Reading Illegitimacy in Early Iberian Literature
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Published:13th Nov '21
Should be back in stock very soon
Reading Illegitimacy in Early Iberian Literature presents illegitimacy as a fluid, creative, and negotiable concept in early literature which challenges society’s definition of what is acceptable. Through the medieval epic poems Cantar de Mio Cid and Mocedades de Rodrigo, the ballad tradition, Cervantes’s Novelas ejemplares,and Lope de Vega’s theatre, Geraldine Hazbun demonstrates that illegitimacy and legitimacy are interconnected and flexible categories defined in relation to marriage, sex, bodies, ethnicity, religion, lineage, and legacy. Both categories are subject to the uncertainties and freedoms of language and fiction and frequently constructed around axes of quantity and completeness. These literary texts, covering a range of illegitimate figures, some with an historical basis, demonstrate that truth, propriety, and standards of behaviour are not forged in the law code or the pulpit but in literature’s fluid system of producing meaning.
“From the point of view of a historian like myself who works on illegitimacy, this is a fascinating and valuable book. Hazbun has captured the essence of illegitimacy and the fact that it is ambiguous and can be reshaped by parents, children, families, and society. … Her well-written analysis of all these different texts makes the literature she is using accessible to non-literary scholars and to students who might be interested in exploring this challenging theme.” (Grace E. Coolidge, Speculum, Vol. 98 (4), October, 2023)
ISBN: 9783030595715
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
271 pages
1st ed. 2020