Juan Ruiz (), known as the
Archpriest
The ecclesiastical title of archpriest or archpresbyter belongs to certain priests with supervisory duties over a number of parishes. The term is most often used in Eastern Orthodoxy and the Eastern Catholic Churches and may be somewhat analogous ...
of
Hita (''Arcipreste de Hita''), was a
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
Castilian poet. He is best known for his ribald, earthy
poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
, ''Libro de buen amor'' (''
The Book of Good Love
''The Book of Good Love'' (''El libro de buen amor''), considered to be one of the masterpieces of Spanish poetry, is a pseudo-biographical account of romantic adventures by Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, the earliest version of which dates ...
'').
Biography
Origins
He was born in
Alcalá de Henares
Alcalá de Henares () is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. , it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated Municipalities ...
. Little is known about him today, save that he was a
cleric
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
and probably studied in
Toledo. Though his birth name is known to be Juan Ruiz, he is widely referred to by his title of "archpriest of Hita."
Imprisonment
According to his own book, he was imprisoned for years, thought to be between 1337 and 1350, as punishment for some of his deeds (if the poem is any guide, they were quite inconsistent with his position as
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
). However, the poem has long been considered as pseudo-
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
and the verses that mention his imprisonment appear at the end of the book and are generally thought to have been added after the fact. One of his poems states that he was imprisoned on the order of
Gil Albornoz
Gil or GIL may refer to:
Places
* Gil Island (disambiguation), one of several islands by that name
* Gil, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province, Iran
* Hil, Azerbaijan, also spelled ''Gil, a village in Azerbaijan
* Hiloba, also spelled ''Gil, ...
, the
Archbishop of Toledo
This is a list of Bishops and Archbishops of Toledo ( la, Archidioecesis Metropolitae Toletana). . It is not known whether he was sentenced for his irregularities of conduct, or on account of his satirical reflections on his ecclesiastical superiors. Nor is it possible to fix the precise date of his imprisonment. Albornoz nominally occupied the see of Toledo from 1337 to 1368, but he fell into disgrace in 1351 and fled to
Avignon
Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...
. A consideration of these circumstances points to the probable conclusion that Ruiz was in prison from 1337 to 1350, but this is conjecture. What seems established is that he finished the ''Libro de buen amor'' in 1343. Indeed, almost nothing is known about the author(s) of the poem or if he was even named Juan Ruiz. One scholarly study found hundreds of clerics in mid-fourteenth-century Castile named Juan Ruiz.
[Henry Ansgar Kelly, “A Juan Ruiz Directory for 1380-1382,” Mester 16:2 (Fall 1988) 69-93; Henry Ansgar Kelly, “Juan Ruiz and Archpriests: Novel Reports,” La Coronica 16:2 (Spring 1988) 32-54.] The name appears to be the equivalent of John Smith and may have been chosen to represent the everyman.
Death
It has been estimated that he died around 1350 (presumably in prison); by 1351, he no longer held the title of archpriest of Hita.
The Book of Good Love
''Libro de Buen Amor'' (''Book of Good Love'') is a massive and episodic work that combines poems to Jesus and Mary; Ruiz's unrequited love, and fables. The poem itself is 1,728
stanza
In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...
s long. The breadth of the writer's scope, and the exuberance of his style have caused some to term him "the
Castilian Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
." Speculation regarding whether or not the book was actually an autobiography is incessant.
His language is characterized by its richness and its sermon-like tendency to repeat the same concept in several different ways. Noted for being very creative and alive, his work utilizes colloquial, popular vocabulary. His natural gifts were supplemented by his varied culture; he clearly had a considerable knowledge of the colloquial (and perhaps also of literary)
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
widely spoken in the Spain of his time; his classical reading was apparently not extensive, but he knew by heart the ''Disticha'' of
Dionysius Cato, and admits his indebtedness to
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
and to the ''De Amore'' ascribed to
Pamphilus Pamphilus may refer to:
* Pamphilus of Amphipolis, painter of 4th century BC, head of Sicyonian School
* Pamphilus of Alexandria, grammarian in the 1st century
* Saint Pamphilus of Caesarea (late 3rd century - 309), scholarly creator of the librar ...
; his references to
Blanchefleur
Blanchefleur ("white flower", also ''Blanziflor, Flanziflor'', cy, Blodyngwyn) is a female given name popular in the High Middle Ages.
Fictional characters with the name include:
*The mother of Sir Tristan, sister of King Mark and wife of Lord ...
, to
Tristan
Tristan (Latin/ Brythonic: ''Drustanus''; cy, Trystan), also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed ...
and to Yseult, indicate an acquaintance with French literature, and he utilizes the ''
fabliau
A ''fabliau'' (; plural ''fabliaux'') is a comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs in northeast France between c. 1150 and 1400. They are generally characterized by sexual and scatological obscenity, and by a set of contrary attitudes ...
x'' with remarkable deftness; lastly, he adapts fables and apologues from
Aesop
Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales cre ...
