María de Zayas

This identification strengthens the links with convent of the Concepción Jerónima as well as Inés de Casamayor and the son of the Duke of Híjar, to whom the Desengaños amorosos are dedicated.

Rodríguez likewise sheds more light on the relationship between Zayas and Juan Pérez de Montalbán, whose fathers knew each other, and shows that the author had a sister called Isabel.

The only physical description of de Zayas, which is likely made in jest, comes from Francesc Fontanella in his Vejámenes: viu ab cara varonil, que a bé que ‘sayas’ tenía, bigotes filava altius.

Semblava an algun cavaller, mes jas’ vindrà a descubrir que una espasa mal se amaga baix las ‘sayas’ femenils.

In Spain Miguel de Cervantes published his Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Stories in the English translation) in 1613, in which he dispensed with the frame narrative.

The female characters in both books are well developed, and their experience allows them to eloquently denounce their inferior role in society: "Why vain legislators of the world, do you tie our hands so that we cannot take vengeance?

H. Patsy Boyer, The Enchantments of Love) As recently as the early 1970s, scant attention was devoted to female writers of the Golden Age of Spain.

Then, in 1976 Frederick A. de Armas foregrounded her work in his book The Invisible Mistress: Aspects of Feminism and Fantasy in the Golden Age.

During the 1990s, a variety of scholars, including Margaret Greer and Marina S. Brownlee (both in 2000), published influential monographs on the work of the Madrid writer.

Translations (Patsy Boyer), conference papers, and essay collections (Judith Whitenack, Amy Williamsen, Gwyn Campbell) abounded.

She also points out that de Zayas' women were atypical females who chose to fight for revenge and defy their roles toward gender, race, sexuality, and class.

According to Vollendorf, Zayas had little expectation for change to occur by itself, and she became a voice urging women to seek independence and men to educate themselves about violence.

The paternalistic society of 17th-century Spain dictated the confinement of the majority of the women to the home, the convent, or brothels, and it was fortunate for Zayas that she was born into privilege and was able to avoid living this type of existence.

The women are independent and demonstrate that they do not need a male in order to discourse on intelligent topics, and furthermore, that they are more than capable of following the same practical ground rules and protocols as the men do.

Rhodes offers a post-feminist analysis of Zayas's second collection of stories, uncovering fractures in what scholars tend to interpret as a pro-women agenda.

But Zayas and other writers of the 17th century, including her fellow Spaniards Ana Caro and Leonor de Meneses, as well as England's Aphra Behn,[3] have been rediscovered by academics seeking to uncover or re-discover other first-rate works by unconventional voices.