Making Difference in Medieval and Early Modern IberiaUniversity of Notre Dame Press, 2005 - 218 pages In this engaging study Jean Dangler examines the way that ideas of difference were forged in four types of medieval Iberian discourse: muwashshah/jarcha poems from al-Andalus, Andalusi "cutting poems," medical literature about the body, and portrayals of the monster. According to Dangler, these texts demonstrate the two fundamental precepts of medieval Iberian alterity: multifaceted subject formation and the embrace of contrasts and the negative. Medieval Iberia was a multicultural territory of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian societies. These communities had constant geographic, cultural, political, and economic contact with one another. Because medieval Iberia was not hierarchical and homogenous, medieval subjectivity was not always marked by essential qualities of character, but was mutable and shifting. The adverse was often esteemed in the making of meaning and the forging of the social order. Dangler explores how the four discourses she analyzes changed in the early modern period, from an acceptance of difference to more rigid concepts of subjectivity and the marginalization of difference. This shift accompanied the rise of the Castilian nation-state and its imposition of static hierarchies of value. This book will appeal to a broad range of medievalists. It makes an important contribution to the growing interest in medieval Iberia and offers a nuanced understanding of medieval history and culture in general. |
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... Rojas tries to dissuade readers from seek- ing the services of medianeras or other women workers in everyday society . Rojas's attack is particularly directed toward women healers , whose legitimate me- dieval status increasingly eroded ...
... Rojas seems to achieve this distance with La Celestina . One of his most disparaging techniques against the medianera Celestina is her por- trayal as a deformed , aberrant monster . Although her monstrosity is never explicitly stated as ...
... Rojas's work shows how medieval confidence wavered in the reader's abilities to choose the right path to goodness and transcendence , since Calisto , Melibea , and oth- ers evidently erred in their interpretation of Celestina's ...