Tag: Monographs

ÁLVAREZ-MORENO, Raúl (2015), “Celestina” según su lenguaje, Madrid, Editorial Pliegos.

For sale on-line at the publishing house.

ABSTRACT: “Celestina” según su lenguaje studies language in Celestina (1499-1502) as a central factor -not just supplementary or subsequent- of the conflict that takes place in the dramatic work. Due to the Aristotelian, Stoic and Christian projection from Semantics to Epistemology and Moral Philosophy (Ethics and Politics), language and in particular the antagonistic but concomitant ways of conceiving meaning, become essential to understanding the different tensions and disputes embedded in the text. Closely related to the linguistic changes taking place in the fifteenth century, the rhetorical character of Celestina and the adoption of strategies and techniques from traditional Skepticism prove to be crucial in questioning dogmatic discourses and philosophical-intellectual truths at the time. Christian truth, which supposedly should replace the latter, is not spared either as necessary or indisputable. Such processes would greatly contribute to an explanation of the ambiguity and the different readings the play offers to its readers.

SAGUAR GARCÍA, Amaranta (2015), Intertextualidades bíblicas en “Celestina”: devotio moderna y humanismo cristiano, Vigo, Editorial Academia del Hispanismo.

For sale on-line at the publishing house.

ABSTRACT: The Bible serves as a source for Celestina, but biblical references and reminiscences in the text do not derive from the Scriptures themselves, but from secondary and even tertiary sources. These represent the typical medium of access to the Bible of laymen and, in the case of Celestina, of a very specific group of laymen: university members, which formed the original audience of the work and shared a same way of reading it. Therefore, biblical intertextuality in Celestina is defined by the relation of university members to these sources.

When analysed from the perspective of university readers, Celestina becomes a pseudo-contemplative work to which the principles of visual mental representation of affective meditation apply. If read making use of these principles, the didactic and moralising message of the preliminary texts is confirmed and Celestina reveals itself as an admonitory tale against carnal love. Moreover, it appears as a counterfeit sentimental romance, concretely, a reply to Cárcel de amor, to contemporary love habits and to courtly customs.

In addition, reading Celestina from the perspective of an university audience offers a new view on the misuse of biblical references. Instead of being representative of a heterodox attitude toward the Scriptures, these function as a condemnation of the bad use of auctoritates in dialectic contexts. As a result, Celestina can be related to a reformist current in the university world, which was particularly critical to Scholasticism and its teaching methodology. In this sense, Celestina aligns itself with Humanism and, specifically with Christian Humanism.

Finally, analysing Celestina from the point of view of university readers explains why a work, which had been originally conceived as a didactic and moralising text, was criticised in the sixteenth century for being inmmoral: audience and times had changed.