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Rees, Margaret Ann
Margaret A. Rees held a Dudin Brown Open Scholarship at Westfield College, London, where she obtained her M.A. and Ph.D degrees. She later took up a post-doctoral Fellowship and then a lecturing post at Liverpool University. As Senior lecturer in Spanish at Trinity and All Saints University College, Leeds, she was General Editor of the Leeds Iberian Papers series. She has also published six books relating to the Romantic period or to the Spanish Golden Age. She is author of The Writings of Doña Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza, Catholic Missionary to James I's London and Doña María Vela y Cueto, Cistercian Mystic of Spain’s Golden Age, both in the Edwin Mellen Press's Spanish Studies Series. At present she lives near Oxford where she is a member of the Graduate Seminar in Spanish Studies organized by the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages of Oxford University.
2004 0-7734-6321-6María Vela y Cueto (1561-1617), a Cistercian nun, represents the later stages of a religious reform led by St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, her mystical life recorded in a spiritual diary and an autobiography. In recent years interest has been gathering in religious writings by women, since comparatively little is known about them. One crucial issue under discussion is the connection between mystical ecstasy and hysteria or neuroticism in women. In the past María has been presented as a constitutionally weak female - holy but hysterical. This study aims to re-awaken awareness of an almost unknown figure who was once venerated, and also to look again at her spirituality. Her writings are of interest to hispanists, historians and theologians: (1) as an example of the growing number of mystics in Golden Age Iberia; (2) as an illustration of Spanish social history at this time; (3) for the light they throw on contemporary Church history, including the increasing importance of spiritual advisers; (4) for their description of convent life including - since María was organist and choir mistress - a glimpse of the liturgy in a convent famed for its music in an era producing some of Spain's greatest composers. More important still, her pages include passages of great power which should be made more widely known to an English-speaking public, especially anyone with an interest in spirituality.
2007 0-7734-5500-0
Following an earlier monograph,Doña María Vela y Cueto, Cistercian Mystic of Spain’s Golden Age (Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), in which the life and spirituality of this almost unknown Cistercian nun living in the Spanish Golden Age, Dr. Margaret A. Rees now reproduces two works by Doña María Vela y Cueto. The first volume presents her Libro de las Mercedes, consisting of the spiritual diary of this nun who, being cloistered in the city of Avila, had witnessed the reforms and influence of St. Teresa d’Avila and St. John of the Cross who recalls and records her own mystical experiences. Included in the second volume is her Vida, an autobiographical work composed in obedience to her spiritual director and reflecting the trials which could afflict a nun striving to stretch the boundaries of convent life as she aimed for sainthood.
2007 0-7734-5517-5
Following an earlier monograph,Doña María Vela y Cueto, Cistercian Mystic of Spain’s Golden Age (Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), in which the life and spirituality of this almost unknown Cistercian nun living in the Spanish Golden Age, Dr. Margaret A. Rees now reproduces two works by Doña María Vela y Cueto. The first volume presents her Libro de las Mercedes, consisting of the spiritual diary of this nun who, being cloistered in the city of Avila, had witnessed the reforms and influence of St. Teresa d’Avila and St. John of the Cross who recalls and records her own mystical experiences. Included in the second volume is her Vida, an autobiographical work composed in obedience to her spiritual director and reflecting the trials which could afflict a nun striving to stretch the boundaries of convent life as she aimed for sainthood.
2002 0-7734-7037-9