The Rhetoric of Power in Juan Manuel's "El Conde Lucanor"

Abstract

One of the benefits of an oral literary tradition is its flexibility. A singer or jongleur could change or modify myths and legends according to the perceived needs of his audience. With the development of literacy and the reliance on fixed modes of discourse (which in turn fixed traditions and their inconsistencies) during the Middle Ages, the flexibility of orality disappears and allegoresis replaces it as a means to (re)interpret fixed cultural tradition. Allegoresis, the dominant method of literary figural interpretation to this day, serves to explain problems or inconsistencies that become apparent in a written text and in turn leads to further investigation of the original problem and its proposed solution. In other words, the growth of the written word effectively fixed traditions in texts and encouraged complaints against perceived inconsistencies between the ideal (expressed in the text) and the actual. According to Janet Coleman, literacy caused social change rebellion and complaint rather than through silent evolution and selective remembering associated with the oral tradition.1 The rebellion and discomfort of societies in transition during the Middle Ages gave rise to collections of sermon handbooks and collections of exempla in the vernacular as well as in Latin. Clergy and layman alike used these collections to teach citizens how to behave in relation to their God, their king, and their lords. The two orders most influential in the development of vernacular preaching, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, compiled collections such as the Liber Exemplorum Ad Usum Praedicantium, Exempla Communia, Exempla Deodati, Gesta Romanorum, Alphabetum Narrationum, and the Dialogus Creaturaru. In Spain similar handbooks abound in secular titles such as the Bocados de oro, Calila e Dimna, Disciplina clericalis, El libro de los buenos proverbios, Libro de los engaNos, Barlaam yJosafat, Sendebar, Libro de los gatos, Exemplos muy notables, and the Conde Lucanor. The exemplary tales mixed sacred and secular tales that were organized so as to make the material easily accessible to the reader. The ordinatio of these collections was generally based on an alphabetical arrangement which employed key words to which a given exemplary tale could be applied; for example, Abstinentia. What is important to note is that not only was the content of the exemplum important but also the physical structure and ordering of the compilation. The structure of the text as much as the tale itself was designed