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La Celestina

En el siglo XV las influencias italianas se han asentado en la península y han dado forma a una nueva corriente cultural: el Humanismo. El teocentrismo que había imperado durante toda la Edad Media ha terminado por fin y ha aparecido el antropocentrismo. El hombre se ha convertido en el centro del Universo. Aparece la alegría de vivir y los autores dejan de escribir al amor divino y comienzan a fijarse en el amor humano. Se rehabilitan los textos de los autores griegos. Los turcos han invadido Constantinopla y los sabios griegos han llevado estas obras a Italia.

Aparecen los mitos griegos y con ellos las comedias y las tragedias de los autores de la Hélade. Las tragedias narran las acciones de la gente del pueblo, las tragedias narran los hechos de los dioses y héroes clásicos.

En este ambiente aparece una obra, Tragicomedia de Calixto y Melibea, una de las obras cumbres de la literatura española, cuyo título ha sido eclipsado por el nombre de uno de sus personajes: La Celestina. La obra fue escrita por un misterioso autor Fernado de Rojas del que se tienen pocos datos. Se sabe que nació en la Puebla de Montalbán, fue bachiller en Salamanca, probablemente fue un judío converso.

La obra está escrita en forma dialogada, como si de una obra de teatro se tratase. Pero nos resulta demasiado larga para ser memorizada e interpretada en un escenario con los medios de la época. Seguramente fue escrita como tantas otras para ser leída en voz alta en un salón donde cada invitado a la lectura leía un personaje, como era costumbre en la época.

La obra se desarrolla en Salamanca. Calixto es un joven que desea a Melibea, una bella muchacha de clase alta. Para lograr saciar sus bajas pasiones Calixto contrata los favores de Celestina, una bruja dueña de un burdel al que es asiduo Calixto y sus criados. Celestina logra concertar una cita entre los amantes. hasta el trágico desenlace.

Si observamos a Calixto, que según los cánones clásicos debía pertenecer a la categoría de héroe, no es ni más ni menos que un hombre dominado por las bajas pasiones, un personaje de comedia. De ahí que la obra se titule "Tragicomedia". Melibea es el símbolo del amor idealizado, pero se ve corrompida su inocencia por la intervención de Celestina y Calixto. En cuanto a los criados, se mueven en un mundo marginal, entre brujas y prostitutas, todos ellos protegidos por Celestina, que son los que provocan su fin.

La Celestina, commonly attributed to Fernando de Rojas, is, alongside Don Quijote, one of the most studied works of medieval Spain. It is, for those who agree with Dorothy Severin, the first modern novel. For those who do not agree with Severin, it is something else. What it is, in any case, is not particularly clear. Some claim that it is a play (albeit an incredibly long one in over twenty acts), while others consider it a novel. Those who consider it a play note the complete lack of narration, leading those who insist it is in fact a novel to counter that it is a "dialogue novel." These are the sorts of discussions one inevitably ends up in when trying to study pre-Cervantes Spanish literature. No one ever actually gets round to explaining why it ultimately matters, but it is certainly a good way to publish an article on La Celestina without discussing such irrelevancies as plot, characters, imagery, dialogue, and the like.

Variously entitled Comedia de Calisto y Melibea (Comedy of Calisto and Melibea), Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea), and Libro de Calisto, Melibea, y dela puta vieja Celestina (Book of Calisto, Melibea, and the Old Whore Celestina), what we now know as La Celestina can be divided into two basic parts: first act, which Rojas (or whoever it may be, as a professor of mine likes to add) allegedly found as an anonymous manuscript, and the rest of the novel, which has always been attributed to Rojas, although it is uncertain whether he in fact wrote it.

La Celestina is the story of Calisto, Melibea, various well-read and quite corrupt servants and prostitutes, and Celestina. Calisto is a foppish, melodramatic, angsty would-be devotee of amour courtois, who seeks to woo Melibea. That this is not a typical work of the sentimental or chivalrous genre is clear from the very opening:

CALISTO- En esto veo, Melibea, la grandeza de Dios¹.
CALISTO-In this, Melibea, I see the greatness of God

MELIBEA.- ¿En qué, Calisto?
MELIBEA- In what, Calisto?

CALISTO.- En dar poder a natura que de tan perfeta hermosura te dotasse e facer a mí inmérito tanta merced que verte alcançasse e en tan conueniente lugar, que mi secreto dolor manifestarte pudiesse. Sin dubda encomparablemente es mayor tal galardón, que el seruicio, sacrificio, deuoción e obras pías, que por este lugar alcançar tengo yo a Dios offrescido, ni otro poder mi voluntad humana puede conplir. ¿Quién vido en esta vida cuerpo glorificado de ningún hombre, como agora el mío? Por cierto los gloriosos sanctos, que se deleytan en la visión diuina, no gozan mas que yo agora en el acatamiento tuyo. Más ¡o triste!, que en esto diferimos: que ellos puramente se glorifican sin temor de caer de tal bienauenturança e yo misto me alegro con recelo del esquiuo tormento, que tu absencia me ha de causar.
CALISTO- In the fact that He gave Nature the power to grant you such perfect beauty and showed an undeserving soul like me the mercy of allowing me to see you in such a place that I might make manifest to you my secret suffering. Without a doubt, such a prize is incomparably greater than the service, sacrifice, devotion, and pious works, for, by arriving in this place, I have God offered before me; my human will can serve no other power. Who in this life has seen a man's body so glorified as mine now is? Certainly, the glorious Saints, who delight in the divine vision, do not delight more than I do in your service. But, o Sadness! For in this we differ: that they are purely glorified without fear of falling in such misfortune, and I, a mixture of body and soul, look warily forward to the exquisite torment that your absence will cause me.

