FE/MALE FRIENDS

Although the traditions of philia and amicitia proclaim friendship as a universal concept, it has been an androcentric model until the emergence of the female friend in the Age of Enlightenment. This book analyzes the discursive turn from premodern to modern gendered constructions of friends in Spanish literature and sheds light on specific models of male, female, and mixed relationships in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Our approach reveals the gendering of male friendship through the exclusion of women and shows the crucial moment when women appear capable of true friendship. The study traces the process of transition from a homosocial bond based on a feudal notion of honor in the Siglo de Oro to new forms of affective relations in a proto-bour ...