Spanish 480 General Course Outline (approximately by week)

I. Introduction

    A.   Evolving socio-political climate. The Reconquest. Continuity and discontinuity.
    B.   Who is the "Homo Hispanus"? The unique cultural situation of Medieval Spain.

II. Traditional lyric poetry. Similarities and points of divergence. Lírica arábigo-andaluza, gallego-portuguesa, castellana y catalana-provenzal.

III. Mester de Juglaría. (Neo)Traditionalist-(Neo)Individualist Perspectives. Poema de Mío Cid. The epic poem's purported realism and its political import.

IV. Mester de Clerecía. Authors and Authority. Gonzalo de Berceo, Milagros de Nuestra Señora. Clérigo ajuglarado y poeta riojano.

V. Medieval Prose.

    A.   Manuscript Transmission: The School of Translators under Alfonso C, el sabio.
    B.   The Evolution of Narrative Prose. Don Juan Manuel, El conde Lucanor. Universality and individuality.

VI-VII. Juan Ruiz (Arcipreste de Hita), Libro de buen amor. Clerical conventions undone.

VIII. Traditional Narrative Poetry. The Romancero.

    A.   origins, vogue, persistence.
    B.   the transformations of dynamic, open-structured narratives.

IX. Lyric Poetry of the Fifteenth Century.

    A.   Juan de Mena & Iñigo López de Mendoza (Marqués de Santillana)
    B.   Jorge Manrique

X-XI. The Converso Problem: 1391-1516.

    A.   Assimilation to Persecution. Strategies for survival. The case of Hernando del Pulgar.
    B.   Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina. Literary conventions subverted.

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