Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos

Frame and Structure in the Conde Lucanor

Author(s): JAMES F. BURKE
Source: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Invierno 1984), pp. 263-274
Published by: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos
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NOTAS

Frame and Structure in the Conde Lucanor

JAMES F. BURKE

A problem exists for the modern scholar who hopes to understand the first
part of the Conde Lucanor of Juan Manuel which consists of fifty-one
"framed" tales. As Ian Macpherson has noted, the difficulties which are so
real for the author have little interest or relevance for the modern reader
and the solutions which he provides are too "rounded" for our tastes.1 The
entire first part of the work appears to be no more than a hodgepodge of
materials loosely conjoined within the frame. My contention in this paper
is that this section of the book is constructed according to and conforms to
principles having to do with a technique of literary framing which Juan
Manuel understood extremely well. Further, an appreciation of the frame
of the work and the ideas behind it can aid the reader in understanding
how the author used his materials to emphasize certain themes and ideas
which were of great importance to him.
Marshall McLuhan in a number of his works has discussed the differences
which exist between so-called "primitive" societies and our modern
world.2 Basically McLuhan's argument is that print has conditioned man to
look at phenomena in an organized, linear fashion and that this habit has
tended to convince the reader that his world functions in this manner. We
then view our environment as basically m?tonymie; things are related to
one another if they can be seen to be connected either contiguously by
cause and effect or if they can be shown to have similarity of function.
McLuhan believes that "primitive" societies and historical segments of our
civilizations, such as early Greece and the Latin Middle Ages, understood
the world differently. The highly developed sense of progress, of organized
movement, of coordination and subordination, of perspective which is
apparent in modern civilization did not exist. Rather, man understood his
world in terms of a great number of simultaneous, interrelated events.
Space was for him not a homogeneous, continuous entity which existed as
a separate phenomenological reality. Objects created their own space and
therefore the need to view them as totally separated from one another and
related geometrically to one another was by no means as great as it is for
modern man. Thus McLuhan concludes that it is necessary to approach
the art which originates when such a worldview prevails notfrom the point
of view of perspective but to see such art as a grouping, a configuration or

rf\ im\ c \\-\nif\M o? imi mos niM'wico^ Vol. VIII, No 2 Invierno 1984

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264

mosaic of items in a field or frame. Such a viewpoint is as useful for the

literary work as for something produced by a painter or sculptor. McLuhan
believes that even the scholastic method, to be understood best, should be
perceived in this manner. It is a "simultaneous mosaic" which treats a
number of subjects and themes "in crisp simultaneity."3
The framed structure of a work such as the Conde Lucanor reflects this
non-linear, non-sequential conception of reality very well. But it is neces
sary to understand that here the frame is much more than the simple
situation, the conversation between Lucanor and Patronio, which allows
the stories to take place. The frame is ultimately the raison d'?tre for the
composition of the work in the first instance - the meaning which the
author both intentionally, and to some degree unintentionally, wished to
convey. Once this frame is perceived, the modern reader should bear in
mind as he proceeds through the exempla that this frame is always present.
There is the meaning of the story at hand. There is also simultaneously the
implication of the framing meaning and situation.
Rolf Soellner has pointed out that the English word frame did not
acquire its modern meaning of a border or case in which something is set
until fairly late.4 Previously the word meant an underlying structure that
shaped an idea or object and was thus a concept which reflected the
Aristotelian notion, propagated by medieval scholasticism, that reality is
matter given form and configuration by a spiritual design. Man existed,
according to the ancient theory of microcosm-macrocosm, within a system
of frames beginning with the universe itself, descending to the state and
finally coming to the human creature. Meanings at one level necessarily
had to have their counterpart and reflection at any other position. This
vertical system of framing hierarchies, as it were, had its counterpart on the
horizontal plane in that ancient and medieval thinkers believed that the
world was also structured by means of opposites which were physical,
psychic, societal, and cosmic. The world and its entities thus arranged
(conjunctus) were able to exist because the contrary poles were brought
into harmony within the individual being by a conjunctio oppositorum or
what was also known as discordia Concors. Such a worldview as this would
doubtless have influenced the secondary creations produced by man. just
as he, himself, was framed according to principles analogous to those of
the state and to the universe beyond, so his literary productions would
mirror such rules in some fashion.
The Conde Lucanor is designed, as numerous critics have understood,
to teach the nobleman how to conduct his life correctly and harmoniously
in accord with those principles which the Middle Ages deemed to be
important.5 At the end of Exemplum u Juan Manuel provides in summary
form a brief exhortation which illustrates how such a life may best be
achieved:

