8 Babel Volume XXI
A Cell of Her Own: Female Identity, Community, and ProtoFeminist Thought in the Autobiographies of Early Modern Women Religious Lucy Boyd Living and working in a time of profound social and political change, Catholic nuns in the 16th and 17th centuries found themselves at the intersection of several pressing questions. With the advent of the Protestant Reformation––a movement that advocated for the closure of convents––their traditional way of life was under threat. Furthermore, the ongoing querelle des femmes debate, sparked by Christine de Pisan centuries earlier, foregrounded questions surrounding the proper role of women in society.1 As one of the only female-centred environments at this time, convents provided a unique vantage point from which its inhabitants could interrogate these challenges and consider the political and personal roles of women. Many of these “women religious” took advantage of the nunnery’s unusual environment to write texts that provide valuable insights into the complexities of their lived realities. Carole Slade notes that, in this era, “women […] were most often represented by men.”2 Yet in convents, many nuns defied this standard and wrote of their personal lived experiences, both as cloistered and embodied women, in acts of remarkable self-representation. This essay will examine the autobiographical output of three nuns––St. Teresa of Avila, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Arcangela Tarabotti––and the ways in which their cloistered environment influenced their perceptions of female identity and their place in the world.
