Soledad, enfermedad y discapacidad en España y América, 1530-1680: Vigencia actual de los testimonios de una veinteañera y cuarentona inquieta (Teresa de Ávila), una viuda cincuentona (Marina Navas) y una esclava negra setentona (Esperanza)

Elena Carrera

doi:10.5565/rev/studiaaurea.599

Loneliness, Illness and Disability in Spain and America, 1530-1680

Relevance Today of the Testimonies of a Disquiet Woman in her Twenties and Forties (Teresa de Ávila), a Widow in her Fifties (Marina Navas) and a Black Slave in her Seventies (Esperanza)

Authors

Elena Carrera Queen Mary University of London https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3655-1130

PDF (ES)

Abstract

In the last decade, loneliness has been studied as something undesired, which affects people of all ages. For example, an article in the medical journal The Lancet in 2018 stated that loneliness is something from which one in twelve people in industrialized societies suffer severely. Another study published in Sweden in 2022 warned about the physical and mental deterioration that loneliness might cause. In this article, I propose to contrast some of the ways of experiencing loneliness prevailing today with the type of solitude that Teresa of Jesús promoted through her example, in her convents and in her writings, and with the loneliness and solitude of two women in colonial Mexico: the widow and nun Marina de la Cruz (1536-1597) and a black slave named Esperanza (?-1679). I seek to demonstrate the validity and relevance today of these historical testimonies of how to get used to loneliness, avoid “private friendships” and learn to love unconditionally.

Keywords

loneliness, Spain and America, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, disease, disability

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