Biography

by Calvin Westfall

Perhaps no Spanish Golden Age writer embodies the nature of the Baroque in their person more than Ângela de Azevedo. Azevedo, a Portuguese born author who wrote in Spanish during the 17th century, certainly did not enjoy the fame nor produce as much material as some of her contemporaries, male or female; however, she may occupy the position of most intriguing and enigmatic among them. Most of the existing information about Azevedo lacks detail and different sources often contradict each other regarding details of her parentage, her places of residence, her positions within society, her final days, and even the spelling of her name.

We have three extant plays, all published as sueltas, from the Portuguese playwright: Dicha y desdicha del juego y devoción de la virgen, La Margarita del Tajo que dio nombre a Santarem, and El muerto disimulado. The texts themselves may offer the greatest evidence of and the avenue to discovering what we can about Azevedo in the plays’ settings, themes, and the words used to bring the comedias off the page and onto the stage. Through a literary analysis of the text and a linguistic analysis of the playwright’s native Portuguese on the Spanish employed in her texts, we hope to pry open the mystery of Ângela de Azevedo and reveal the pearl that is her life story.