Phoebus Apollo in the epic plot in the Memorial of the Christ’s Childhood and Triumph of the divine Love (1639) by Soror Maria de Mesquita Pimentel

Abstract

This article focuses on how it is represented the figure of Apollo in the religious epic by Soror Maria de Mesquita Pimentel (1581-1661) that had taken her vows at the Monastery of Saint Benedict of Cástris in the city of Évora as a nun of the Cistercian Order. She became a pionery because written and published the first epic work by a woman in Portuguese language: Memorial da Infância de Christo e Triumpho do Divino Amor (1639). This book is a key work for our understanding of both gender and epic studies, both in the context of Portuguese literature and from the standpoint the greek mythology including in the monasteries. For this we will make a survey around what the critics say about this god and which are the appropriations that the writer-nun gives to this myth in her text because he figures quite often, more than other mythological gods, with clearly intended to demonstrate the symbolic plurality of this deity in the service of what is benevolent and Christian.