ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a glimpse of literary representations of children in Spanish Golden Age literature by contrasting different realms of childhood. It examines both nonfictional and fictional texts composed throughout the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries in Spain, which reflect the complexities and contradictions of gender formation in early modern childhood. The chapter also examines two prominent examples of the genre in particular, one featuring a male rogue and the other a female, in which lower-class protagonists manage to make their own path to a successful future, even as they are raised without parental guidance. Gender ideology is acquired during childhood in various ways, such as education, social training and interaction with others. The mother, as role model for the ideal woman, took precedence in the nurturing process for imposing the primary virtue of chastity on her daughter.
