SOURCE: de Garcia, Susan Paun. “Zayas as Writer: Hell Hath No Fury.” In María de Zayas: The Dynamics of Discourse, edited by Amy R. Williamsen and Judith A. Whitenack, pp. 40-51. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995.

In the essay below, de Garcia contends that the frame narratives of Zayas's two collections reflect her evolving relationship with the literary academies of her time.

María de Zayas was an enormously popular writer. Though her comedia went unpublished and, as far as we know, unperformed, her poetry was very successful in her own time, and her prose works are still being edited and read today. In addition, we know that María de Zayas participated in literary academies, or academias. If, as a young woman, she accompanied her father to Naples, she might have been allowed to witness reunions of the Ociosos organized in 1611 by Pedro Fern...