Medieval Spanish Literature: 14th & 15th Centuries
Medieval Narrative in the 14th Century
The didactic narrative in the 14th century, particularly The Book of Good Love, stands without clear equivalents in European literature. It formally inherits the Mester de Clerecía’s use of the frame narrative, but deviates significantly from this school in many respects. Count Lucanor represents the emergence of narrative prose written in Castilian. The prose works of these authors share important similarities, including a didactic intention, common at the time, and the ideal of conveying teachings and moral practices through entertaining stories.
Don Juan Manuel
Don Juan Manuel was born in 1282 in Escalona. He was the younger son of Infante Don Manuel, grandson of Ferdinand III, and therefore nephew of Alfonso X the Wise. He shared, for example, the idea that social structure originates in God’s will and that everyone should save their soul within their own social status, fulfilling their assigned role.
Count Lucanor
Don Juan Manuel’s most famous work, written in 1335, is a didactic work consisting of three parts: 51 stories or examples with didactic intent, 180 aphorisms or sentences, and a treatise on the salvation of the soul. There is a strictly earthly concern, affecting honor and social standing. The first part is the most valued; it captures and holds the audience’s attention through narrative, while also facilitating understanding of the teachings conveyed through the story. The second part removes the narrative material and focuses teaching on a statement or aphorism.
Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, and the Book of Good Love
Sources and Genre: The Book of Good Love has presented challenges to study and understanding. The structure of the work has led to different explanations. Some believe Ruiz was inspired by an oriental genre where the protagonist and narrator merge, sometimes identified with the author, and where discussions and proverbs are inserted. Others relate the book to certain medieval works with autobiographical accounts of adventures.
Intention of the Work and Subject: The work is didactic, although its meaning is ambiguous. From the beginning of the work, the theme is “good love,” an expression that, in medieval narrative, was opposed to “mad love.” This ambiguity is the result of a playfulness that pervades the work, attributable to it being a late-stage work that handles materials familiar to its audience and can play with them.
Structure and Content: It takes the form of a loving memoir, exemplified by three initial failures. An allegorical episode conveys some basic tips. Although narrated in the first person, the protagonist seems to take on another name and character. In addition to the ambiguity, the episode can be read as a defense of the use of intermediaries or as a warning to women against them. Here, the protagonist goes to the mountains. His adventures parody the pastoral genre, which characterized the shepherd in an idealized form. They function as negative examples. There are some *cantigas* to the Virgin, an example of good love. A second allegorical episode is narrated, symbolizing the struggle between wildness and austerity, and another genre parody: medieval epic.
The Transition to the Renaissance
Jorge Manrique: Verses on the Death of his Father
Coplas: Characteristics and Stylistic Resources: It has the three classic goals of the sermon: to teach, to delight, and to move. The first is reflected in the expository style and judgmental tone. The second is identified with the care of the form. And the third is achieved through the hortatory tone of appeal to the receiver.
Structure and Content: This is a process that goes from the general (the mortal condition of man) to the particular (the death of Don Rodrigo Manrique). The first part is thought-provoking on the meaning of life, given its brevity. The principle is stated that the goal of earthly life is to win eternal life, since human possessions are as treacherous as human life itself. The second part of the poem focuses on the figure of Don Rodrigo Manrique. The panegyric, or praise of the deceased, begins with a comparison of the classical world with characters who have survived in memory for their virtues. Then, the poet goes into more specific aspects of the deceased’s biography.
Celestina
Celestina consists of five *autos*, and has 21 acts in total.