The Book of the Knight Zifar

The Book of the Knight Zifar
Title The Book of the Knight Zifar PDF eBook
Author Charles L. Nelson
Publisher University Press of Kentucky
Pages 509
Release 2021-12-14
Genre Fiction
ISBN 0813194911

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The Book of the Knight Zifar (or Cifar), Spain's first novel of chivalry, is the tale of a virtuous but unfortunate knight who has fallen from grace and must seek redemption through suffering and good deeds. Because of a curse that repeatedly deprives him of that most important of knightly accoutrements—his horse—Zifar and his family must flee their native India and wander through distant lands seeking to regain their rank and fortune. A series of mishaps divides the family, and the novel follows their separate adventures—alternatively heroic, comic, and miraculous—until at length they are reunited and their honor restored. The anonymous author of Zifar based his early fourteenth-century novel on the medieval story of the life of St. Eustacius, but onto this trunk he grafted a surprising variety of narrative types: Oriental tales of romance and magic, biblical stories, moralizing fables popular since the Middle Ages, including several from Aesop, and instructions in the rules of proper knightly conduct. Humor in the form of puns, jokes, and old proverbs also runs through the novel. In particular, the foolish/wise Knave offers a comic contrast to the heroic Knight, whom he must continually rescue through the application of common sense. Zifar was to have an important influence on later Spanish literature, and perhaps on Cervantes' great tale of a knight and his squire, Don Quixote. All those with an interest in Spanish literature and medieval life will be grateful for Mr. Nelson's excellent translation, which brings to life this extraordinary early novel.

The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia

The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia
Title The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia PDF eBook
Author E. Michael Gerli
Publisher Routledge
Pages 589
Release 2021-05-30
Genre Art
ISBN 1351809784

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The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia: Unity in Diversity draws together the innovative work of renowned scholars as well as several thought-provoking essays from emergent academics, in order to provide broad-range, in-depth coverage of the major aspects of the Iberian medieval world. Exploring the social, political, cultural, religious, and economic history of the Iberian Peninsula, the volume includes 37 original essays grouped around fundamental themes such as Languages and Literatures, Spiritualities, and Visual Culture. This interdisciplinary volume is an excellent introduction and reference work for students and scholars in Iberian Studies and Medieval Studies. SERIES EDITOR: BRAD EPPS SPANISH LIST ADVISOR: JAVIER MUÑOZ-BASOLS

Alfonso X, the Learned

Alfonso X, the Learned
Title Alfonso X, the Learned PDF eBook
Author H. Salvador Mart Nez
Publisher BRILL
Pages 612
Release 2010
Genre Biography & Autobiography
ISBN 9004181474

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A truly groundbreaking book, presenting a portrait of Alfonso X, monarch and medieval intellectual "par excellence," and the extraordinary cultural history of Spain at that time.

Chivalry and Violence in Late Medieval Castile

Chivalry and Violence in Late Medieval Castile
Title Chivalry and Violence in Late Medieval Castile PDF eBook
Author Samuel A. Claussen
Publisher Boydell & Brewer
Pages 245
Release 2020
Genre History
ISBN 1783275464

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First full investigation in English into the role played by chivalric ideology, and its violent results, in late medieval Castile.

Love Magic and Control in Premodern Iberian Literature

Love Magic and Control in Premodern Iberian Literature
Title Love Magic and Control in Premodern Iberian Literature PDF eBook
Author Veronica Menaldi
Publisher Routledge
Pages 168
Release 2021-07-29
Genre Literary Criticism
ISBN 1000421767

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This book explores the complexity of Iberian identity and multicultural/multi-religious interactions in the Peninsula through the lens of spells, talismans, and imaginative fiction in medieval and early modern Iberia. Focusing particularly on love magic—which manipulates objects, celestial spheres, and demonic conjurings to facilitate sexual encounters—Menaldi examines how practitioners and victims of such magic as represented in major works produced in Castile. Magic, and love magic in particular, is an exchange of knowledge, a claim to power and a deviation from or subversion of the licit practices permitted by authoritative decrees. As such, magic serves as a metaphorical tool for understanding the complex relationships of the Christian with the non-Christian. In seeking to understand and incorporate hidden secrets that presumably reveal how one can manipulate their environment, occult knowledge became one of the funnels through which cultures and practices mixed and adapted throughout the centuries.

A History of the Spanish Novel

A History of the Spanish Novel
Title A History of the Spanish Novel PDF eBook
Author J. A. Garrido Ardila
Publisher OUP Oxford
Pages 417
Release 2015-04-30
Genre Literary Criticism
ISBN 0191056464

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The origins of the Spanish novel date back to the early picaresque novels and Don Quixote, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the history of the genre in Spain presents the reader with such iconic works as Galdós's Fortunata and Jacinta, Clarín's La Regenta, or Unamuno's Mist. A History of the Spanish Novel traces the developments of Spanish prose fiction in order to offer a comprehensive and detailed account of this important literary tradition. It opens with an introductory chapter that examines the evolution of the novel in Spain, with particular attention to the rise and emergence of the novel as a genre, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the bearing of Golden-Age fiction in later novelists of all periods. The introduction contextualises the Spanish novel in the circumstances and milestones of Spain's history, and in the wider setting of European literature. The volume is comprised of chapters presented diachronically, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century and others concerned with specific traditions (the chivalric romance, the picaresque, the modernist novel, the avant-gardist novel) and with some of the most salient authors (Cervantes, Zayas, Galdós, and Baroja). A History of the Spanish Novel takes the reader across the centuries to reveal the captivating life of the Spanish novel tradition, in all its splendour, and its phenomenal contribution to Western literature.

World Literature in Spanish [3 volumes]

World Literature in Spanish [3 volumes]
Title World Literature in Spanish [3 volumes] PDF eBook
Author Maureen Ihrie
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Pages 1509
Release 2011-10-20
Genre Literary Criticism
ISBN 0313080836

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Containing roughly 850 entries about Spanish-language literature throughout the world, this expansive work provides coverage of the varied countries, ethnicities, time periods, literary movements, and genres of these writings. Providing a thorough introduction to Spanish-language literature worldwide and across time is a tall order. However, World Literature in Spanish: An Encyclopedia contains roughly 850 entries on both major and minor authors, themes, genres, and topics of Spanish literature from the Middle Ages to the present day, affording an amazingly comprehensive reference collection in a single work. This encyclopedia describes the growing diversity within national borders, the increasing interdependence among nations, and the myriad impacts of Spanish literature across the globe. All countries that produce literature in Spanish in Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Asia are represented, covering both canonical authors and emerging contemporary writers and trends. Underrepresented writings—such as texts by women writers, queer and Afro-Hispanic texts, children's literature, and works on relevant but less studied topics such as sports and nationalism—also appear. While writings throughout the centuries are covered, those of the 20th and 21st centuries receive special consideration.