Demons, Nausea, and Resistance in the Autobiography of Isabel De Jesus (1611-1682)

Isabel de Jesus was a seventeenth-century Carmelite nun who manipulated traditional religious rhetoric in the manner of St. Teresa to express resistance to a misogynistic tradition. Her fascinating autobiography provides a rich source for examining strategies employed by women religious writers. Velasco discusses Isabel's extraordinary ability to articulate the double binds women writers faced, her multiple symbolic uses of nausea and vomiting, and her use of the voice of the Devil as a spokesman for traditional male views. This important in-depth study illustrates how Isabel reshapes symbolic logic in ways that permit her to defend her authority as a writer. Literary scholars will find the discussion of rhetorical strategies and metanarrative discourse engaging as will specialists in religious studies, women's studies, and early modern history.