From muses to poets: women writers and canonizational enunciation in Lope de Vega's work

Abstract

The present article analyses references to women writers in Lope de Vega's works. These references can be found in different types of texts; however, in the present paper we will focus on a listing and paratexts since both contain relevant information on the literary production and biography of women writers as well as on their relationship or links with other writers. The information obtained will hopefully be of great value to study in more depth the canon prevalent in the historical context. This might also provide a chance to reflect about exclusion mechanisms at work marginalising canon authors. References to these women by Lope de Vega in fact constitute a canonizing mechanism that has saved them from oblivion and has allowed us to obtain indirect information about women writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.