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 265

... et entre todas las cosas del mundo vos guardai de sobervia et set omildoso sin
begueneria et sin ypocrisia; pero la humildat, sea siempre guardando vuestro
estado en guisa que seades omildoso, mas non omillado.6

The noble must, while maintaining his proper status, learn humility which
is defined as being humble but not humiliated. This is a stance not easy to
attain. I would suggest that the central message of the first part at least of
the Conde Lucanor concerns this question and that, moreover, the author
has framed this section in terms which clearly would have suggested the
way in which this situation might be achieved.
Exemplum provides an excellent example of how the concept of
frame functions within the first part of the Conde Lucanor. It tells the story
of the Dean of Santiago and the magician Don Yllan of Toledo. The Dean
beseeches Don Yllan to teach him something of his art. Don Yllan cleverly
avoids the issue by saying that the Dean is a man of such great talent that he
can reach great heights in the world. Individuals who do this tend then to
forget what others have done for them during and after their ascent. To
prove his point Don Yllan says that they must retire to a place totally apart
from the world in order to study his art. As they are about to go down to his
hidden chamber, he tells a serving girl to prepare partridges for dinner but
not to cook them until he instructs her to do so. The rest of the story then
unfolds in which the Dean rises to the Papacy and constantly refuses to
help Don Yllan - even at the end denying him food. Don Yllan finally
decides to cook the partridges and we and the Dean learn that all his
success has been an illusion. It is an illusion which has taken place,
however, under the sign of the partridge which from ancient times was a
symbol for deceit and for the person who possesses something which he
does not deserve.7 The entire illusion is framed as it were by a symbol
which signals the deeper significance of the episode.8
In Exemplum Count Lucanor is asked by a friend, who supposedly
wishes to abandon his lands and responsibilities, to assume control over
them. Patronio advises that this is a trial and proceeds to recount the story
of a king, who in order to test his privado, pretends that he wishes to leave
his affairs in the hands of the privado in order to live a simple life of poverty
and penitence. The privado wisely understands the artifice involved and
he pronounces himself prepared to accompany his lord. The king is
thereby assured of his loyalty. The point is that the servant must be
prepared to assume and carry out responsibly whatever role is assigned to
him by his master whether this be of the highest or lowest order.
Now the monastic ideal of a life of renunciation and poverty was
extremely important for the Middle Ages. Yet, if life were to continue, it
would obviously have been necessary for those holding secular offices and
responsibilities to tend to them as Juan Manuel indeed points out at the

