Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Montalvo's recantation, revisited

1978; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 55; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382782000355203

1469-3550

Eloy R. González, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts,

Libraries, Manuscripts, and Books

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. References to the Amadís are to the edition of Edwin B. Place, Amadís de Gaula (Madrid 1962–1971), 4 vols. References to the Sergas de Esplandián are to the edition of Pascual de Gayangos, Libros de caballerías (Madrid 1950), BAE, XL, 403–561. The authors wish to express their gratitude to Professor Bruce Wardropper of Duke University and Professor Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce of the University of North Carolina, who read the manuscript and made numerous helpful suggestions. 2. ‘Montalvo's outrageous recantation’, HR, XXXVII (1969), 192–98. 3. Cf, Mosén Diego de Valera's epistle to Juan II, ‘La deuida lealtad del súbdito’, which he dedicated to Queen Isabella in his Coronica abreviada de España, (In Epístolas de Mosén Diego de Valera, enbiadas en diversos tiempos é a diversas personas [Madrid 1878], III, 3–9) 4. ‘The “Amadís” question’, RHi, XXI (1909), 1–167. 5. ‘El desenlace del “Amadís” primitivo’, in Estudios de literatura españolay comparada (Buenos Aires 1966), 149–56. 6. El Amadís y el Quijote (Madrid 1947). Olmedo declares that Montalvo ‘se burló donosamente de los que tomaban en serio las ficciones caballerescas, y nos advirtió que esas ficciones no tienen más valor real que el que les damos nosotros, imitando lo que con ellas nos enseña al autor’ (26–27). 7. ‘Las Sergas de Esplandián como crítica de la caballería bretona’, BBMP, XXIII (1947), 102–11. 8. The chapter also anticipates Esplandián's encounter with his father in Ch. 28 of the Sergas, in which Amadís is defeated by his son: ‘assí que por muchos que más no saben será dicho que el hijo al padre mató. Mas yo digo que no de aquella muerte natural a que todos obligados somos … ’ (1340). According to the hypothesis of Maria Rosa Lida (op, cit,, 152–56), Amadís in the original version of the novel was killed by Esplandián in this combat, and Montalvo suppressed the parricide lest it blemish the glory of Esplandián but retained the contest in order to dispel any doubts as to Esplandián's superiority. 9. For the rôle of Providence and Fortune in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, see the classic study of Howard R. Patch, The Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, Mass. 1927, Repr. New York 1967). For the application of these concepts to the writing of history, see Myron P. Gilmore, ‘Freedom and determinism in Renaissance scholars’, Studies in the Renaissance, III (1956), 49–60 and Herbert Weisinger, ‘Ideas of history during the Renaissance’, in Renaissance Essays, ed. Paul O. Kristeller and Philip P. Wiener (New York 1968), 74–95; and for the relationship of these themes to Spanish literature, see Ricardo Arias Arias, El concepto del destino en la literatura medieval española (Madrid 1970) and Otis H.Green, España y la tradición occidental (Madrid 1969), II, 313. 10. It is interesting to observe that Montalvo's view of the comparative importance of the core of his work on the one hand and its adornment on the other is the inverse of the Christian mediaeval and Renaissance tradition which distinguished sharply between an exterior appearance and a core of truth. Both Chaucer and Boccaccio, for example, stress the meaning which lies at the centre of the tales they tell (Chaucer. MLT 701–02, NPT 3, 443 and Boccaccio. Genealogia deorum, XIV, 9 and 13). Boccaccio speaks of removing the cortex, revealing the nucleus of hidden doctrine. For Montalvo, on the contrary, the core is not the hidden truth; rather, as he developed it, the core is merely fiction, worthless in itself, which provides the basis for the commentary—the commentary which is itself the important truth. On the tradition of nucleus and cortex, see B.G.Koonce, Chaucer and the Tradition of Fame (Princeton 1966). 5–6; C.G.Osgood, ed.. Boçcaccio on Poetry Princeton 1930. repr. New York 1956 and D.W.Robertson. ‘Some medieval literary terminology’, SP, XLVIII (1951), 669–92. 