“Vi que era mujer y tan sujeta a pasiones y flaquezas como yo”: el intercambio epistolar entre Teresa de Jesús y Luisa de la Cerda

The seven letters, that, as far as we know, Teresa of Ávila sent to Luisa de la Cerda, immerse us in the frenetic pace of life of the Carmelite Mother around the year 1568, when, thanks to the help of the Toledan noblewoman, she founded her second convent in Malagón (Ciudad Real). Teresa’s anxiety over her autobiography arriving to Juan of Ávila is one of the main subjects of the letters: through this we can capture the mental state in which Teresa of Jesus lived, tormented by doubts about her spiritual raptures. Besides, as the letters are addressed to a feminine speaker, we can observe how Teresa of Ávila distanced herself from the coldness and formality of the theological (and masculine) universe and developed a new “feminine poetic,” that will later on dominate her main spiritual works.