Modalities of Female Disguise in the Crónica do Imperador Beliandro (I): The Adventure of Felisaura and the King of England

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13136/2284-2667/1672

Keywords:

Beliandro, Belindo, books of chivalry, disguise, female characters

Abstract

This paper offers an initial exploration of the different instances and modalities of female disguise in the Crónica do Imperador Beliandro (or Ciclo de D. Belindo), one of the last books of chivalry written in Portuguese, attributed by critics to the Countess da Vidigueira, Leonor Coutinho de Távora (d. 1648). In the chivalric universe, female disguise is a literary device that enables women to transcend traditional gender roles and explore new identities (Trujillo, 2019). To examine this, this study analyses one of the short stories interwoven into the First Part of Beliandro, in which female disguise plays a crucial role: the adventure of Felisaura and the King of England (Part I, chapters 32-40), a narrative possibly inspired by the episode of Félix and Felismena in Jorge de Montemayor’s La Diana.

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Published

2025-12-19

Issue

No. 13 (2025): Identity and Disguise: The Female Gender in the Romances of Chivalry

Section

Monographic

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Copyright (c) 2025 Pedro Álvarez-Cifuentes

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