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266

end of the Conde Lucanor where he mentions those who abandon the
world. "Et si todas las gentes pudiessen mantener esta carrera, sin dubda
?sta ser?a la m?s segura et la m?s aprovechosa para aquellos que lo
guardassen; mas, porque si todos lo fiziessen seria desfazimiento del
mundo..." (303). Thus, although Juan Manuel introduces here the possibility
of a dramatic reversal of status, king to penitent, he does not actualize this
potentiality at this point in his text. The implication is that the ruler must
hold to his post.
This theme is realized, however, in the three exempta which terminate
the first part of the Conde Lucanor. Exemplum xlix, originally the penulti
mate tale,9 is a variant of the folkloric story studied by Sir James Frazer
which dealt with the annual choosing and sacrifice of a king in order to
ensure the well-being of a social unit. Here the chosen leader after holding
sway for a year is not sacrificed but is placed nude on a desert island. One
such ruler, wiser than most, makes advance preparations and is able to
exist on the island quite at his ease. Juan Manuel uses the story to warn
Christians to prepare themselves as they, in a manner similar to that of the
kings of the story, will one day have to quit this world: "... et que v?s avedes
a parar desnuyo d?i et non avedes a levar del mundo sinon las obras que
fizierdes..." (242). Thus the possibility of a reversal of status introduced in
the first exemplum is made concrete here in eschatological terms. A ruler,
no matter how important and powerful in this life, will lose all his earthly
trappings before he reaches that farther shore. Implicit also, of course, is
the suggestion of the kind of new situation which he will attain if his actions
as ruler have not been laudatory.
Exemplum also presents a reversal of status for a ruler this time in terms
of this life and in ones symbolically significant and comprehensible for
medieval man. This story relates how Saladin falls in love with the wife of
one of his knights and ardently wishes to possess her. She, realizing that
basically he is a good man and in order to gain time, tells him that she will
yield to him provided he can find out and tell her "qu?l era la mejor cosa
que omne pod?a aver en s? ..." (247). Saladin is unable to give her an
immediate answer and decides to set out in search of the solution. His
manner of search is of fundamental importance for an understanding of
the function of the frame. He disguises himself and goes forth in the
company of "dos jubglares" (248). In other words he reverses his status. He
changes from ruler and commander to a wanderer accompanied by
minstrels and therefore by implication becomes one of them. Eventually
the small group reaches the home of an old and very wise knight who,
when he hears the question which Saladin is asking, realizes that "aqu?l
que esta pregunta faz?a que non era juglar" (249). The old man is able to
answer the question and to resolve the problem: "Pero, quanto a la

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 267

pregunta que fazedes, vos digo que la mejor cosa que omne puede aver
en s?, et que es madre et cabe?a de todas las vondades, digovos que ?sta es
la verguen?a ..." (250).
W.T.H. Jackson in his study of the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg has
pointed out that Tristan in the poem is disguised as a spielmann in order to
convey a definite impression and atmosphere. "He is homo ludens, the
man making life into a game ..."10 In fact all of the characters in the poem at
one time or the other play some kind of role. "By making these characters
"gameplayers/' minstrels by choice or instruction, he sets up a new game,
a new representation of life, which appears as mere play to the courtly
audience because it is outside their experience but which is, in fact, a
higher form of reality ... The game they play, as Gottfried makes very clear,
is as much a representation of eternal verity as the Christian religion itself"
(192). It would appear, if Jackson is correct, that the Middle Ages under
stood and could utilize the symbolic connotations of the minstrel to
suggest very important ideas indeed. The game may be superior to reality
and may therefore imply and lead to a new reality or at the very least
provide an excellent field against which reality may be compared.11
Shame, the best thing which a man may possess, will also either lead to
improvement or at least keep the individual aware that a problem exists.
Antonio Carre?o, in his study of the function of verguen?a in the Conde
Lucanor, points out that shame is a sign which covers the face and informs
the world of the guilt of the individual. "El m?s caracter?stico (y el m?s
frecuente) es el sonrojamiento ('mancha facial') que pone en peligro la
entereza del individuo al hacerse visual."12 Carre?o also suggests that
shame exists as one of the most basic regulating devices in the kind of
structured, hierarchical society with which Juan Manuel was concerned.
Therefore the reversal of roles had immediate positive effect in that it led
Saladin to an awareness of shame -an awareness which will cause him to
act in accord with those precepts which should inform his role as sultan.
Without such an inversion, Saladin as sultan at the zenith of the earthly
hierarchy, might never experience such an anagnorisis.
The final exemplum also deals with the idea of role reversal but casts the
theme into another context again extremely relevant to medieval civiliza
tion and doubtless well understood by medieval man. This exemplum
based upon the so-called King Robert of Sicily motif,13 relates how a proud
king reverses the words of the Magnificat to read "Dios ensal?? las siellas
de los sobervios poderosos et derrib? los omildosos..." (255). Because of
his extreme hubris, the king's regal clothing is taken by an angel while he is
in the bath and the angel replaces him in the palace until he himself finally
learns humility. Juan Manuel's moral here is the one previously referred to
which reflects perfectly the medieval understanding of what a king should

