James F. Burke – författare

The plot of the late-medieval Spanish work Celestina (1499) centers on the ill-fated love of Calisto and Melibea and the fascinating character of their intermediary, Celestina. In this ground-breaking rereading of the play, James F. Burke offers a new interpretation of the characters' actions by analyzing medieval theories of perception that would have influenced the composition of Celestina. Drawing upon a variety of texts and thinkers—including the medieval theories of Thomas Aquinas, the Renaissance treatises of Marsilio Ficino, the classical philosophy of Aristotle, and the modern psychology of Jacques Lacan—Burke relates ancient and medieval theories of sensory functions to modern understandings. He demonstrates that modern concepts of "the gaze" have their premodern analogy in the idea of an all-encompassing sensory field, both visual and auditory, that surrounded and enveloped each individual. Touching on medieval theories of the "evil eye," the sonic sphere, and "the banquet of the senses," Burke offers a new perspective on the use and manipulation of sensory input by the characters of Celestina. This book will be welcomed not only by students of Spanish literature but also by those interested in new ways of approaching medieval and Renaissance texts.

The churches and manuscripts of medieval Europe incessantly juxtapose imagery depicting sacred themes with likenesses of the crudest and basest nature. This book examines such contrasts in six major works of pre-1350 Spanish literature, arguing that medieval writers and artists subscribed to the classical belief that one must introduce the contrary of a concept in order to elucidate it fully. To explain this play of opposites, the author draws on the contrast between Bakhtin's concept of the carnivalesque, which embodies and portrays the realm of desire, and the domain of the law, which imposes the social and behavioral restraints upon which civilized conduct is based.Four of the works in question—the Poema de Mio Cid, the Razón de amor, the Libro de buen amor, and the Libro del Conde Lucanor—clearly display such contrary elements. The remaining works covered—the Auto de los reyes magos and the Milagros of Gonzalo de Berceo—would, on the surface, appear merely to affirm contemporary orthodoxy. The author argues, however, that even these works must be understood intertextually, that elements within them refer to a strongly contrastive other beyond their textual confines. When this theory is applied back to the other four texts, they, too, prove to bear within them allusions to an outside system of supplementary meanings.How, then, can we account for this polar structure in medieval art and letters? The author argues that people of the time tended to understand artistic works in a manner analogous to the layout of a medieval manuscript page. The central part carries the most important message, yet in the periphery (the margin) one finds a commentary that is often essential to a complete understanding of the whole. Moreover, text and commentary oscillate: what is central can become peripheral, and what is "outside" can move to the core of a document's explicitly thematized concerns.

The medieval poem Cantar de Mio Cid is one of the great works of Spanish literature. Its precise date is uncertain, and its author has never been identified. Some scholars believe that it was written by many authors who, over time, adapted earlier material. In this study James Burke considers the authorship of the poem as revealed in key structural components. Placing the Cantar de Mio Cid more in the emerging culture of writing than in the sphere of oral poetry, Burke maintains that the text was produced in a manner typical for the Middle Ages by a writer who followed procedures very specific to the period.Medieval writers were invariably educated in the basic subjects of the trivium: grammatica, rhetorica, and dialectica, taught in the 'middle schools' of the twelfth century. In the process they acquired techniques that enabled them to rewrite pre-existing materials of an authoritative character, emphasizing themes and ideas important for contemporaries.Burke argues that someone rewrote epic material having to do with the Cid in this way. Referring to a device described by the twelfth-century Spanish philosopher Dominicus Gundissalinus as 'the imaginative, poetic syllogism,' Burke identifies three instances of the device in the Cantar de Mio Cid. They support themes and motifs of awakening, manifestation, and revelation, and of the hero as exemplar.This volume sheds new light on a central work in Spanish literature and on medieval poetry in general.

This collection of essays was released in honor of John Leyerle, a scholar to whom all medievalists in North America, and many beyond, owe a great debt. As a teacher, scholar, and administrator, Leyerle has been a leader in the rise and renewal of medieval studies on this continent in the past thirty years. The essays in this volume encompass his broad academic interests and interdisciplinary approach to scholarship, with a range of contributors from Canada, the United States, and abroad.

This collection of essays was released in honor of John Leyerle, a scholar to whom all medievalists in North America, and many beyond, owe a great debt. As a teacher, scholar, and administrator, Leyerle has been a leader in the rise and renewal of medieval studies on this continent in the past thirty years. The essays in this volume encompass his broad academic interests and interdisciplinary approach to scholarship, with a range of contributors from Canada, the United States, and abroad.