Cuerpo, trato interior y artes de la memoria: Autoconocimiento e individuo moderno en el texto de úrsula San Diego Convento Espiritual

Abstract

The book Convento Espiritual (Spiritual Convent) of the Spanish nun Ursula de San Diego, possibly written during the sixteenth century in Granada, Spain, is part of a tradition of womens' writing as an exercise in mystical-ascetic and devout religious life on both sides of the Atlantic. This essay proposes a reading this text within the frame of a textual genre originated in those practices of knowledge organization derived from the arts of memory; as a textual genre, it can also be understood as a form of subject construction. These are remarkable features to be found in this text, and though they are not exclusive to it, they are important because the Convento espiritual belongs to the history of the early books printed in Chile after the Independence; this points out to the recognition of the educational value of this type of writing women in those societies belonging to the Old Regime.