Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity / / Alison Weber.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Weber, Alison,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2020]; ©1990
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (194 p.)

Celebrated as a visionary chronicler of spirituality, Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) suffered persecution by the Counter-Reformation clergy in Spain, who denounced her for her "diabolical illusions" and "dangerous propaganda." Confronting the historical irony of Teresa's transformation from a figure of questionable orthodoxy to a national saint, Alison Weber shows how this teacher and reformer used exceptional rhetorical skills to defend her ideas at a time when women were denied participation in theological discourse. In a close examination of Teresa's major writings, Weber correlates the stylistic techniques of humility, irony, obfuscation, and humor with social variables such as the marginalized status of pietistic groups and demonstrates how Teresa strategically adopted linguistic features associated with women--affectivity, spontaneity, colloquialism--in order to gain access to the realm of power associated with men.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Editions and Translations -- Introduction -- CHAPTER I Little Women: Counter-Reformation Misogyny -- CHAPTER II The Book of Her Life and the Rhetoric of Humility -- CHAPTER III The Way of Perfection and the Rhetoric of Irony -- CHAPTER IV The Interior Castle and the Rhetoric of Obfuscation -- CHAPTER v The Book of Foundations and the Rhetoric of Authority -- CONCLUSION The Golden Pen -- Bibliography -- Index