Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Juan Ruiz and Don Ximio: the Archpriest's art of declamation

1978; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 55; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382782000355283

1469-3550

Steven D. Kirby,

Spanish Literature and Culture Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Juan Ruiz, Libro de buen amor, ed. and trans. Raymond S. Willis (Princeton 1972). All references to the LBA are to this edition. 2. Juan Ruiz's adaptation of this material has been well studied by Arthur Fisher Whittem, ‘The sources of the fables in Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor’, Diss. Harvard 1908, 22–38, 221–27, 451–55; OttoTacke, ‘Die Fabeln des Erzpriesters von Hita im Rahmen der mittelalterlichen Fabelliteratur’, RF, XXXI (1912), 550–705, at pp. 565, 647–51, 703; and Félix Lecoy, Recherches sur le ‘Libro de buen amor’ de Juan Ruiz, Archiprêtre de Hita (1938; rpt. ed. A. D. Deyermond, Westmead, Farnborough, Hants 1974), 130. The principal analogues indicated by these critics of Juan Ruiz's fable arc printed by Léopold Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 2nd ed., II (1894; rpt. New York n.d.), 10, 141, 211–12, 269–70, 334, 360, 468, 491, 610–11, and 647. My own studies indicate that Juan Ruiz has amplified his version by fifteen or twenty times the length of the original. 3. Anthony N. Zahareas, The Art of Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita (Madrid 1965), 220. 4. Ferdinand Wolf, Studien zur Geschichte der spanischen und portugiesischen Nationalliteratur (Berlin 1859), 107 and n. 5; Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, ‘Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita’, in his Antología de poetas líricos castellanos, I (1892; rpt. ed. Enrique Sánchez Reyes, Santander 1944), 257–314, at pp. 289, 304, n. 1; Juan Luis Alborg, Historia de la literatura española: Edad Media y Renacimiento, 2nd ed. (Madrid 1970), 271; A. D. Deyermond, ‘Some aspects of parody in the Libro de buen amor’, and Ian Michael, ‘The function of the popular tale in the Libro de buen amor’, both in ‘Libro de buen amor’ Studies, ed. G. B. Gybbon-Monypenny (London 1970), 53–78 and 177–218 respectively, at pp. 61, 199. 5. José Luis Bermejo Cabrero, ‘El saber jurídico del Arcipreste’, El Arcipreste de Hita . . . Actas del I Congreso Internacional. . ., ed. M. Criado de Val (Barcelona 1973), 409–15. Two other studies on the legal background of the LBA, included in the same Actas volume (416–21 and 422–33 respectively), treat other questions: Fernando Murillo Rubiera, ‘Jueces, escribanos y letrados en el Libro de buen amor’ and Francisco Eugenio y Díaz, ‘El lenguaje jurídico del Libro de buen amor’. 6. Steven D. Kirby, ‘Juan Ruiz, Don Ximio and the law’, Studies in Language and Literature: the Proceedings of the Twenty–Third Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference, ed. Charles L. Nelson (Richmond, Ky. 1976), 295–300, at pp. 298–99; this study refutes the findings of Martín Eizaga y Gondra, Un proceso en el ‘ Libro del buen amor’ (Bilbao 1942). My conclusions were formed independently of the following important but obscure item which reached me much later: Lorenzo Polaino Ortega, ‘El derecho procesal en el Libro de buen amor’, Revista de Derecho Procesal (Madrid), III (1947), 581–621, esp. pp. 589–621, where his conclusions coincide with mine. Polaino's study also appeared as an offprint, with distinct pagination (Madrid 1948), where pp. 13–45 correspond to those cited above. Cf. Alfonso el Sabio, Las Siete Partidas, ed. Real Academia de la Historia, 3 vols. (1807; rpt. Madrid 1972), cited by Book, Title and Law. The most significant parallels between Don Ximio and the Siete Partidas ( = SP) outlined in my previous article cited above are as follows: LBA sts. 325–28 = SP 3.2.40, 7.1.14, 4.9.13, 7.1.1, 7.1.26; LBA sts. 329–30 = SP 7.1.14, 3.2.41, 3.15.1; LBA st. 347c = SP 3.22.5, 3.22.12; LBA sts. 348–52a = SP 3.18.109. 7. Seneca (the elder), Declamations, ed. and trans. Michael Winterbottom, 2 vols. (London 1974), cited by Book and Section. For studies see William A. Edward, ed. and trans., Suasoriae, by Seneca the Elder (Cambridge 1928), xxxi–xxxiii, xxxv–xxxvi; S. F. Bonner, Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (Liverpool 1949); M. L. Clarke, Rhetoric at Rome: a historical survey (London 1953), 19,86–97, 125–26. See also Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (1953;rpt. New York 1963), 154–55; Erich Auerbach, Literary Language and its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York 1965), 240. 8. The vixen's defender, however, uses his own testimony to back her exception (sts. 333–38); such testimony is prohibited by the Archpriest's source the Partidas 3.16.20; this apparent incongruity is, however, fully explained by declamatory practice, where the speaker could introduce supplementary details as he pleased so long as he did not distort the facts of the case (Edward, xxxii; Clarke, 92–93). 