Search

The Castilian fourteenth-century author Don Juan Manuel is most renowned for his frame-tale collection of exempla, the Conde Lucanor (1335), but he wrote numerous works of fiction and history, always in a didactic vein. This article examines certain ‘reality elements’ in the fictional and historical tales of the Conde Lucanor and other works of its author, principally the use of autofiction and the insertion of historical figures in a fictional setting or their use in such a mode. This topic is approached through wider discussions about the distinction between allegorical and historical truth in Juan Manuel’s work, the discursive common ground between medieval history and fiction in terms of their plausibility, and the notion of the purported self-referentiality of fiction. It is argued that autofictional and other reality elements are not so much an attempt to verify or authenticate otherwise fictional narratives, as it is a conscious play on the common ground of the historical and the fictional mode, and part of a cohesive didactic strategy on the part of the author in question – interconnected with his social and political position in fourteenth-century Castile.

This article explores the manner in which the virtues and vices play a part in the representation of the social order in the work of Don Juan Manuel, with a particular emphasis on the Libro del cauallero et del escudero, and in reference to the configuration of chivalry in Alfonso X’s Siete partidas (2P, Title XXI) and Ramon Llull’s Llibre de l’orde de cavalleria. I discuss how Don Juan Manuel’s representation of knighthood and chivalry differs from that of his predecessors, the moral and ethical notions inherent therein, and its relation to conceptions of social order. The discussion concerns the motivations and aims of these diverging conceptions of chivalry and how they are legitimated and justified. Este artículo explora la forma en que los pecados participan en la representación del orden social en la obra de Don Juan Manuel, con un énfasis particular sobre el Libro del Caballero et del Escudero, y también en la configuración de la caballería en las Siete Partidas de Alfonso el Sabio (Segunda partida, Título XXI) y el Llibre de l’orde de cavalleria de Ramon Llull. En este artículo, mi objetivo es entender como la representación del caballero y de la caballería en Don Juan Manuel es diferente a la de sus antecesores, en el sentido de la moral y de la noción ética que es inherente, y cómo esta nueva visión se relaciona con el orden social. El análisis se refiere a los motivos y objetivos de estas concepciones diferentes de la caballería, y cómo los mismos son legitimados y justificados.