The intellectual scope of the 'mester de clerecía'
<p>This thesis investigates the first poetry written in Castilian by intellectuals, the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em>, ‘craft of clerics’. Exploring the unique circumstances of Iberia in the Middle Ages as a hub for the intellectual vanguard and a holy territory for encou...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2014
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| _version_ | 1824459023770976256 |
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| author | Curtis, F |
| author2 | Hazbun, G |
| author_facet | Hazbun, G Curtis, F |
| author_sort | Curtis, F |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>This thesis investigates the first poetry written in Castilian by intellectuals, the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em>, ‘craft of clerics’. Exploring the unique circumstances of Iberia in the Middle Ages as a hub for the intellectual vanguard and a holy territory for encounters with saints, pilgrimage and Reconquest, I examine the canonical texts of an alleged thirteenth-century poetic school as the Castilian bedrock of a wider Iberian and European literary movement. Notably including analysis of the fourteenth-century <em>"Libro de buen amor"</em>, a canonical work in its own right thought to parody the earlier poems, I also reassess the significance of the verse form <em>'cuaderna vía'</em> for the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em>, in which the thirteenth-century poems are exclusively written. Over an introduction and four chapters, I combine close reading of the <em>"Libro de Alexandre"</em> (Chapter 1), Berceo’s <em>Vidas</em> of Millán, Domingo and Oria (Chapter 2), the <em>"Libro de Apolonio"</em> and <em>"Poema de Fernán González"</em> (Chapter 3), and the <em>"Libro de buen amor"</em> (Chapter 4), with research into intellectual, pedagogical, and religious contexts. Notably, I have found the poems analyzed to be especially concerned with the landscape of the reading mind. The result is an expanded view of the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em> as theological and philosophical poems that offer ways of understanding and approaching the life of the mind as well as that of the body that are thought-provoking and informative to this day. Concluding that the thirteenth-century, canonical poems are the witnesses of a 'textual community' of authors rather than a poetic school, I advocate an inclusive definition of the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em>. The <em>'mester de clerecía'</em> are of extremely rich intellectual scope and are of potential interest to scholars of all European literatures, and literary, intellectual, and social history, as well as theology and philosophy.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2025-02-19T04:35:12Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:ac9a4eb0-567f-4668-983e-897dce15bfff |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-02-19T04:35:12Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:ac9a4eb0-567f-4668-983e-897dce15bfff2025-01-28T08:51:16ZThe intellectual scope of the 'mester de clerecía'Thesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:ac9a4eb0-567f-4668-983e-897dce15bfffLiteratures of Romance languagesIntellectual HistoryLate antiquity and the Middle AgesChristianity and Christian spiritualitySpanishLanguages (Medieval and Modern) and non-English literatureSpanish & Portuguese literaturesEnglishOxford University Research Archive - Valet2014Curtis, FHazbun, G<p>This thesis investigates the first poetry written in Castilian by intellectuals, the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em>, ‘craft of clerics’. Exploring the unique circumstances of Iberia in the Middle Ages as a hub for the intellectual vanguard and a holy territory for encounters with saints, pilgrimage and Reconquest, I examine the canonical texts of an alleged thirteenth-century poetic school as the Castilian bedrock of a wider Iberian and European literary movement. Notably including analysis of the fourteenth-century <em>"Libro de buen amor"</em>, a canonical work in its own right thought to parody the earlier poems, I also reassess the significance of the verse form <em>'cuaderna vía'</em> for the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em>, in which the thirteenth-century poems are exclusively written. Over an introduction and four chapters, I combine close reading of the <em>"Libro de Alexandre"</em> (Chapter 1), Berceo’s <em>Vidas</em> of Millán, Domingo and Oria (Chapter 2), the <em>"Libro de Apolonio"</em> and <em>"Poema de Fernán González"</em> (Chapter 3), and the <em>"Libro de buen amor"</em> (Chapter 4), with research into intellectual, pedagogical, and religious contexts. Notably, I have found the poems analyzed to be especially concerned with the landscape of the reading mind. The result is an expanded view of the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em> as theological and philosophical poems that offer ways of understanding and approaching the life of the mind as well as that of the body that are thought-provoking and informative to this day. Concluding that the thirteenth-century, canonical poems are the witnesses of a 'textual community' of authors rather than a poetic school, I advocate an inclusive definition of the <em>'mester de clerecía'</em>. The <em>'mester de clerecía'</em> are of extremely rich intellectual scope and are of potential interest to scholars of all European literatures, and literary, intellectual, and social history, as well as theology and philosophy.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Literatures of Romance languages Intellectual History Late antiquity and the Middle Ages Christianity and Christian spirituality Spanish Languages (Medieval and Modern) and non-English literature Spanish & Portuguese literatures Curtis, F The intellectual scope of the 'mester de clerecía' |
| title | The intellectual scope of the 'mester de clerecía' |
| title_full | The intellectual scope of the 'mester de clerecía' |
| title_fullStr | The intellectual scope of the 'mester de clerecía' |
| title_full_unstemmed | The intellectual scope of the 'mester de clerecía' |
| title_short | The intellectual scope of the 'mester de clerecía' |
| title_sort | intellectual scope of the mester de clerecia |
| topic | Literatures of Romance languages Intellectual History Late antiquity and the Middle Ages Christianity and Christian spirituality Spanish Languages (Medieval and Modern) and non-English literature Spanish & Portuguese literatures |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT curtisf theintellectualscopeofthemesterdeclerecia AT curtisf intellectualscopeofthemesterdeclerecia |