(Mis)Reading the Libro de Buen Amor : Exemplary Ambiguity and Ambiguous Exempla

Abstract

Ian Michael counts thirty-five popular tales in Libro de buen amor (LBA) calculating that they comprise more than twenty percent of entire text (177). (1) Regarding early works, Northrup Frye adds that [n]early every work of art in past had a social function in its own time, a function which was often not primarily an aesthetic function at (344) and adds that [o]ne of tasks of criticism is that of recovery of function, not of course restoration of an original function, which is out of question, but recreation of function in a new context (345). Given didactic intent of LBA, combined with its patent ambiguity, along with inherent polysemy of language of which Juan Ruiz was eminently aware (Read 240), his employment of anecdotes to impart life lessons with a salvific intent creates a literary tension begging resolution. This study examines exemplum of Ass and Lapdog not only by Juan Ruiz, but also by contemporaneous Libro del cauallero Zifar (Zifar; c. 1301), and later Esopete ystoriado (Esopete; 1488) to recover its social function to extent that these three witnesses permit and to recreate a function in a new context. Examining how this tale fits within frame text and observing differences between versions enable surmising what didactic functions of these versions may have been. Doing this permits viewing how Ruizian version includes a dimension lacking in other two, turning his version into a bawdy fabliau (Vasvari 13). In line with Frye's suggestion, a second appraisal of this tale from a postmodern view, specifically from a psychoanalytic one, however, offers another perspective which leads not only to the recreation of function in a new context, but also, perhaps, to a pleasure of text, not an original pleasure of a postlapsarian, medieval audience who heard or read story, but certainly to one of a postlapsarian, postmodern audience. When Terry Eagleton examines nature of in order to determine what is, he concludes that just as it will not do to see as an 'objective', descriptive category, neither will do to say that is just what people whimsically choose to call literature (16). Literature goes beyond private taste in that value judgments which determine are grounded in social ideologies by which certain groups maintain power over others (Eagleton 16). medieval Spanish anecdote examined here manifests a social ideology in which natural law held that [e]verything has its right place, its home, region that suits it, and, if not forcibly restrained, moves thither by a sort of homing instinct (Lewis 92). Aesopic tale known as The ass and lapdog--the source for Medieval fable examined here (Lecoy 114; Holmer 59; Vasvari 15) offers a fairly unambiguous moral, which to a twentieth-century audience, especially in land of free and home of brave where sky is limit, may not be as palatable as may have been to a Medieval audience with its particular Weltanschauung. Viewing tale through a psychoanalytic lens, however, allows unpalatable or at least less acceptable to become more so, and little valued to acquire greater value as well. fable, in itself uncomplicated, may be reduced to its bare essentials as follows: an ass sees a lapdog frolicking with its owner. Considering itself to be of greater utility than dog, ass too tries to frolic with its owner only to end up being rejected and beaten. accompanying moral in all three versions--Zifar, LBA, and Esopete--, in one way or another, alludes to idea that what pertains to one, may not pertain to another. People should keep their natural place. In LBA, however, fable and its moral acquire nuances that invite detailed consideration. Although Esopete's rendition has no frame within which to fit, too is fairly straightforward: 1) owner praises and prizes dog; 2) donkey denigrates dog calling pequeno and inmundo (38); 3) emphasis falls on donkey's considering itself better than dog: soy mejor que ella et para mas cosas e officios. …