The representation of sericicultural women in Valencian literary texts of the Renaissance: Frederic Mistral’s echoes

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, as Frederic Mistral shows in his epic rural poem Mirèio (1859), we find silk growers in the mulberry fields. Not only did they share the practice of an agricultural and industrial activity associated with the production of silk, but also a literary relationship that was established between the territories of Provence and Valencia. In this paper, we relate the literary portrayal of those women dedicated to the sericulture sector that Mirèio presents with the poetry of the Valencian Renaissance, from Teodor Llorente through Constantí Llombart, Josep Maria Puig i Torralva and Francesc Badenes.