Authorship and female authority in the Spanish Golden Age: María de Zayas y Sotomayor’s «Al que leyere»

Abstract

María de Zayas y Sotomayor, a Spanish Golden Age woman writer, wrote the prologue «Al que leyere» for her first collection of short novels, Novelas amorosas y ejemplares, published in 1637. Being aware of the fact that as a woman she was an integral part of a group excluded from social space, as well as of the resistance she faced when making her voice public, «Al que leyere» is a feminist manifesto. María de Zayas would seek to empower her own speech while recognizing the worth of women. In this paper I will focus on two of the empowering strategies used by the author in her prologue. The rejection of the normative woman, that is, the opposition to the official discourse about female inferiority. And the exposition of a female genealogy, whose purpose is to give authority to women and herself at the same time. María de Zaya’s «Al que leyere» is not the author’s defense of her own exceptionality, but the defense of women as a social collective.