Lasses and Asses in the Medieval Spanish Aesopic Fables
From time immemorial animals in literature have been used to symbolize any number of virtues or vices. So what of the donkey? This downtrodden beast of burden becomes a veritable supercharged ? “supercargado” ? symbol for lust in two Aesopic anecdotes in a Bakhtinian topsy-turvy world in which highly prized brains, Medieval “seso,” plummet to the groin and marital bliss, the sacrament of holy matrimony,is made dependent on copulation with a lavish male member. In both anecdotes what is not turned topsy turvy, however, is the role of woman who really becomes the butt of the joke, or does she? What may in fact be the case is what Harriet Goldberg pointed out some time ago, in some stories, rather than misogynism, what transpires is a misanthropism directed specifically, in this case, at men who, providers of bliss and order, are in fact little more than their genitalia and certainly no match for the “asno en el prado” as Celestina has pointed out in her diatribe to Pármeno.
Click here to return to TOP of Conference Program
Use the browser's BACK button to return to the session you were viewing.
© 2004 ROCKY MOUNTAIN MODERN LANGUAGE
ASSOCIATION |