Celestina: Literary Analysis & Spanish Linguistic Concepts
Celestina: A Literary Crossroads
Celestina, published in the late fifteenth century, is a work that brings together a crossroads of elements. It blends loving idealism with middle-class settings, characters of high birth with servants, and Latinate style and rhetoric with colloquial expressions.
Fernando de Rojas found the first act and decided to continue the work. The author of the first act remains unknown. Rojas was born in 1475 in Toledo and died in 1541.
Editions of Celestina
- 1st Edition (1499, Burgos): 16 acts, anonymous and untitled.
- 2nd Edition (1501, Toledo): Added “letter from the author to a friend” and acrostic verses. Titled Comedy of Calisto and Melibea.
- 3rd Edition (1501, Seville, Toledo, Salamanca): Added 5 acts. Titled Tragi-comedy of Calisto and Melibea, with added verses explaining its purpose.
Themes in Celestina
The primary themes are love, fortune, and death.
Love
- Calisto: Attempts to be the perfect lover but behaves like a thoughtless and selfish young man, claiming to serve and honor Melibea to satisfy his pretended desire.
- Melibea: An active participant who does not repent of her actions.
- Servants: Represent the world of the lower classes, where sexual desire is openly revealed.
Fortune and Death
Events are governed by fortune, which ultimately leads to death. All actions of the characters are chained:
- Celestina dies due to her avarice.
- The servants are punished for their crime.
- Calisto is the victim of his bewilderment.
- Melibea commits suicide for love.
Purpose of the Work
The work’s purpose is “against mad love.” The characters’ fates can be interpreted as punishment, suggesting a moralizing intention. However, Fernando de Rojas’s attitude is ambiguous, incorporating erotic content and existential gloom.
Genre of Celestina
Celestina is written in dialogue form, following the humanistic comedy tradition. It was a theater piece meant to be read aloud.
Linguistic Varieties and Language Concepts
A historical language is a language that has formed an ideal system, identified by its speakers and distinct from other languages.
Diatopic Varieties (Dialects)
These manifest as dialects and occur across the geographical spread of a historical language.
Dialects
Dialects are different ways of speaking a language, differing in pronunciation, intonation, etc.
- In the Spanish State:
- Northern varieties (the center)
- Southern varieties (spoken in Extremadura, Andalusia, etc.)
- Varieties in contact with other languages (Catalan, Galician, Basque, etc.)
- Outside the State:
- Latin American varieties
Diastratic Varieties (Social Dialects)
These are different forms of speaking according to the speaker’s social level, materialized in social dialects.
Levels of Speech
- Cultivated Level: Greater control and correction in phonetics and lexicon, easily expressing morphosyntactic language and thought.
- Common Level: Less fluent in language use, frequent use of fillers, reduction of vocabulary.
- Vulgar Level: Difficulties in the relationship between thinking and language, use of fillers, vague terms.
Slang/Jargon
A special language used by individuals of the same profession or class (e.g., professional jargon, underworld and crime slang, juvenile slang).
Standard Language
Facilitates communication between speakers. It must be neutral and not marked by other characteristic forms, representing the correct use of language.
Vulgarisms
Distinguished by phonetic, morphological, syntactic, and semantic levels.
Hypercorrection
Exaggerated corrections, applying linguistic criteria to correct non-errors.
Diaphasic Varieties (Registers)
These reflect the diversity of forms of expression of speakers, depending on the communicative situation.
Registers
- Formal Register: Found in written and verbal messages, characterized by a lack of spontaneity, complex syntactic constructions, and very accurate lexicon.
- Informal Register: Characterized by its spontaneity in syntax, vocabulary, etc.