Celestina and Old Ballads: Themes, Characters, and Style
Celestina
Celestina, published in Burgos in 1499, consists of 21 acts and was written by Fernando de Rojas. Act I is of unknown authorship.
Action
The dramatic action is structured in the prologue (which is the initial act) and two parts: the first (Acts I-XIV) and second (Acts XV to XXI).
The action stems from a fortuitous circumstance: Calisto comes casually into the Garden of Melibea, falls in love, and declares his love, but she rejects him when she realizes that his intentions are dishonest. Given the rejection, Calisto hires a bawd, Celestina, with the assistance of his servants, to get the surrender of the young woman.
Celestina refuses to share the reward with the helpers; these murder her and are executed. The young woman delivers her love until a fall ends with the life of the unfortunate Calisto, so Melibea commits suicide.
Characters
- Calisto: Dominated by the passion of love, he is shown retracted and melancholy at times.
- Melibea: A more complex and attractive character than Calisto.
- Celestina: The old go-between, intermediary of the relationship, establishing a prototype matchmaker. Dominated by the passion of greed.
- Sempronio: Represents a servant with a relationship with his landlord for economic and non-affective reasons. He is false, unfair, cowardly, and violent.
- Pleberio: Father of Melibea, tender and affectionate with his daughter, but too confident.
Topics
- Love: Shown as an uncontrollable passion that destabilizes the minds of the characters.
- Greed: A passion that maddens servants and Celestina.
- Magic: Plays a dramatic role; Melibea awakens the fire of love.
- Fortune: Blind chance and arbitrary events are responsible for the tragedies.
- Time: Allusions to the hours and the clocks in the work are continuous.
- Death
Social World
a) On the one hand, relations between social strata, respect between masters and servants, have been replaced by economic relations.
b) A new moral code based on individuality, freedom, etc.
Old Ballads
The romances are short lyrical-epic compositions arising from the fragmentation of the ancient epic poems.
Evolution and Tradition
Transmitted orally in the fifteenth century. Along the 16th century, cultured authors collected and included them in songbooks and ballads.
During the 17th century, renowned authors (Góngora, Cervantes, etc.) imitated the traditional ones and formed new romances.
Topics
a) Historical-national: It comes from the ancient epic poems and exalts their Castilian heroes.
b) Romantic and lyrical: Created by popular imagination.
c) Carolingian: Focus on the figure of Charlemagne and related events.
d) Border: Recount events taking place on the border between Moorish and Christian kingdoms (the fight of both).
e) Britons: Inspired by the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
Metric
The structure of the epic poems were composed of 16 syllables divided into two hemistiches of eight syllables, rhyming poems assonance.
The ballads are compositions consist of a series of eight-syllable lines that rhyme in assonance and the odd pair loose.
Style
a) Tendency to repeat: Repeat phonemes, structures, syntagmas, etc.
b) Tendency to the fragmentary: It enters directly, without introduction, and the final dramatic moment is taken away.
c) Free time: Highlights some verbal tics:
- Imperfect subjunctive (e.g., answer)
- Occurrence of the conditional rather than future and imperfect indicative rather than present (e.g., glittered)