual insight and understanding. See Luke 18:41.

8 Rivera Garretas comes to a similar conclusion, stating “la crítica de la época descalificó Arboleda de los enfermos con el argumento de que las mujeres no eran capaces ni de ser autoras ni hacer ciencia. Esa crítica no descalificó esa obra recurriendo, por ejemplo, a limitaciones o lagunas en los conocimientos de Teresa de Cartagena. La descalificó, pues, sosteniendo que el saber no es objetivo sino sexuado” (291) [“criticism of the time discredited Grove of the Infirm with the argument that women were incapable of being authors or making science. That criticism did not discredit the work by citing, for example, limitations or omissions in Teresa de Cartagena’s knowledge. They discredited it, sustaining that wisdom is not objective but rather determined by one’s sex”].

9 María Mar Cortés Timoner devotes a book-length study to Teresa as a mystic author—Teresa de Cartagena: Primera escritora mística en lengua castellana [Teresa de Cartagena: The First Female Mystic Writing in Castilian] (Universidad de Málaga, 2004). She correctly points out some parallels between Teresa de Cartagena and Teresa de Ávila—most importantly, perhaps the fact that they both suffered severe illness. The central difference, however, is that Teresa de Cartagena received spiritual illumination and insight through the experience of deafness but denies any spiritual union with God. She did not write at the behest of her confessors, as did Teresa de Ávila, in an attempt to explain the almost inexpressible experience of her intimate encounters with God. Teresa’s main concern in Arboleda is consoling fellow sufferers, and she does not present her situation as unique. Anyone can learn the lesson of patience in suffering in order to become more dependent on God and stay on the true path to salvation. She repeats these themes in Admiraçión while also defending her first treatise as an act of compassion toward all who are ill or disabled.

10 See Surtz’s analysis on pp. 30–35 of his book, Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain. See also pp. 144–47 of Yonsoo Kim’s Between Desire and Passion and p. 211 of María Mar Cortés Timoner’s Teresa de Cartagena: Primera escritora mística en lengua castellana.

11 Kim notes that this description is not intended to accent Judith’s sensuality or powers of seduction, but rather to accentuate her virtuousness. She contends that “In this narrative shift from a description of a sensual woman to an allegorization of the virtuous lady, Judith is now transformed into a worthy female figure that can personify goodness, humility, fortitude, and justice” (Between Desire and Passion, 146).

12 See for example, Gonzalo de Berceo’s use of the corteza/meollo motif in the introduction to the Milagros de Nuestra Señora in strophe 16 after his extended metaphor of the meadow and its delights:

Señores e amigos, lo que dicho avemos

palavra es oscurua, esponerla queremos;

tolgamos la corteza, al meollo entremos,

prendamos lo de dentro, lo de fuera dessemos. (565)

[Gentle people and friends, what we have just said is an obscure parable and we wish to explain it. Let us remove the husk and get into the marrow. Let us take what is within, and what is without, let us leave aside.] (15)

Juan Ruiz uses other variations on the corteza/meollo metaphor in strophe 17 of the Libro de buen amor:

El axenuz de fuera más negro es que caldera;

es de dentro muy blanco, más que la peña vera;

blanca farina está so negra cobertera;

açucar dulçe e blanco está en vil caña vera. (113)

[The fennel seed outside is blacker than old cook-pots on chains,

But on the inside whiter still than ermine’s winter mane.

White flour lies hid with the black case of the wheat’s dry grain;

And sugar, sweet and white, hides in the humble sugarcane.] (31)

13 Surtz summarizes by stating that “the bark is not more important than the pith nor is the pith more important than the bark” (28).

14 See the chart contrasting the attributes of these two types of women on p. 96 of Rocío Quispe’s article, “El espacio medieval femenino entre la escritura y el silencio: Admiraçion operum Dey de Teresa de Cartagena.”

15 Quispe further states that “La monja castellana escribe acerca de su espacio y lo valoriza feminizándolo en su discurso. Se trata del espacio de la ‘cogitación’ y del ‘estudio espiritual’ y no solo de la contemplación pasiva sino de la reflexión activa que lleva a la producción intelectual” (97) [“The Castilian nun writes about her space and gives it value by feminizing it in her discourse. It is a space for ‘thinking’ and ‘spiritual study’ and not only for passive contemplation, but for active reflection that leads to intellectual production”].

16 Genesis 2:18.

17 On this point, see Moore, p. 10.