El cuerpo femenino según Cervantes
The Female Body According to Cervantes

Summary/Abstract: The author of Don Quixote grants a primary role to women and, throughout his works, creates magnificent portraits of women. Plato’s ideas dominated thought for several centuries, and Cervantes was influenced by the Athenian philosopher. The illustrious Spanish writer considers beauty and virtue consubstantial, a beautiful person is also virtuous, there is no beauty without virtue. To describe women physically, Cervantes uses the canons inspired by the harmony of the bodies of the Greco-Roman statues, later propagated by Renaissance poetry and converted into clichés. The women have long golden hair, coral lips, rosy cheeks, pearl teeth, necks of alabaster, hands so white that they look like snow, and great harmony of body. A body that Cervantes never explicitly describes. Surprisingly, Mr. Vidriera ironises precisely these canons of beauty, too hackneyed at the time. In Cervantes’ works, ugliness is associated with a lack of virtue.

• Details
• Contents