Bodies to Reveal and Conceal: Baroque Dynamics of Obscenity (Heresy) and Modesty (Saintliness) in Feminine Bodies in the Peruvian Viceroyalty

Abstract

Obscenity and modesty: at first glance, we recognise these terms a priori, as clear in their morality and limits. However, both concepts are ambiguous, porous, and paradoxical. Obscenity and modesty are complementary categories, and their definitions are circumstantial; that is, they depend on an interpretive framework as much as historical and textual context for substantiation. Using this brief reflection as a point of departure, the purpose of this work is to study the dynamics of the modest/obscene – framed by conceptualisations of saintliness and heresy – in the context of the Spanish colonies in America and using textualities associated with feminine spiritual devotion in the Peruvian Viceroyalty of the seventeenth century. To this end, two particularly resonant cases will be analysed: those of Saint Rose of Lima (1586–1617) and Ángela Carranza (1643–1694). This work’s hypothesis is that spiritual behaviours considered modest or obscene reveal themselves as paradoxical in the given context and that, despite initiatives by colonial powers to sustain the differences between the categories, many acts of feminine spiritual devotion become dislocated from their original modest context and intersect with elements of the obscene.