Metahistorias medievales: Dos heterologias cronicas

Ruth Lubenow Haji-Ghassemi, Purdue University

Abstract

My thesis is a metahistorical analysis of the late 14th and early 15th century works of Pero Lopez de Ayala and Leonor Lopez de Cordoba. It focuses on the relationship between history and fiction within these texts as well as between the texts themselves and the mythico-poetical and cultural structures which inform them. The canonical chronicles of Ayala reflect the "de-narrativization" of history, or the disintegration of the "story," caused by the cultural crisis of the late 14th century. His providential "emplotment" of the fall of Pedro I reflects the mythology created by a feudal and chivalric society seeking its re-birth through a change of dynasty. However, Ayala's later chronicles reveal the political, social and economic disintegration of the post civil war period. As his "desired emplotment" of History slips away from him, the chronicler becomes cynical in his presentation of the facts, and apparently abandons his project altogether. Cordoba's text reflects the same narrative chaos evidenced by Ayala's later chronicles. Her Memoirs are hermetic because her "story" is that of a defeated "Other" culture, whose underlying myth did not survive the Trastamaran "emplotment" of History. One possible clue to the significance of her story lies in the re-interpretation of Spanish history presented by recent scholars. In retrospect, her emphasis of the "Christian charity" which she shows to her "converted" servant, and the sense of urgency which echoes in her almost biblical description of her actions, take on the appearance of a prophetic lament for the death of the heterodox and tolerant Spain which had begun to crumble during her lifetime. And yet, just as Ayala's text escapes the canonical interpretations imposed upon it at the time that it was presented to the Trastamaran kings, containing within itself the seed of different and opposing "histories," so too must Cordoba's text escape my own attempts to institutionalize it for our present historical perspectives. It is in the heterological nature of the narrative itself and its relationship with the historical "reality" which it attempts to depict, that both texts should remain open, above and beyond any given attempts at their definitive interpretation.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Kadir, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Literature|Middle Ages

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