Incoherent Subjects, Incomplete Lives: The Limits of Spiritual Autobiography in Spain

摘要

For many years Teresa de ????vila?￠????s Libro de la vida was considered an exceptional work of literature, in both senses of the word ?￠????exceptional?￠????. The work of Isabelle Poutrin, Francisco Dur????n L???3pez and others has made us question one of these meanings: no one doubts Teresa?￠????s great literary value, but we now know that hers is one of hundreds (if not more) spiritual autobiographies/diaries kept by early modern Spanish women (and a few men as well). None of these lesser known vidas are as comprehensive or polished as Teresa?￠????s Vida , and many are fragmentary and even incoherent. Insofar as these partial accounts of spiritual graces have been studied or translated, they are often excerpted, paraphrased, or translated in such a way as to make them more legible than, I argue, they really are. I propose then to consider how we might integrate these failed (in the sense that their authors?￠???? spiritual narratives were never deemed models for others), fragmentary, incomplete, and incoherent narratives into the study of the ?￠????spiritual autobiography?￠????. This chapter will examine a selection of such autobiographies to make the argument that, by examining a more complete corpus of spiritual autobiographies, and not just the most polished and successful ones, we get a different and fuller picture of the possibilities and limits of women?￠????s self-fashioning through language in the early modern period.