Jorge Manrique and Fernando de Rojas: Key Works Analysis
Jorge Manrique: Couplets on the Death of His Father
Jorge Manrique (c. 1440-1479) began as a poet of the cancionero style but went a step further, authoring one of the most important works of Spanish lyric poetry: Verses on the Death of His Father. It is an elegy in which the author reflects in an intimate and personal way about life, death, time, and the memory of loved ones. The elegy is composed of forty stanzas called coplas manriqueñas. Each stanza is formed by two sextets, according to this scheme: 8a 8b 4c 8a 8b 4c – 8d 8e 4f 8d 8e 4f. The style of the Couplets stands out for its contained emotion.
The poem can be divided into four parts:
- A meditation on the transience of life, the inevitability of death, and the importance of behaving virtuously (verses 1-13).
- Longing for times past, the author reflects on the passage of time as it involves celebrities, customs, and fashions (verses 14-24).
- The evocation of Don Rodrigo Manrique, where the poet evokes the figure of his father, Don Rodrigo Manrique, extolling his virtues and his exemplary conduct (verses 25-32).
- Dialogue with death, collecting the last stanza with Don Rodrigo Manrique’s encounter with death and his serene acceptance of it (verses 33-40).
Fernando de Rojas: La Celestina
La Celestina was published in the late fifteenth century. Its author, Fernando de Rojas, was born in 1476 in Puebla de Montalbán (Toledo), in a family of Jewish converts. He studied law and worked as a lawyer. He died in Talavera (Toledo) in 1538. In the foreword of the book, Rojas states that he himself wrote the piece from the first act, which he found written by other authors. In fact, it is now accepted that La Celestina is the product of two authors: a first unknown writer would have written the first act, and the rest by Fernando de Rojas. The play recounts the love of Calisto and Melibea—favored by an old bawd, Celestina—which ended tragically. According to the author himself, its purpose is moral, because he criticizes irresponsible and irrational acts of love. But the book also supports an existential and pessimistic interpretation, since life is considered a constant struggle, causing pain and misery.
Argument of the Work
Callisto, chasing a hawk, enters the home garden of Melibea, a young, serene, rich, and noble woman. He falls in love with her and tries to speak, but she dismisses him with an angry gesture. Sempronius, his servant, convinces him to use the services of an old bawd named Celestina. The servants agree with her in distributing the money they get from Calisto. Celestina fulfills her mission with Melibea and delivers her to Calisto. The servants go to Celestina to claim their share, but when she refuses to give them anything, they kill her. Elicia and Areúsa, the pupils of Celestina, seek justice and publicly denounce the servants. Elicia and Areúsa decide to avenge the deaths and, knowing that the lovers will be in the tower that night, send a bully against Calisto, who, trying to come to the aid of his servant, falls off the wall he was climbing and dies. Melibea despairs and, in the presence of her parents, throws herself from the tower.