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268

be: "... pero la humildat, sea siempre guardando vuestro estado en guisa
que seades omildoso, mas non omillado" (262). Humility is a parallel here
to the awareness of shame which influences Saladin in the previous
exemplum.
The first and last three exemp/a, are therefore, from a thematic point-of
view, very similar. The reader is given in all an example of a complete and
dramatic change of status for a ruler, although of course in the first story
the reversal does not in reality occur. This idea of reversal of roles also
illustrates the other point made by Soellner concerning the medieval
worldview which tended to understand or define phenomena in terms of
oppositions as well as hierarchies.
Ceremonies, rituals, and customs of reversal and inversion are practices
which have always characterized man's culture in a wide variety of ways
and certainly rites of this sort were of great importance in the Middle Ages.
James L Peacock in a fascinating study of the clowns and transvestites
which are a distinctive feature of the Javanese drama has concluded that
these characters are typical symbols in what anthropologists call a "classifi
catory" worldview.14 The "classificatory" is opposed to the "instrumental"
worldview. The "classificatory" variety, which tends to exist in rather
primitive societies, is a kind of system which prevails in cultures which are
not highly literate. The "instrumental" approach harnesses all means
toward an end which is generally determined by man. There is a sequential,
logical ordering of all events and forms toward a series of goals and
objectives which must be at least obtainable within man's immediate
perspective. The "classificatory" emphasizes eternal, ever-enduring truths
in regard to which man has little or no influence whatsoever. Of course in
any human society some variety of order is essential. The one which
subscribes to the "classificatory" worldview attempts to formulate its
organization by imitating that which is conceived as either being of divine
origin or of natural occurrence. If something is a result of the natural
process then it can reliably be said to reflect the way things should be. Thus
one sees why the medieval world structured itself by means of estados
which were believed to mirror to some degree the divine order and which
in another sense were seen as proleptic to it. One suspects that the
"classificatory" worldview produces the kind of system discussed by L?vi
Strauss in La pens?e sauvage in which primitive man imitates nature by
taking totem animals to name and thereby place himself or his tribe into
perspective within the natural order.
Peacock also stresses the point understood by anthropologists for years,
that the classificatory worldview "which emphasizes the subsuming of
symbols within a frame, nourishes and is nourished by symbols of rever
sal ..."15 The frame is, of course, whatever series or system of eternal verities

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 269

which the social group recognizes. Peacock's idea then substantiates

Soellner's theory that the frame of hierarchical verities is complemented
by another system which is presented in terms of opposites or contrasts.
The kind of symbols of reversal which Peacock finds signal the existence of
this secondary framing.
In the Middle Ages rites and practices of inversion and reversal are
associated most frequently with the liturgical cycles of Christmas and Lent.
On the Feast of Fools which took place on the Feast of the Innocents
(December 28), members of the minor orders usurped the positions of
their superiors. E.K. Chambers mentions one such ceremony at the Vespers
of Circumcision (December 31 ) when the baculus of authority was handed
by the Cathedral Precentor to a dominus festi when the words of the
Magnificat, Deposuit potentes resounded through the church.16 In Spain
such practices were common and ceremonies connected with the "boy
bishop" obispillo often took place either at St. Nicholas (December 6) or
around New Year's.17 Exemplum u suggests that Juan Manuel, aware of
these rites and of their significance, realized that he could use the King
Robert of Sicily story as a most effective means of completing the structure
of his frame. Any king or noble who had witnessed the Deposuit cere
monies described by Chambers or who had observed the brief but tumul
tuous reign of the "boy-bishop" could well be expected to understand the
point which he was attempting to make.
In a structural sense, inversion is one of the most basic ways in which an
idea, custom or social phenomenon may be defined; that is, by dramatically
presenting the thing diametrically opposed to the important point, this
point is made to stand out. Thus a number of students of rites of inversion
suggest that these practices aid in delineating what the proper social
doctrine or code should be. As Barbara Babcock-Abrahams has put it: "If a
semiotic is based upon violations of a code or codes ... then the code
which is being broken is always implicitly there."18
There is a second reason for such customs, which has to do with purifica
tion and renewal. The dramatic reversal of the order of things is equivalent
in many ways to the breakdown, the return to primordial chaos, which is
necessary if rebirth is to take place. Therefore in the more primitive
"classificatory" societies, when the necessary periodic return to elementary
disorder must occur, such a return is often represented in terms of inver
sion. This inversion may manifest itself in a wide variety of symbolic ways
and functions. Marius Schneider notes, for example, that in many parts of
Spain the role of St. Peter, crucified upside down, the antics of the juggler
and acrobat, and finally the actions of the ancient figure, the rain-making
fool, merge in the popular imagination. He believes that the somersaults
and leaps executed by players in the processions of many religious feasts

