Materiales para acercar mundos: América en las cartas y fundaciones de Teresa de Jesús

Abstract

Teresa of Avila established her first Discalced Carmelite convent in the city of Avila in 1561, financed by the golden pesos her brother Lorenzo de Cepeda sent her from the Viceroyalty of Peru. Taking this economic dependence as a starting point, this article hopes to unravel the multitasking relationship Teresa established with America. The distant territory did not only become a source of economic relief, but it also became one of the rhetorical and spiritual pillars that would hold the unstable beginnings of Teresa's religious project. Drawing on the study of the letters, relics, and religious imagery exchanged with her brother in Quito, and focusing on the metallurgical lexicon displayed in her visionary rhetoric, as well as on her crucial understanding of the Franciscan missionary tactics, I argue that Teresa of Avila learned to strategically define her relationship with America to authorize her multifaceted spiritual and literary endeavor.