Virtuosa, casta y heroica. La mujer española en el Melólogo del XVIII

Abstract

This paper concerns itself with the onstage image of Spanish women throughout the Eighteenth Century. With this purpose in mind, two particularly significative melologues —Mariano Nifo’s La casta amante de Teruel, doña Isabel de Segura and Joaquín Barón y Domingo’s La mujer heroica, esposa de Alonso Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, doña María Alonso Coronel— will be analysed. In both monologues, the two women eschew the ubiquitous «domestic-wife» model so as to impersonate a fresh type of woman: strong, heroic, and ultimately patriotic. Each of them stems from utterly opposed argumentative stances. Yet, both play the part of a virtuous woman who faces an extreme situation, both personally and socially, only to emerge stronger and a living example of heroism. The specificities of the genre allow the spectator to be an eye-witness to the emotional process of such heroines; to get acquainted with their own weaknesses and hardships; and to find out how they get over them, as well as which mental processes they go through. In a nutshell: all aspects promote the moralising and awareness-raising role, so typically characteristic of most theatrical genres