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Court and Country: The Fusion of Two Images of Love in Juan Rodríguez's El siervo libre de amor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Edward Dudley
Edward Dudley*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

The “Estoria de dos amadores” interpolated into the autobiographic El siervo libre de amor by Juan Rodríguez del Padrón tells two love stories which embody conflicting ideals of love. This thematic duality is reflected in the descriptions that surround each relationship, and two meaningful patterns emerge, one relating love to nature, the other relating love to the life of the court. The first appears in the story of Ardanlier and Liessa, in which a life of pleasure and sexual fulfillment is associated with their retreat to the forest; while the second emerges from the story of Ardanlier and the Infanta Yrena, a tale of suffering and sexual frustration acted out in the ambience of the court. The thematic key is provided by the epithets applied to the two women, the “plazentera Liessa” and the “padeçiente Yrena.” The tension between these two poles of feeling is resolved on a narrative level by the tragic death of Liessa, the resulting suicide of Ardanlier, and the self-immolation of Yrena. This resolution is reflected thematically by the fusion of the two worlds of love, the courtly and the natural, into the single, semi-divine image of the lovers' tomb. The elevation of the tomb to a shrine by means of enchantment perpetuates the fame of the protagonists' exemplary lives and combines their conflicting emotional experiences.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 82 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 117 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1967

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References

1 The court-country dichotomy suggests the generic division of the chivalric-sentimental novel (Diego de San Pedro's La Cárcel de amor) and the pastoral love novel (Jorge de Montemayor's Diana). Menéndez Pelayo, in 1894, considered El siervo libre de amor the source of both genres (Anlologia de poetas liricos castellanos, Madrid, 1911, v, ccxxvii), but later, 1905, modified his judgment and saw in it only the beginnings of a sense of nature (Orígenes de la novda, Madrid, 1905, i, cccvii). María Rosa Lida de Malkiel saw no feeling for nature in the writings of Juan Rodríguez (“Juan Rodríguez del Padrón: Influencia,” NRFH, viii, 1954, 24), although she noted that the scene within the interpolated tale shifted between court and country (“Juan Rodríguez del Padrón: vida y obras,” NRFH, vi, 1952, 322). The close ties between the sentimental and pastoral novels are discussed by Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce in La novela pastoril española (Madrid, 1959), p. 35.

2 Citations from El siervo libre de amor in my text are to Obras de Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara, ed. Antonio Paz y Melia (Madrid, 1884).

3 Lida de Malkiel finds the source of the cock as a harbinger of dawn in Ovid (“Rodríguez del Padrón: vida y obras,” p. 337). For a study of the alba tradition in Spanish literature see Edward M. Wilson, “Ora vete, amor, y vete, cata que amanece,” Estudios dedicados a Menéndez Pidal, v (Madrid, 1954), 335–348. This study points out that in Spain lovers, particularly when not adulterous, are sometimes united at dawn rather than separated; in the French tradition the lovers always part company.

4 See Lida de Malkiel, La idea de la fama (México, 1952), p. 120. But it should be noted that the fame Ardanlier and Liessa gain as lovers is eternal, indicating a departure from the Provençal tradition and an approach to the attitudes of the Latin elegists, in particular Ovid, whom Juan Rodríguez so much admired.

5 Karl Vossler in La poesía de la soledad en España (Buenos Aires, 1946) does not discuss El siervo libre de amor, but some analogies may be drawn from his comments on the pastoral (p. 95). The “soledad” of Ardanlier is problematic because his “seven years given to solitary life” are an exaltation of his life with Liessa.

6 The possible interpretation of “plansera” as derived from “plangere” is not supported by the context. Liessa goes joyfully because she believes it is Ardanlier who comes. She does not suspect the arrival of his father. Paz y Melia gives the meaning as “alegre, regocijada” (p. 446).

7 The interest in heraldry is characteristic of the esthetic and social orientation of Juan Rodríguez. See Lida de Malkiel: “Rodríguez del Padrón: vida y obras,” p. 317.

8 The references to Santiago de Compostela and other regional material used by Juan Rodríguez are examined in detail by Carlos Martínez-Barbeito in Macías el enamorado y Juan Rodríguez del Padrón (Santiago de Compostela, 1951), pp. 116–119.

9 Obras de Juan Rodríguez, p. 418. Here Paz y Melia speaks of blue as the color consecrated to Venus. Martín de Riquer, in Manual de heráldica española (Barcelona, 1942), p. 6, explains that the term Venus may be employed instead of green in describing royal arms, thus “su verde campo” is also associated with love.

10 There is a recurrent Unking by Juan Rodríguez of his own fame with that of his countryman Macías. See Lida de Malkiel: “Rodríguez del Padrón: vida y obras,” pp. 324–326.