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270

throughout Spain are a distant reflection of the need to "verificar la

salvaci?n mediante volteretas tanto f?sicas como espirituales."19
Since the symbolic inversion, first as a means of definition and second as
a way toward renewal, was so widely practiced in the Middle Ages, it is to
be expected that the king, ruler or nobleman might be affected by such
customs in some manner. The Bible itself served asa guide in suggesting in
Cor. 3.19 that "La sabidur?a deste mundo locura es ?erca de Dios."20 In the
static, framed, classificatory world a king would occupy the highest place
in the structure of government, a hierarchy of this world itself a reflection
of a divine order. On the horizontal plane he would be defined by his
opposite, the fool, whose existence would verify and delineate the place
of the king. By taking note of the role of the fool and by even participating
to some degree in it, the ruler experiences a catharsis through self
revelation and self-evaluation and thereby undergoes a kind of spiritual
rebirth which makes him more worthy for his high place. This is the moral
which critics find in the archetypal King Robert of Sicily story. At home and
restored to power the King is asked by the angel who he is. He calls himself
not "The King" but responds "A fol."21 Likewise in Exemplum li of the
Conde Lucanor the deposed king, who has finally learned his lesson,
declares to his angel: "... veo que s? loco..." (260). Juan Manuel understood
that the salvation of the soul and of course the good governance of this
world had to come "en ley et en estado ..."22 He further realized that it
would be impossible for the ruler to abandon hisexalted status in orderto
learn humility. This point, made as previously noted at the end of the
Conde Lucanor, is more clearly accented in the Libro de los estados: "Et
non cuidedes que vos digo yo esto por que aya talante de dexar el mundo
nin mudar el estado en que me Dios puso, mas quer?a catar manera
commo en este estado pudiese fazer en guisa por que mi alma fuesse
guardada."23 The only means possible would be to make the ruler aware
through some variety of learning experience of the essential duality of his
status.
At the same time this personal duality had to be related to that of the
world in general so that the ruler, humble or humbled, would not be
deceived and thereby humiliated. The forty-eight exempla enclosed within
the frame are meant, I believe, to provide such a learning experience.
Here the visual concept of the mosaic expressed by McLuhan has rele
vance. The individual stories relate to one another and to the frame not
with the kind of coordinated, subordinated schemes of organization
which we accept as normal for modern writing and fiction, but simul
taneously and with an awareness of the two axes which the frame presents.
The point made by Guido Almansi in regard to the Decameron is also
important if one is to understand properly the manner in which this
literary mosaic functions. The Decameron is "a taxonomy of human