9. James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: a history of rhetorical theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley 1974), 39 n. 103, 131. Significantly, the Marqués de Santillana owned a Latin MS of Seneca's works (including the Declamations) dating from the first half of the fourteenth century; see Mario Schiff, La bibliothèque du Marquis de Santillane (1905; rpt. Amsterdam 1970), 102–03. Regrettably, the provenance of the MS remains uncertain. Henry H. Carter, in his ‘Breve apéndice paleográfico’ to the Diccionario de literatura española, ed. Germán Bleiberg and Julián Marías, 4th ed. (Madrid 1972), 1195–1243, at pp. 1220–21, reproduces one folio and its transcription of another fourteenth-century MS of Seneca's Controversiae from the holdings of Barcelona's Archivo de la Corona de Aragón. 10. Charles Faulhaber, Latin Rhetorical Theory in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Castile (Berkeley 1972), 140–41; Charles Faulhaber, ‘Retóricas clásicas y medievales en bibliotecas castellanas’, Abaco 4, (Madrid 1973), 151 –300, at pp. 163–67, 170–74, 182–90; Aristotle, The ‘Art’ of Rhetoric, ed. and trans. John Henry Freese (1926; rpt. London 1967); Cicero, De Inventione, ed. and trans. H. M. Hubbell (1949; rpt. London 1968); Cicero (?), Rhetorica adHerennium, ed. and trans. Harry Caplan (1954; rpt. London 1968); Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, ed. and trans. H. E. Butler, 4 vols. (1920–22; rpt. London 1966–69). 11. L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: a guide to the transmission of Greek and Latin literature, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1974), 237. 12. See also Leo Spitzer, ‘En torno al arte del Arcipreste de Hita’ in his Lingüistica e historia literaria, 2nd ed. (Madrid 1968), 87–134, at pp. 98–99. 13. Paul Vinogradoff, Roman Law in Medieval Europe, 2nd ed., ed. F. de Zulueta (Oxford 1929), 53; R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries from the Carolingian Age to the End of the Renaissance (1954; rpt. New York 1964), 147. 14. See also Julio Puyol y Alonso, El Arcipreste de Hita: estudio critico (Madrid 1906), 100–01, for additional support. 15. E. N. Van Kleffens, Hispanic Law until the End of the Middle Ages (Edinburgh 1968), 211. 16. My conclusion that the story is truly a rhetorical exercise accounts for the fact that the epigraph in MS S does not call the passage an ensiemplo, an alleged error according to María Rosa Lida de Malkiel's ‘Nuevas notas para la interpretación del Libro de buen amor’ (1959), rpt. in her Juan Ruiz: selección del ‘Libro de buen amor’ y estudios críticos, ed. Yakov Malkiel and Alberto Vàrvaro (Buenos Aires 1973), 205–87, at p. 211 n. 14. 17. At least one fourteenth–century MS of Nicholas Trivet's commentary on Seneca's Declamations has existed in Spain; see Bartolomé José Gallardo, Ensayo de una biblioteca española de libros raros y curiosos, II (1866; rpt. Madrid 1968), Appendix, 150, 163. 18. Cf. Rita Hamilton, ‘The digression on confession in the Libro de buen amor’, in ‘LBA’ Studies (see n. 4), 149–57. Significantly, Hamilton (154) and Deyermond (57–59) concede that certain episodes would appeal mainly to a particular, highly educated audience. Lecoy (348) and Auerbach (324), on the other hand, affirm the global appeal of the LBA for all levels of society. 19. John A. Yunck, The Lineage of Lady Meed: the development of medieval venality satire (Notre Dame 1963), 147, 158–59; cf. H.J. Chaytor, From Script to Print: an introduction to medieval vernacular literature (1945: rpt. Folcroft, Pa. 1974), 68: ‘At all times the uneducated or half-educated classes of society have been prone to believe that the use of sonorous phrases, unusual words and involved sentence construction is indicative of a high degree of mental power.’ See also Curtius, 69. Paradoxically, learned digressions on subjects such as law were more common in popular rather than learned vernacular literary works in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; see Alice E. Lasater, Spain to England: a comparative study of Arabic, European and English literature of the Middle Ages (Jackson, Miss. 1974), 125–26. Although the litigants oiler bribes to Don Ximio (St. 342), the judge most probably acts honourably (sts. 341d, 347b, 351d). Nevertheless, mediaeval people enjoyed linking apes with deceit, hypocrisy and ill-gotten wealth (H. W. Janson, Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance [London 1952], 36, 114). Surely Juan Ruiz would have relished the ambiguity produced by presenting a virtuous ape to an audience accustomed to the association of apes with corruption. But those who would term the Don Ximio episode parodic for this reason must not forget that parody, to be effective, should be ‘simplified’ and sharply focused on a ‘single target’, since ‘parody cannot afford to be taken for the real thing’ (George Watson, The Study of Literature [New York 1969], 95, 100, 144). 20. The article is a revised version of my paper read in Spanish 1 : Spanish Language and Medieval Literature section at the ninetieth annual MLA Convention, held at San Francisco, California, 26–29 December 1975.