Winner of the 2001 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show of the Association of American University Presses for jacket design
The
late medieval masterpiece Celestina has long been the focus
of controversy, over both its authorship and the apparent contradictions
and inconsistencies within its plot. Scholars trace the publication
of Celestina to 1499, when Fernando de Rojas supposedly discovered
the first act and completed the remainder of the drama within a two-week
period. The plot centers on the ill-fated love of Calisto and Melibea
and the fascinating character of the old bawd, Celestina. Scholars
disagree about how to interpret the meeting of the two lovers in the
first scene, when they share an unusual conversation that is incongruous
with their comportment in the remainder of the work. Ricardo Castells
seeks to resolve this and other seeming contradictions by tracing
the oneiric, phantasmal, and melancholic traditions of the Renaissance
and their effect on the composition of Celestina.
Castells explores the European cultural and literary tradition—works
of both fiction and nonfiction that would have been available to
Rojas—to discover theoretical approaches to the physiology of lovesickness
and its accompanying dreams and visions. He employs the themes of
love, medicine, and dreams in these works to explain the seemingly
illogical progression of the play's action and the ultimately detrimental
effects of melancholy, lovesickness, and sensual contamination on
the protagonist, Calisto. In so doing, Castells places Celestina within its appropriate cultural and historical context, enriching
our perception not only of the text itself but also of the traditions
that helped to produce it. |
|
|