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 271

behaviour, a practical summary of modes of conduct rather than a corpus

of laws/'24 Its meanings are never imposed upon the reader. Rather "it is
left up to the reader to choose whether to use an ethical model, or, at
times, a discordant and occasionally contradictory series of ethical models,
and to use them in the way he sees fit..." (p. 4). The same is true, I believe
for the Conde Lucanor. The frame, however, informs the meaning and
moral of every one of the individual tales in that it suggests to the reader
that the protagonist in each of the stories must be constantly careful in his
undertakings lest he suffer the kind of dramatic reversal of role which
characterizes the framing exempla. Further, the whole locus of themes
having to do with inversion and reversal of roles is related to the concept of
game-playing which, as W.T.H. Jackson pointed out, can often lead to an
improved reality. Some variety of game or play situation is repeatedly
present in the Conde Lucanor. The characters in the stories frequently
need to remember that their opponents are playing a role and that this
role may, indeed, represent a severe distortion or inversion of reality.
Or, as is apparent in the second exemplum, the sense of game may be
presented at a very elementary and almost frivolous level. Here the father
and son taking their beast of burden to market are admonished again and
again to change their mode of movement. They start out both on foot,
then they are told that the boy should ride-then the father-then both.
The moral which the father finally establishes for the boy is that in life he
will never find everyone in agreement with what he is doing and that
someone will always suggest change. The boy must learn through judg
ment to find the best course and hold to it, thereby avoiding the constant
change which the world would foist upon him. There is, of course, implied
here in the mounting and dismounting a change of status although one
that could be considered almost a parody of the serious transformation of
king to fool, beggar or penitent.
Exemplum\\\ returns to the theme and problem of status. Count Lucanor
is worried that his life as a soldier and statesman will not prove as meri
torious in God's sight as that lived by a monk or penitent. Patronio
recounts to him the story of the hermit who is not happy to learn that his
companion in paradise will be the warrior king Richard of England. It is
made clear to the hermit that one great charge which King Richard
initiated and led against the Moors is considered equivalent to all the good
works done by the hermit. The important point for Count Lucanor is that
he can by executing well the duties pertaining to his status certainly attain
paradise. Any variety of reversal of status in his case should be avoided as
such a reversal on the earthly plane could have bad results for the afterlife.
Throughout the remaining exempla of the first part of the Conde
Lucanor the themes of reversal of status and the game-playing associated
with such reversals continue to intervene and affect the meaning of the

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272

stories. Thus the frame, which carries these meanings, in the basic sense of
the term framing, encloses and demarks the exempla of the work. It also is
present in the individual exemplum as a factor which informs its meaning
and links it to those elements which control the overall significance of the
book. The message to the ruler is that he must retain the exalted status
bestowed upon him by God and execute his duties to the best of his
abilities. This necessarily means that he will have to learn to deal with the
many times devious world. He can only fulfil his duties and maintain the
dignity of his post if he remains aware of that role diametrically opposed to
his - a role which not only aids in defining his own but also warns him of
the consequences should he fail at his task.25

University of Toronto

NOTES

1 "D/'os y e/ mundo - the Didacticism of F/ Conde Lucanor," RPh, xxiv (1974), 26-38.
2 See The Gutenberg Galaxy: the making of typographic man (Toronto, 1962) and Under
standing Media: the Extensions of Man (New York, Toronto, London, 1964).
3 Gutenberg Galaxy, p. 129.
4 Shakespeare's Patterns of Self-knowledge (Columbus, Ohio, 1972), pp. 45, 53-55. See
Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Cam
bridge, Mass., 1974) for discussion on the theory of frames and framing in general, and
Joy Potter, "Boccaccio as Illusionist: the Play of Frames in the Decameron," The
Humanities Association Review of Canada, 26 (1975), 327-345 for an excellent applica
tion of frame-set theory to the Decameron.
5 See in particular Peter Dunn, "The Structures of Didacticism: Private Myths and Public
Functions," in Juan Manuel Studies, edited by Ian Macpherson (London, 1977) pp. 53 ff.
6 Don juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor, edited by Jos? Manuel Blecua (Madrid, Cl?sicos
Castalia, 1969), p. 262.
7 See J.E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, trans. Jack Sage (New York, 1962), p. 238, and
also B.G. Koonce, "Satan the Fowler," MS, xxi (1959), 182. It might be better to use the
word "emblem" as an explanation of the function of the partridge as I think that Juan
Manuel meant for the bird to stand in the mind of the reader as a kind of pictorial
symbolic image.
8 Jules Piccus, "The Meaning of 'Estoria' in Juan Manuel's El Conde Lucanor," Hispania,
61 (1978), 459-465, building upon a footnote in the Blecua edition (p. 61), has just
argued rather convincingly that the term estoria used after every exemplum in Part
means "a sequence of paintings related to a common theme, topic or personage rather
than a single miniature" (p. 464). If Piccus is correct, it would suggest that the estoria is a
kind of series of emblems which comprise a sequence of framed pictorial entities in
parallel with the literary ones.
9 John England. "Exemplo 51 of El Conde Lucanor: The Problem of Authorship," BHS, 51
(1974), 16-27, believes that Exemplum 11, while written by juan Manuel, was definitely
composed and added to an original 50.

