The "conplisiones de los onbres" of the Arcipreste de Talavera and the Male Lovers of the Celestina
1988; American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese; Volume: 71; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/342883
ISSN2153-6414
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval Iberian Studies
ResumoAs early as 1859 scholars were noticing a kindred spirit between the Arcipreste de Talavera, i.e., the Corbacho, and the Celestina.' In 1966 Erich von Richthofen exhorted scholars to study el primer acto de la como un producto de la talaverana (120). In 1976 E. Michael Gerli heeded the call with a long and impressive list of disturbing coincidences suggesting a possible direct link between the Archpriest, Fernando de Rojas, and the Celestina (46). Gerli cautions that no definite conclusions may be drawn from the many isolated facts enumerated above (46). Still, conjectures: From this evidence, either the unnamed author of Act I was steeped in the writings of the Archpriest; or was perhaps Alfonso Martinez de Toledo himself? (41). Gerli attempts to ferret out as much evidence as possible for viewing Act I of the as flowing from the corriente talaverana. Although some of his points warrant discussion,2 the correspondences in humoral lore found in both works are noteworthy, and, with the findings of James F. Burke and of Frederick A. de Armas, suggest a new avenue for research. During the Middle Ages, into the Renaissance and beyond, the main medical physiological-psychological theory regarding man was Galen's, in which man, a microcosmic mirror of the macrocosmos, shared in its four elementsearth, water, fire, and air. The incorporates this notion, as Burke notes, in Calisto's self-definition as misto, which means not only that he a mixture of body and soul, but also that his body is misto in that it composed of materia, a blend of the four (131) which the Corbacho pairs with the four humors in the traditional manner: fire-choleric, water-phlegmatic, air sanguine, and earthmelancholic (184). Consonant with their cultural milieu, both works incorporate humoral lore. The Corbacho dedicates Part III to las conplisyones de los onbres, quiles son e qu6 virtud tyenen para amar o ser amados (41), and the includes elements of humoral lore in its passages, as this study will show. Why does the Corbacho, a treatise claiming to berate lust, a fifteenth-century catechism as it were, include the humors? Why does the Celestina? Lawrence Babb notes that
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