Professor Fraker argues that the "Celestina", however original or singular, does not embody a new discourse, and falls easily within the literary norms of its time. Thus on the one hand it belongs to a genre, comedy, the term taken in a sense perfectly accessible to the two authors and their contemporaries. On the other, the detail and fabric of the work is in great part genuinely rhetorical. In his approach to the question of genre, Professor Fraker draws on four texts familiar to students at the time of composition of the work: the description of the comic plot in the section on "narratio" in the "De inventione", the essays of Evanthius and Donatus which introduce the latter's commentary on Terence, and the commentary proper. Throughout his study Professor Fraker maintains a sense of paradox: the "Celestina", by any standards unique, is nevertheless entirely conservative and traditional if considered from the viewpoint of form or mode of discourse.

An exploration of the cultural-political complexity of the medieval Peninsula. Medieval Iberia was rich in sociolinguistic and cultural diversity. This volume explores the culture, history, literature and language of the Peninsula in an attempt to understand its cultural-political complexity and its legacy.Principal themes include the representation of minority groups in the community; the challenge of social contact that could bring mutual absorption of influence or conflict; the effects of linguistic interaction and development; and the dissemination of cultural and scientific knowledge within and beyond the borders of the Peninsula. Modern interpretations of Medieval Iberia are neither static nor definitive in this kaleidoscopic field of investigation. EDITORS: Ivy A. Corfis and Ray Harris-Northall are Professors of Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison OTHER CONTRIBUTORS: Pablo Ancos, William J. Courtney, Thomas D. Cravens, Frank Dominguez, Noel Fallows, Charles F. Fraker, E. Michael Gerli, Kristin Neumayer, Stanley G. Payne, Joel Rini, Joseph T. Snow, Michael Solomon

The author presents the first formal study of Jewish influences in the famous fifteenth-century cancionero, composed at the court of the poet-king, John II of Castile.