<I>Carajicomedia</I>: Parody and Satire in Early Modern Spain

Abstract

Since &lt;I&gt;Carajicomedia&lt;/I&gt; was published in 1519, it has been largely ignored by critics because of its strong sexual content. The author of &lt;I&gt;Carajicomedia: Parody and Satire in Early Modern Spain&lt;/I&gt; believes that it is a sophisticated and complex composition that provides as good a vantage point from which to examine the ideology of the period as does &lt;I&gt;La Celestina&lt;/I&gt;.&lt;BR&gt; In their poems,the writers of &lt;I&gt;Carajicomedia&lt;/I&gt; inadvertently reveal the deep worries of the knights and nobles who opposed the regencies of Ferdinand the Catholic and Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros pending the arrival of Charles V. &lt;I&gt;Carajicomedia&lt;/I&gt; is therefore a harbinger of the War of the Comuneros, the great popular revolt that convulsed Spain in 1520. &lt;BR&gt; In this book's chapters, the author examinesthe parodic relationship between the text of Juan de Mena's &lt;I&gt;El Laberinto de Fortuna&lt;/I&gt;, the glosses of Hernán Núñez's &lt;I&gt;Las Trezientas&lt;/I&gt;, and &lt;I&gt;Carajicomedia&lt;/I&gt;. He then turns to its actualwriters and their settings, and shows how their satirical attitudes towards males, females, and conversos reveals the failure of the societal mechanisms in place to control desire and miscegenation. &lt;I&gt;Carajicomedia: Parody and Satire in Early Modern Spain&lt;/I&gt; concludes with a paleographic edition of the text and appendices that contain a modern Spanish version and its English translation, as wellas examine &lt;I&gt;Carajicomedia&lt;/I&gt;'s language. &lt;BR&gt;&lt;BR&gt; Frank A. Domínguez is a professor of medieval Spanish literature and culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.