Reviewed by: "Todo se ha hecho a mi voluntad": Melibea como eje central de La Celestina by Ivette Martí Caloca Connie L. Scarborough, Professor Emerita Martí Caloca, Ivette. "Todo se ha hecho a mi voluntad": Melibea como eje central de La Celestina. Iberoamericana / Vervuert, 2019. Medievalia Hispánica 26. ISBN: 978-84-9192-062-5. In the volume under consideration, Ivette Martí Caloca proposes that the protagonist of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea is Melibea, even though La Celestina has received proportionally more critical attention. With this thesis she adds her name to a growing list of scholars with particular interest in Melibea, her roles, and character development within the structure of the Tragicomedia. Joseph Snow has most prominently represented these scholars, among whom are such other respected critics as Victoria Burrus, Kristen Brooks, Laura Mier, or Yolanda Iglesias, who have authored significant studies centered on Melibea. Martí primarily focuses her study on patterns of symbolism within the work. Specifically, she finds in Rojas's Prologue to the Tragicomedia a series of metaphoric indicators that will appear throughout the work and give it a unified structure built on repeated symbols. To this end, she builds on the pioneering work of Alan Deyermond, who identified the relationship of the symbols of hilado, cordón, and cadena in the Tragicomedia. For her part, Martí introduces a fourth intertwining element, that of the serpiente. The author develops her thesis in four chapters. The first, introductory chapter provides a thorough review of the scholarship that has led to La Celestina occupying a privileged position in Tragicomedia studies. Not least among these is the choice made by multiple editors to use the name of the alcahueta as the title for Rojas's work (rather than Tragicomedia, as proposed by Rojas in his Prólogo to the extended version of his original Comedia). It seems strange, then, that Martí uses La Celestina in the title of her work, since she proposes to depose La Celestina from the protagonist's role. As a counter to those critics who view La Celestina as the prime mover of the plot, or the most developed of the characters, Martí cites numerous studies about Melibea that she divides into two general categories: those that view Melibea as an innocent who is corrupted by La Celestina's manipulation, or those who see her acting on her desires, exercising her free will, and suffering the consequences of her choices. She proposes that by reading the text with an eye to "la simbología profunda del texto podremos identificar a Melibea con las metáforas principales que cimientan la obra y, por lo tanto, a restituirla como la protagonista de la Tragicomedia" (49). [End Page 183] In her second chapter, Martí develops the symbol of the snake that Rojas adapts from Petrarch and which he includes in the prologue. She first offered a preview of this idea in her 2012 article "Melibea: eje de la scriptum ligata de La Celestina." In his introduction to the Tragicomedia, Rojas includes many examples of contention and conflict as ever present constants in the world. Among these he names the basilisk, the giant snake that kills with its gaze. He also mentions the belief that the female snake bites off the head of the male after mating, and that newborn snakes kill their mother by puncturing her sides. These images will all be subtly woven into the structure of the Tragicomedia, as Martí demonstrates in the remainder of her study. Although the serpent metaphor has regularly been identified in association with Celestina, Martí argues that Melibea is the character who is more frequently linked with this motif. In tracing the development of the serpentine metaphor, the author contends that Melibea is also identified with Medusa, especially in relation to the allusions to Melibea's long hair. Martí contends that Calisto subconsciously recognizes the danger that Melibea poses by his obsession with her hair that, like the snakes on Medusa's head, will ensnare him. Continuing an investigation of monstrous images, the author examines metaphors that can be associated with the mortal gaze of the basilisk. She associates this referent with Melibea, since Calisto is smitten by the...