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Body and Soul: Jorge Manrique's "Coplas por la muerte de su padre" 13: 145-156

2001; American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese; Volume: 84; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3657886

2153-6414

Frank A. Domínguez, Frank A. Domínguez,

Literary and Philosophical Studies

In stanza 13 of the Coplas, Manrique describes the body as cativa and the soul as seiora, then decries the time spent adorning the former at the expense of the latter. The general condemnation of cosmetics in ancient literature and the topic of the weakness of the Will contribute to this metaphor, but the stanza does more. It alludes to the two different paths that are followed by the people described in the ubi sunt stanzas (16-24) and in the panegyric of don Rodrigo Manrique (25-32). This essay then shows how stanza 13 only acquires full meaning in light of information that was available to the poem's contemporaries but has since been neglected.