Early Modern Women Writers from Spanish America

Women writers in colonial Spanish America participated in lettered culture in a number of ways. Some boldly intervened in male-dominated literary forms, including sacred and secular poetry, theater, and more. Others chronicled their New World experiences with political and personal correspondence that builds on the relación, a testimonial genre that documents important events and individual accomplishments, often with political or legal aims. Still others shaped and reshaped religious writing styles that their Spanish counterparts had long cultivated, notably, the vida or spiritual autobiography.