11. The theme appears in the Spanish Baladro del Sabio Merlin ed. Pedro Bohigas [Barcelona 1957]). Calcou, in discussing the Cantigas of Alfonso X, speaks of a variation of the theme in Cantiga 226, in which a legend appears ‘entirely foreign to Spanish thought … which must have caused some surprise in its unwonted environment. The incident is said to have happened in “Gran Britaña”. The account runs briefly as follows: A company of friars were in their convent saying Mass on Easter morning, when the entire monastery was swallowed up by the earth—the ground closing above it and leaving no trace whatever. For just a year the monks continued in this enforced seclusion, without lack of anything needful; they were even lighted by a marvellous sun. On the next Easter morning all was restored to its former natural state. It can be seen at a glance that this legend is entirely different from anything that has been mentioned in this collection; and I have found no parallel to it in anything else of the period’ [ The Supernatural in Early Spanish Literature; Studies in the Works of the Court of Alfonso X,El Sabio fNew York 1923], 88–89). 12. Maria Rosa Lida had indicated a parallel between the Sergas and the Laberinto (op, cit,, 150). 13. For an account of the influence of the book in Spain, see Arturo Farinelli, Italia e Spagna (Turin 1929), I, 91–149. Farinelli compares Boccaccio's text to López de Ayala's translation and to the portions incorporated by the Arcipreste de Talavera in his Corvacho 14. The Fates of Illustrious Men, trans. Lewis B. Hall (New York 1965), 137–38. 15. In addition to the influence of Boccaccio, Montalvo also adapts various motifs characteristic of the mediaeval, early Renaissance visionary literature which concerned itself with visits to the Houses of Fame or Fortune—Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (trans. Alberto Aguayo, Seville, 1518; rpt. Cieza: El Ayre de la Almena, 1966); Juan de Mena's Laberinto de Fortuna (ed. Clásicos Castellanos); the Doscientas del Castillo de la Fama of Alonso Alvarez Guerrero, published in Valencia in 1520 (rpt. Cieza: El Ayre de la Almena, 1957); and Chaucer's House of Fame, to cite only a few examples. Concerning the countenance of the female apparition, for example, Boethius describes her in the translation of Aguayo as having ‘ojos muy encendidos y en mirar tan virtuosa’ (Fol. 6); in the Laberinto she is a ‘donzella tan mucho fermosa’, but honest: ‘mas provocara a bueno e onesto la gravidad de su claro gesto que non por amores a ser requerida’; in the Doscientas she appears ‘cercada con grandes fulgores … de su cara salian muchos rayos tan resplandecientes como el sol’ (Fol. 2). In the House of Fame the eyes and ears of the maiden are countless. In the Consolation, the size of the maid is doubtful: at times she is of normal stature, but at times she seems huge. Similarly in the House of Fame, the woman's size varies from dwarfish to gigantic; and in the Sergas, the woman first appears as a serpent, then as Urganda. All these guides are awe-inspiring; and several undergo miraculous transformations. The theme of flight also is common to literature of this type. In the Laberinto a cloud seizes the poet (p. 12); in the Doscientas a cloud seizes the poet and takes him before Charles V (pp. 8–9); in the House of Fame Chaucer is carried off by an eagle (Bk. I, 496–508); in the Sergas Montalvo flies with his guide down from the crag to the ship. In the House of Fame, when the author is asked to listen to the murmurs that arise from the House, he claims that they sound like the sea; in the Sergas Montalvo finds himself on a high cliff where he listens to the sound of the sea. The notion of the house of Fame or Fortune being located in a high place is present in all these works; in the Sergas the Palace is situated ‘encima de una peña’ (498). Both the leitmotif of the peak of the mountain and the sound of the sea were commonly associated with the Palace of Fortune (Patch, op, cit,, 129–32). The contrast between the inhospitable nature of the cliff and the pleasant atmosphere of the ship is also suggestive of the contrasts of the palace of Fortune (Patch, 126). 16. María Rosa Lida has pointed out this phenomenon in ‘Dos huellas del Esplandián en el Quijote y el Persiles’, RPh, IX (1955–56), 156–62: ‘el autor se asoma en la novela, barajando los planos de realidad y ficción para criticar irónicamente su propio libro o los antecedentes de su libro’ (157).