The Literature of Misogyny in Medieval Spain
The Arcipreste de Talavera and the Spill

An examination of two fifteenth-century misogynist Iberian works.

Michael Solomon (Author)

9780521563901, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 November 1997

232 pages
23.7 x 16.5 x 2.5 cm, 0.52 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Drawing on a wide variety of sources, this well-researched book deals primarily with two mediaeval works, Alonso de Martinez's Arcipreste de Talavera and Jaime Roig's Spell, and the link between their misogynist content and mediaeval medicine. Although of particular interest for the specialist in mediaeval Spanish literature, as all Spanish quotations are translated into English and its style is lucid, this book could have a wider general appeal with its fascinating insight into the influence of mediaeval medical theory and practice on the writing of this time.' The Bulletin

The Literature of Misogyny in Medieval Spain examines the medical underpinnings of two major misogynist works from fifteenth-century Iberia: Alonso de Martínez's Arcipreste de Talavera and Jacme Roig's Spill. Michael Solomon argues that these works gain their persuasive force by linking concerns over health and illness with men's behaviour towards women. Solomon shows how the demonization of women in medieval society was more than a cultural phenomenon; it was a legitimate aspect of the healing arts, considered vital to the well-being of men.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: the preacher and the physician
Part I. Disease and the Medieval Clinic: 1. Disease, discourse, and illness: the structure of healing in late medieval Spain
2. Sexual pathology and the etiology of lovesickness
Part II. The Arcipreste de Talavera and the Spill: 3. The poetics of infection
4. The poetics of the compendium and the conditions of the clinic
5. The tortured body and the abjectified voice: additional therapeutic strategies
Part III. The Triumph of the Clinic: 6. Women, the power to disease and the fictions of the counter-clinic
Notes
Works cited
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]