MELIBEA.- ¿Por grand premio tienes esto, Calisto?
MELIBEA- And this you consider a great prize, Calisto?

CALISTO.- Téngolo por tanto en verdad que, si Dios me diese en el cielo la silla sobre sus sanctos, no lo ternía por tanta felicidad.
CALISTO- I consider it such, for, if God were to offer me the seat in Heaven above His Saints, I would not be as happy.

MELIBEA.- Pues avn más ygual galardón te daré yo, si perseueras.
MELIBEA- Well, I shall give you an even greater prize, if you persevere.

CALISTO.- ¡O bienauenturadas orejas mías, que indignamente tan gran palabra haueys oydo!
CALISTO- O my fortunate ears, that, without being worthy, have heard such great words!

MELIBEA.- Mas desauenturadas de que me acabes de oyr Porque la paga será tan fiera, qual meresce tu loco atreuimiento. E el intento de tus palabras, Calisto, ha seydo de ingenio de tal hombre como tú, hauer de salir para se perder en la virtud de tal muger como yo.¡Vete!, ¡vete de ay, torpe! Que no puede mi paciencia tollerar que aya subido en coraçón humano comigo el ylícito amor comunicar su deleyte.
MELIBEA- But they would be unfortunate if you'd let me finish. For the price shall be as ferocious as your mad effrontery merits. And the intent of your words, Calisto, were typical of a man like you, seeing to lose yourself in the virtue of a woman like me. Hence! Go hence, fool! For my patience cannot bear that the idea that illicit love should communicate its delight has slipped into a human heart.

CALISTO.- Yré como aquel contra quien solamente la aduersa fortuna pone su estudio con odio cruel.
CALISTO- I shall go like a man against who only adverse fortune should ply its trade with cruel hatred.

Rebuffed by the object of his affections, Calisto returns home to pout and take out his frustrations on his servant, Sempronio, by means of bad poetry and suboptimal lute playing.

CALISTO.- ¿Qual dolor puede ser tal que se yguale con mi mal?
CALISTO- What pain could be such that it would hurt this much?

SEMPRONIO.- Destemplado está esse laúd.
SEMPRONIO- That lute's out of tune.

Despite his apparently extensive study of Seneca — a running gag shared by all servants and prostitutes of the novel — Sempronio's highbrow rhetoric fails to talk sense into Calisto, who, in Sempronio's words, sees things "Con ojos de alinde, con que lo poco parece mucho e lo pequeño grande." ("With magnifying eyes, with which small things appear great and great things small."). So that his master will not despair, Sempronio decides to aid Calisto in wooing Melibea, enlisting the help of

vna vieja barbuda, que se dize Celestina, hechicera, astuta, sagaz en quantas maldades ay. Entiendo que passan de cinco mill virgos los que se han hecho e deshecho por su autoridad en esta cibdad. A las duras peñas promouerá e prouocará a luxuria, si quiere.
a bearded old woman called Celestina, sorceress, schemer, expert at every evil there is. It's my understanding that more than five thousand virgins have been done and undone by her authority in this city. She'll go to great lengths to promote and provoke lust, if she wishes.

And so it begins. Sempronio and Calisto scheme with Celestina to win over Melibea, while Sempronio, his fellow servant Pármeno, and various of Celestina's colleagues scheme to cash in on Calisto, and Sempronio and Pármeno scheme to double-cross Celestina, who, together with Sempronio, has already schemed to corrupt the loyal, earnest Pármeno into scheming. Calisto and Melibea do eventually get together, and after their "breue deleyte" (brief pleasure), they soon join every other major character in dying.

Analysis

Because I do not seek to enter into yet another of the many debates concerning La Celestina — such as the debates concerning authorship and genre — in which one may only enter at the cost of one's own sanity, certain things will be assumed. First, I will assume that La Celestina is a "dialogue novel." Likewise, I will assume that Dorothy Severin is correct in asserting that Rojas' work is the first modern novel for the reasons given by her in her introduction to the Cátedra edition of La Celestina. I have no intention of throwing wood on a fire that serves only to burn paper.

For Severin and those who agree with her, La Celestina can be considered the first modern novel because "[t]anto Rojas como Cervantes destruyen el mundo de la ficción medieval al demostrar que es imposible vivir como un caballero andante, o como un amante cortesano, en un mundo realista." ("Both Rojas and Cervantes destroy the world of medieval fiction by proving that it is impossible to live as a knight-errant or a courtly lover, in a realist world.") However, La Celestina does not entirely break with the literary tradition of the Middle Ages. In its structure and themes, it rather appears to continue and expand upon the tradition of the enxiemplos, exemplified by the Libro de Buen Amor, by the Arcipreste de Hita.

I seek here to prove that La Celestina is a novel that situates itself clearly in the tradition of the enxiemplo, but in a manner different from that suggested in Rojas' explanatory verses. In addition to putting those "buelta y mesclada en vicios de amor" ("caught up in vices of love") in fear of "a fiar de alcahueta ni falso sirviente" ("trust[ing] matchmakers and disloyal servants"), Rojas' work exposes an entire corrupt, degenerate society, in which it is ultimately an "old whore" who pulls the strings, and in which the general attitude is profound hypocrisy. Taking as his starting point the classical enxiemplo, which criticised specific behaviours that did not meet with the approval of the author, and despite his own defensive statements, Rojas has created an "enxiemplo social" that goes beyond specific behaviours to aim a merciless critique at an entire society.