<i>La Celestina</i>: A Novel

In this essay I argue that La Celestina should be read as a novel. The work is impossible to perform in a theater: it is not a drama. Neither is it a humanistic co-medy, either in form or spirit. That a novel can be written in the form of a series of letters is not controversial, even though there i...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Howard Mancing
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidad de Valencia, Departamento de Filología Española 2021-01-01
Series:Celestinesca
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.uv.es/index.php/celestinesca/article/view/20169
Description
Summary:In this essay I argue that La Celestina should be read as a novel. The work is impossible to perform in a theater: it is not a drama. Neither is it a humanistic co-medy, either in form or spirit. That a novel can be written in the form of a series of letters is not controversial, even though there is no narrator. In a similar way, there is —as Cervantes explained in his introduction to his Coloquio de los perros— an implicit narrative link between the segments of dialogue in his work. La Celestina is a work of the Renaissance (not the Middle Ages), and it has always been read as a novel. It is the first great novel of the print age.
ISSN:0147-3085
2695-7183