Getting Acquainted With Alfonso Hernández-Catá

Traditionally it has been considered that Castilian cancionero poetry has hardly preserved diálogos interestróficos, such as the primitive tensón. However, the Cancionero de Palacio contains a very significant sample of the different possibilities of the cancioneril dialogic mold: beyond poetic dialogue forms more common in Fifteenth Century Spanish poetry, through whole texts juxtaposed, the Cancionero de Palacio contains several other more original forms, and as a result it serves as a codex unicus. This article offers, for the first time, an analysis of all the diálogos interestróficos collected in this Cancionero. This analysis contradicts the widely held view about the rarity and scarcity of these texts and confirms the originality of the dialogic schemes and the strong presence of polyphonic texts in this colectánea. The article presents a list of twelve compositions—a very significant number—in which the dialogue articulates all the text, with voices alternating stanza to stanza or even within each stanza. After establishing this body of work, the study centers on a typological analysis based on the voices found in these poems.     

La clerecía del Fernán González

The Poema de Fernán González is usually regarded as a hybrid text—while its subject matter is deemed epic, its expression, intentionality, and ideology are considered clerical. This article studies several elements shared by Fernán González and the other poems of the mester de clerecía school: the same stanza (the cuaderna vía) and poetic rules; similar modes of composition, transmission, and reception; and common structural, thematic, and verbal patterns. The article concludes that the Poema de Fernán González fully participates in the common artistry of the mester de clerecía and therefore can be regarded as the attempt to produce epic poetry by this learned clerical school.     

Bernardo del Carpio en el Poema de Fernán González

The focus of the Poema de Fernán González falls squarely on its protagonist, the tenth-century Castilian warrior lord known to us today as Count Fernán González. Nevertheless, a third of the poem is devoted to the narration of events and prominent figures who preceded the Count. Most notable among these is Bernardo del Carpio, a fully fictitious epic hero who prefigures the Count in his willingness to fight for the independence of the Castilian nation. This analysis of the narration of Bernardo's heroic deeds against the invading army of Charlemagne is meant to clarify lingering doubts about the sources of the poem and their mode of transmission.     

Conflicto político en el Poema de Fernán González

This article deals with the ways in which different political conflicts surrounding the emergence, independence, and consolidation of Castile as a political agent are managed and solved in the Poema de Fernán González. It shows how internal conflicts within the Castilian community are settled by favoring an authoritarian vision of leadership, discouraging consensus and shared decision making. Regarding conflicts with other political domains, the poem legitimizes Castilian independence by means of a narrative that makes natural Castilian claims on Visigothic heritage, while at the same time presenting Castile as following legal procedures and as a victim of external aggression.     

Interview with Adrián Curiel Rivera

Adrián Curiel Rivera is a Mexican novelist, short-story writer and academic. In addition to his novels Vikingos (2012), A bocajarro (2008) and Bogavante (2000), and the collections of stories Día franco (2016) and Madrid al través (2003), he has published two substantial volumes of critical essays, Los piratas del Caribe en la novelística hispanoamericana del siglo XIX (2010) and Novela española y boom hispanoamericano (2006). In 2013 he published Blanco Trópico, an excoriating and often hilarious fictional account of life in the Mexican Academy in the wake of sweeping neoliberal reforms in the university sector, the nature and consequences of which will be all too familiar to many European and US academics. The book caused something of a storm in his native Mexico. In the following interview, which took place in the summer of 2016, he discusses the genesis of and reactions to the novel, but also touches on a broad range of social and literary issues which the book raises: globalization, publishing, the Mexican literary canon and its sacred cows, as well as the place of the campus novel and science fiction in the current Latin American literary landscape.     

The sun in Sámi mythology

The topic of this paper is the position of the sun, Biejvve, in the Sámi religion. The main source of our knowledge about Sámi religion is the accounts of the missionaries and priests from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who measured the Sámi's beliefs by the standards of classical Greek/Roman religion. Consequently, Biejwe was seen as one of the major celestial gods. Many have continued to follow this line of thinking. There is, however, another context in which Biejwe should be viewed. In almost all circumpolar societies, there exists/existed the concept of female goddesses or ‘mothers’ who regulate fertility and protect the family, especially women during pregnancy and children. Sáráhkká, the Sámi goddess of the hearth, is one of these goddesses. Her realm is the fire in the middle of the tent, at the center of people's lives. Consequently, she intercedes in everyday life; she cares for the family and the upholding of social values. Biejvve is also part of this complex. She is the burning fire in the sky, the annually recurring force which in springtime makes the hillsides turn green again and ensures there is food for the reindeer. She protects the reindeer calves during spring and sees to it that women get milk from the animals during summer. Unlike Såråhkkå, she does not intervene directly in people's lives and doesn not have the same elaborate cult, but she does carry the same life‐giving force.     

Conciencia nacional y devoción jacobea en el Poema de Fernán González

Jacobean devotion and national awareness are closely related in the Poema de Fernán González (PFG). The great advance of the Reconquest in the thirteenth century and the reevaluation of the past that it caused enabled the broad Hispanic perspective of the PFG. Spain is not only a distant and longed-for reality (“regnum Gothorum”) but a current political concept. This is the frame of the PFG's intense Castilian sentiment. Castile is the bastion of the Visigothic monarchy, which did not yield to the Muslims and was the foundation for the recovery of Spain. The territorial diversity becomes the outstanding feature of this country, in which the “Montaña” takes an important role. Confronting the proposal of the cult of Saint Millán by the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, the author of the PFG, aware of the damages that such a cult was causing to his monastery, clings to the Jacobean devotion that achieved a broad Hispanic scope.