About the only verifiable data of Fernando de Rojas’s biography are that he was born of a converso family in the Puebla de Montalbán near Toledo, became a bachiller at Salamanca in the 1490s, and lived an obscure life in Talayera de la Reina until his death in 1541. While a student he spent an academic vacation writing La Celestina, an insufficiently appreciated masterpiece which represents an important stage in the development of modern literature.
Stephen Gilman, a professor of literature at Harvard, has long occupied himself with La Celestina as a literary work, and in this book he reveals his broader concerns in an attempt to discover and confront the elusive Rojas. Difficulties are manifold; as a converso, Rojas deliberately and carefully concealed his true persona, only allowing his real feelings to emerge in a veiled fashion in La Celestina. Having recognized the presence of autobiographical identifications within the work, Gilman for nearly twenty years has been stalking Rojas. The result of his literary-historical detection is The Spain of Fernando de Rojas.
Through creative use of sources, Gilman has succeeded in delineating the milieux through which Rojas moved. In his collaboration with Fernando de Valle Lersundi, a direct descendant of Rojas, Gilman had access to family archives preserving the papers of Rojas and his contemporaries. Inquisitional records reveal the activities of Rojas’s family and their regard for their illustrious relative. Accounts of the intellectual life in Salamanca—one of the few places in Isabelline Spain where cultural fife was free—indicate the liberating atmosphere in which Rojas was able to compose his masterpiece. Evidence from Talavera illuminates the later years when Rojas was determined to present a respectable, conformist image in order to avoid any accusation that he was not a sincere Christian.
The Spain of Fernando de Rojas is rich and complex, stylistically reminiscent of the work of Américo Castro, Gilman’s mentor. Through the book flow countless threads: the anxiety of the conversos and their attempts to camouflage their inward skepticism with outward displays of Christian orthodoxy; the insecurity of a society enduring cataclysmic social and intellectual upheavals; the incalculable impact of the printing press on the reading audience and the consequent shift from oral to visual apprehension of an author’s statement; and the challenge of chaos to an ordered world view. All these threads entangled Rojas as they do La Celestina, but Gilman warns us that Rojas’ creativity was too great to be restricted by them. La Celestina cannot be explained by reductionist formulae, such as the postulation that the lovers were doomed because Melibea was a conversa and Calisto an Old Christian. Rojas’s intent was indeed ironic, and though his irony was best appreciated by converso readers, the genius of Rojas transcended any such limitations.
Gilman’s book is informative and provocative. Unfortunately it rambles and twists as the author follows a labyrinthine path through speculations, interpretations, assertions, and denials. To follow him is demanding and at times frustrating, but ultimately rewarding.
