Women and Carriages in 17th-Century Aragonese Burlesque Poetry

Abstract

During the 17th century, literature turned the growing number of carriages into a burlesque topic. There were countless poems written about traffic jams, accidents, or the proper way to ask a friend for a carriage, often considered a symbol of status. Literary references to carriages can tell us many things about the men and women who used them, as well as about gender stereotypes. Women and carriages were understood as interconnected elements in Early Modern Spain; carriages appear as a means to conquer feminine muses as well as a recurrent satirical topic even for women poets. This article analyzes some rarely studied burlesque poems by Aragonese writers José Navarro, Alberto Díez, José Tafalla and Ana Abarca de Bolea, among others, that can help us understand the range and extension of some oversimplified topoi on womanhood that have survived until today