Ángela de Azevedo (in Spanish, Acevedo) was a 17th Century Portuguese playwright.[1][2]

Ângela de Azevedo
The Manor house of Azevedo, in Paredes da Beira (Portugal), birthplace of Ângela de Azevedo
The Manor house of Azevedo, in Paredes da Beira (Portugal), birthplace of Ângela de Azevedo
Bornc. 1665
Paredes da Beira, Portugal
DiedBefore 1723
Soutelo do Douro, Portugal
OccupationPlaywright
LanguageSpanish
NationalityPortuguese
CitizenshipPortuguese

Biography

Controversy about the period and circumstances of her life

According to Damião de Froes Perym, an 18th century Portuguese author,[3] Ângela de Azevedo was born in Lisbon, likely in the early 17th century, to a nobleman of the Royal House, João de Azevedo Pereira and his wife Izabel de Oliveira.[4] Perym writes that she spent time in the court of Philip IV of Spain in Madrid as a handmaiden to the king's wife Elisabeth of Bourbon.[1] and notes that Azevedo married sometime before Elisabeth's death in 1644, but does not record her husband's name.[4] After his death, she supposedly retired with her daughter to a Benedictine convent in Portugal where she lived until her death.[2][5]

However, another 18th century Portuguese author, Diogo Barbosa Machado, in the second and in the fourth volumes of his Bilbiotheca Lusitana, presented a very different version of Ângela de Azevedo's life, stating that she was a daughter of Tomé de Azevedo, a military leader in the Portuguese Restoration War (1640–1668), and his wife Dona Maria de Almeida.[6] [7]

Recent research on her biography

Recent research[8] has corroborated Barbosa Machado's version, showing on the basis of documents retrieved from Portuguese archives that Ângela de Azevedo was indeed born in the second half of the 17th Century, probably around year 1665,[9] in Paredes da Beira,[10] Portugal, daughter of Tomé de Azevedo, governor of the Castle Fortress of Almeida, and his wife Maria de Almeida.

She was brought up in the Manor house of Azevedo,[11][12] in Paredes da Beira, an estate that had belonged to her family since the Middle Ages, and where she married Francisco de Ansiâes de Figueiredo on November 1, 1693.[13] She moved with her husband to nearby Soutelo do Douro,[14] where she mostly spent the rest of her life and where she would die, sometime before 1723.[15] She had no children from her marriage. Like her sister Luísa, who would inherit the Azevedo estate, Ângela de Azevedo was fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and Latin.[16]

She wrote all her works in Spanish. Her play "El muerto disimulado (Presumed Dead)" has been recently re-edited, with a translation into English;[17] in this work Ângela de Azevedo "posits a feminist discourse by constructing a protagonist, Jacinta, who breaks with the traditional female role of passive object to take control of narrative and emplotment as the speaking subject."[18]

Ângela de Azevedo is one of six known female playwrights of seventeenth century Spain.[19]

Works

She wrote several plays, three of which have survived to the present:

  • El muerto disimulado (The Feigned Death),[20]
  • La Margarita del Tajo que dió nombre a Santarem (Margarita of Tajo Who Gave Her Name to Santarem), and
  • Dicha y desdicha del juego y devoción de la Virgen (Bliss and Misfortune in the Game and Devotion to the Virgin).[1]

All three are written in Spanish and placed in Portugal.[2] The first has a secular theme, while the remaining two have typically religious themes.[5] It is thought that her plays may have been staged in the royal palace.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Pérez, Janet; Ihrie, Maureen, eds. (2002). "Drama by Spanish Women Writers: 1500–1700". The Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature. Vol. 1. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 186. ISBN 9780313324444. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 de Cano; J. R. Fernández. "Acevedo o Azevedo, Ángela de (¿-1644)". MCN Biografías. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Damião de Froes Perym, Theatro Heroino, abecedario historico, e catalogo das mulheres ilustres em armas, letras acçoens heroicas e artes liberais, Lisboa Occidental, Officina de Musica de Theotonio Antunes Lima, 1740
  4. 1 2 Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Vol. 4. D.F. Robinson. 1844. p. 400.
  5. 1 2 3 Vollendorf, Lisa (2005). The Lives of Women: A New History of Inquisitional Spain. Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 74–89. ISBN 9780826514813.
  6. ↑ Machado, Diogo Barbosa (1747). Bibliotheca lusitana historica, critica, e cronologica Tomo II...por Diogo Barbosa Machado,... (in Brazilian Portuguese). na officina de Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca. p. 247.
  7. ↑ Machado, Diogo Barbosa (1741). Bibliotheca lusitana historica, critica, e cronologica.Tomo IV (in Portuguese). Robarts - University of Toronto. Lisboa. pp. 19–20.
  8. ↑ Provenzano, Serena (2019). "La carrera vital de Ángela de Azevedo. Estado de la cuestión y nuevas aportaciones". Anagnórisis: Revista de investigación teatral (19): 78–100. ISSN 2013-6986.
  9. ↑ Provenzano, p. 88
  10. ↑ "Paredes da Beira". www.sjpesqueira.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 2021-09-12.
  11. ↑ "DGPC | Casa de Azevedo e capela. Casa da Torre das Pedras". www.patrimoniocultural.gov.pt. Retrieved 2021-09-12.
  12. ↑ "Monumentos. Casa de Azevedo - Casa da Torre das Pedras. Portugal, Viseu, São João da Pesqueira, Paredes da Beira". www.monumentos.gov.pt. Retrieved 2021-09-12.
  13. ↑ Provenzano, p. 92
  14. ↑ "Junta de Freguesia de Soutelo do Douro". www.sjpesqueira.pt (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 2021-09-12.
  15. ↑ Provenzano, p. 93
  16. ↑ UFSC-NUPILL, UFSC-INE. "Digital Library of Literature from Lusophone Countries. "PINTO, Alexandre de Sousa. O Pe Manuel de Azevedo, s.j., (1713-1796) e o papel que poderá ter desempenhado na normalização das relações entre Portugal e a Santa Sé."". www.literaturabrasileira.ufsc.br (in Brazilian Portuguese). p. 6. Retrieved 2021-09-12.
  17. ↑ Azevedo, Angela de (2018). El muerto disimulado = Presumed dead. Valerie Hegstrom, Catherine Larson. Liverpool. ISBN 978-1-80034-524-9. OCLC 1197844497.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ↑ "Engendering Narrative Equality in Ángela de Azevedo's El muerto disimulado". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2021-09-12.
  19. ↑ Chambers, Donna M (2009-03-01). "Ultimate Reality and Meaning in the Works of Angela De Azevedo". Ultimate Reality and Meaning. 32 (1): 54. doi:10.3138/uram.32.1.51. ISSN 0709-549X.
  20. ↑ Azevedo, Angela. Comedia famosa: El muerto dissimulado (in Spanish).
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