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 273

10 The Anatomy of Love: the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg (New York and London,
1971). p. 167.
11 jorge Rubio Balaguer, "Literatura catalana," in Historia general de las literaturas
hisp?nicas, edited by Guillermo D?as-Plaja, (Barcelona. 1949), points out the particular
use that Lull made of the figure of the minstrel: "El juglar es una de las figuras que le
sirven de modelo y recurso para ensayar una v?a eficaz de divulgaci?n de sus ?deas
reformadoras" (p. 669). In Blancjuerna, of course, there is the minstrel who went about
praising the good and who encountered the emperor who wished to retire from the
world. Such use of the minstrel figure appears to parallel that made by Gottfried von
Strassburg. Juan Manuel might very well have acquired a familiarity with the idea from
Lull.
12 "La verg?enza como constante social y narrativa en don Juan Manuel: el 'ejemplo L'
de El Conde Lucanor," RABM xxx (1977), 3-20 at p. 5.
13 See Lillian Herlands, "King Robert of Sicily: Analogues and Origins," PMLA, lxxix
(1964), 13-21.
14 "Symbolic Reversal and Social History: Transvestites and Clowns of Java," in The
Reversible World: Symbolic Inversion in Art and Society, edited by Barbara A. Babcock
(Ithaca and London, 1978), pp. 209-224.
15 Ibid., p. 222.
16 The Mediaeval Stage, (Oxford, reprint, 1963), pp. 277-278.
17 Julio Caro Baroja, El Carnaval: an?lisis hist?rico-cultural (Madrid, 1965), pp. 304-305.
See also Enrique Casas Gaspar, Folklore campesino espa?ol (Madrid, 1950), pp.
182-187. Jacques Heers, F?fes, jeux et joutes dans les soci?t?s d'occident a la fin du
moyen age (Montr?al, 1971), pp. 121-727, and Jo?l Lefebvre, Les fols et la folie: Etude
sur les genres du comique et la cr?ation litt?raire en Allemagne pendant la Renais
sance (Paris, 1968), pp. 310-314. Maurice Molho, Cervantes: ra?ces folkl?ricas (Madrid,
1976) has demonstrated the importance of themes of inversion-reversal in the works of
Cervantes and in the Lazarillo. See particularly pp. 268-269 and 348-350. Edmund S.
Morgan, "The Oedipal Revolution," New York Review of Books, xxvm, no. 6 (1981),
29-30 reviews Peter Shaw's American Patriots and the Rituals of Revolution and dis
cusses the book in terms of the ritual inversion process. He also gives a number of
interesting insights in regard to the manner in which this process functions.
18 "The Novel and the Carnival World: An Essay in Memory of Joe Doherty," MIN, 89
(1974), 920. Michael Meylakh, "The Structure of the Courtly Universe of the Trouba
dours," Semiotica, 14 (1975), 61-80, has written about the series of binary oppositions
which one finds in troubadour poetry and concludes that they are so polarized as to
form the opposing systems Fin 'Amors - Fais 'Amors. He believes that such oppositions
"show themselves to be one of the more or less remote reflexes of consciousness for
which the name 'mythopoetica!' has been established in recent years" (68). If Meylakh
is correct, it may be that a work such as the Conde Lucanor and certainly the Libro de
buen amor are really more such reflexes rather than manuals of linear, rational argu
ment. They would be literary structure, one almost says crystalizations, which reflect
the way things are. Rather than mean, they are.
19 "Los cantos de lluvia en Espa?a." Anuario Musical, (1949), 31-32.
20 Quoted in Don Juan Manuel, Libro de los estados, edited by R.B. Tate and I.R. Mac
pherson (Oxford, 1974), pp. 223-224.
21 Herlands, 14.
22 Libro de los estados, p. 16.
23 Ibid.. p. 32.

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24 The Writer as Liar: Narrative technique in the Decameron (London and Boston), p. 4.
25 See also my "The Ideal of Perfection: The Image of the Garden-Monastery in Berceo's
Milagros c?e Nuestra Se?ora." in Medieval, Renaissance and Folklore Studies in Honor
of lohn Esten Keller, edited by Joseph R. Jones (Newark, Delaware, 1980), pp. 29-38,
which studies the concept of framing in the Milagros.

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