Medievalism and literary afterlives: a diachronic study of the Siete infantes de Lara
<p>This thesis is the first study of how and to what end the story of the Siete infantes de Lara, first redacted in thirteenth-century Castilian chronicles, has been repeatedly rewritten in medieval Castile and, later, Spain. It begins by identifying the idiosyncratic nature of the earliest ve...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | Spanish English |
| Published: |
2021
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | <p>This thesis is the first study of how and to what end the story of the Siete infantes de Lara, first redacted in thirteenth-century Castilian chronicles, has been repeatedly rewritten in medieval Castile and, later, Spain. It begins by identifying the idiosyncratic nature of the earliest versions of the Siete infantes de Lara in contrast to other medieval narratives in epic poetry and chronicles: its status as a local, factional border narrative set in the indeterminate tenth-century borderland between the County of Castile and the Caliphate of Cordova. All subsequent rewritings focus on how this setting is conducive to interracial interaction, identity construction and identity change. The rewritings selected for study are formally and temporally diverse in order to trace the development of Spanish medievalism: three medieval chronicles from the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries, four hitherto undiscussed romances from early modern Spain and the Sephardic diaspora, two comedias by Juan de la Cueva and Lope de Vega, and two nineteenth-century Romantic works.</p>
<p>Through close readings of each work, this thesis analyses how these recreations of the tenth-century borderland engage with contemporary formations of individual and collective identity, whether historiographic, poetic or political. The thesis’ methodology is diachronic, but this does not posit fixed links of influence. Instead it sets out to explore what links these texts beyond the setting and story they retell: what marks medievalism as a literary mode? How do these texts embody mechanisms of rewriting in their internal poetics? It concludes by postulating a shared poetics of rewriting and discusses how these works shed new light on al-Andalus’ memory in Spain from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century.</p> |
|---|