Entre Ave e Eva: as representações do feminino nas peças de Gil Vicente (séculos XV-XVI)

Abstract

The historiography already pointed out in diferent ways for the pastoral discourse that legitimates female inferiority, the greatest indicator of medieval misogyny. This is misogynist discourse that we find again in Gil Vicente. This man, deeply attached to the principles of devotion, fulfilled as a court poet the pedagogical function of educating those who for him did not follow the established standrds while the dramaturge builds the image of the sinful, malicious, frivolous and lustfful Eve. However, as profound defender of the Marian model that he was, the dramaturge created as an opposition the image of Eve, chractes that represented the virtues of the Virgin Mary. But to make his mission possible he compared the heavenly model of Mary to the queen’s earthly model. This could only be Queen Leonor, who would have been the great protector and financier of the Vicentian theater. We find that all this misogynistic imaginary is indicative of the recreation of new models of behavioral feminine that contradicted the model based in the Virgin Mary. In this sense, the objective of this work is to understand the female behavior in Portugal from the 16th century, through the female representations that appear in the Vicentian theater.