Words for Sale: Early Modern Spanish Women’s Literary Economy

Abstract

During the early modern period, most Spanish women understood writing as a means of entertainment or selfexpression, but a few seventeenthcentury female writers built a literary career that gave them prestige as well as financial or economic benefits. These women were proactive in the literary field: they wrote works that were of high commercial interest and could be sold to publishers, composed comedies that were purchased by impresarios to be staged in commercial theatres, received commissions from corporations, and wrote to please patrons who rewarded their work. Besides obtaining direct monetary gains, women writers applied the logic of profit: Luisa Sigea (c. 1522– 1560) – like other humanists in the first half of the sixteenth century – worked as Latin teacher or secretary for the Portuguese court. Others used literature for utilitarian reasons to promote themselves, their families or their convents. This chapter shows that although there were fewer of them and that they occupied weaker positions, Spanish women writers were active participants of the literary field like their male peers.