Violante Do Ceo - Selected Themes

Selected Themes


Rimas Varias, the first theme the reader encounters is the evocation of traditional suffering of male poets immortalizing femal beloved objects.

Ay decreto cruel del bien que adoro
que poseyendo tú, me des la muerte
y que escribiendo yo, te dé la vida

Yet, it is important to note that Sor Violante employs a sapphic style in that both grieving speaker and deceased addressee are women (Dugaw 10). In other works found in Rimas varias, Sor Violante do Ceu writes poetic verses about the trials living-in-love and the idea of swooning courtship. The elements she utilizes in these works use a vocabulary of lyrical love that is both idealized and erotic (Dugaw 10).

Sor Violante do Ceu introduces the humor of self-parody and gender play that become more explicit, as found in her poetic romance, "Amada prenda del alma" (Rimas varias) . In this work, she presents an all-female love triangle that implicitly pokes fun at the inevitability of heterosexual possessiveness (Dugaw 10). The woman, the desired object of exchange, moves not between men, but from woman speaker to woman addressee. In these poems, the extremes are not of hierarchical gender positions, as found with heterosexual love, but feeling. The poet casts before us the egocentrism of male possession of women, and at the same time, she demonstrates a compelling, erotic intimacy between women (Dugaw 11).

Another theme common to Sor Violante’s works is religious mysticism, which is also common to other writers of her time such as Teresa of Avila, another Spanish mystics. Sor Violante’s religious poetry exhibits a distinctly feminine voice and a predilection for Nativity themes (Boyce 135). For example, Al Nacimiento en la Misa (To the Nativity in Mass) exemplifies the correlation between the incarnation motifs, the corporality of divinity, in both the Nativity and the Mass (Boyce 135). Moreover, some of Sor Violante do Ceu’s poetry contrasts human and divine love, as when she compares the object of desire “tal objeto” to that of one lost at sea. Sanity cannot "capture such beauty or make sense of such feeling; only wit suffices to command the paradox and to yoke the extremes" (Dugaw 11). In this blinding light where good sense goes delirious, the reasoned esteem of friendship and the passion of love are indistinguishable.

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