From history to fiction: gender relations in the XVI and XVII centuries in the pages of Las dos doncellas, by Cervantes

Abstract

This article discusses the strategies adopted by Miguel de Cervantes in his representation of women in La dos doncellas, in Novelas ejemplares. By seizing some of the models that were constant in ethical, moral and religious treatises of the Spanish Golden Age, Cervantes seems at first sight to reproduce such patterns in his own female characters. However, Cervantes was not only reproducing these very conventional treatises, for he gave a certain degree of freedom to his female characters and presented them violating the traditional rules of the time.