, from
Pedro Alfonso
''Pulcher ut Absalon, virtute potens quasi Sanson, instructisque bonis, documenta tenet Salomonis''.
" edrois handsome as Absalom, as strong as Samson, and he possesses the wisdom of Solomon."
—'' Poema de Almería'', ...
's ''Disciplina clericalis'', and from medieval
bestiaries
A bestiary (from ''bestiarum vocabulum'') is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history ...
.
All these heterogeneous materials are fused in the substance of his versified autobiography, into which he intercalates devout songs, parodies of epic or forensic formulae, and lyrical digressions on every aspect of life. He shows a profound knowledge of human emotion and is able to strike a balance between gentleness and brazenness in his shrewd and frequently ironic writing. Ruiz, in
fact, offers a complete picture of picaresque society in the most complex and rich cultural geography of Europe during the first half of the 14th century, and his impartial irony lends a deeper tone to his rich coloring. He knows the weaknesses
of both clergy and laity, and he dwells with equal complacency on the amorous adventures of great ladies, on the perverse intrigues arranged by demure nuns behind their convent walls, and on the simpler instinctive animalism of country lasses and Moorish dancing-girls.
In addition to the faculty of genial observation Ruiz has the gift of creating characters and
presenting types of human nature: from his Don Furón is derived the hungry gentleman in ''Lazarillo de Tormes'', in Don Melón and Doña Endrina he anticipates Calisto and Melibea in the
''
Celestina'', and Celestina herself is developed from the Trotaconventos of Ruiz. Moreover, Ruiz was justly proud of his metrical innovations: the ''Libro de buen amor'' is mainly written in the ''cuaderna via'' modelled on the
French alexandrine
The French alexandrine (french: alexandrin) is a syllabic poetic metre of (nominally and typically) 12 syllables with a medial caesura dividing the line into two hemistichs (half-lines) of six syllables each. It was the dominant long line of Frenc ...
, but he imparts to the measure a variety and rapidity previously unknown in Castilian, and he experiments by introducing internal rhymes or by shortening the fourth line into an octosyllabic verse; or he boldly recasts the form of the stanza, extending it to six or seven lines with alternate verses of eight and five syllables. But his technical skill never sinks to triviality. All his writing bears the stamp of a unique personality, and, if he never attempts a sublime flight, he conveys with contagious force his enthusiasm for life under any conditions — in town, country, vagabondage
or gaol.
Johan Ruys (original spelling), arcipreste de la Hita, was imprisoned by the Inquisition for a few years due to his one-sided love affair with a lady of the nobility. In our modern society, he would have been charged with "harassment". He is said to have died 7 or 8 years after his release from the Inquisition's holding facility.
There are today three manuscripts of the ''Libro de Buen Amor''. The
Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...
version, denoted S, resides in Madrid's Biblioteca Real and is considered the best of the three codices. The other two are the Academia Española version, known as Gayoso (G), and the Toledo (T) manuscript.
Legacy
Ruiz's influence is visible in ''El Corbacho'', the work of another jovial
goliard
The goliards were a group of generally young clergy in Europe who wrote satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries of the Middle Ages. They were chiefly clerics who served at or had studied at the universities of France, Germany, Spa ...
, Alphonso Martinez de Toledo, arch-priest of Talavera, who wrote more than half a century before the ''Libro'' ''de buen amor'' was imitated by the author of the ''Celestina''. Ruiz is mentioned with respect by Santillana, and that his reputation extended beyond Spain is proved by the surviving fragments of a Portuguese version of the ''Libro de buen amor''. By some strange accident he was neglected, and apparently forgotten, until 1790, when an expurgated edition of his poems was published by
Tomás Antonio Sanchez; from that date his fame has steadily increased, and by the unanimous verdict of all competent judges he is now ranked as the greatest Castilian poet of his century.
Paul Heyse
Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (; 15 March 1830 – 2 April 1914) was a distinguished German writer and translator. A member of two important literary societies, the ''Tunnel über der Spree'' in Berlin and ''Die Krokodile'' in Munich, he wrote no ...
(18301914) published a translation into German of a poem by Ruiz in the 1852 collection ''
Spanisches Liederbuch
''Spanisches Liederbuch'' (English: Spanish songbook) is a collection of translations of Spanish poems and folk songs into German by Emanuel Geibel (181584) and Paul Heyse
Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (; 15 March 1830 – 2 April 1914) was a d ...
'' (Spanish Songbook), with the first line "''Nun bin ich dein, du aller Blumen Blume''". The translation was set to music for voice and piano by
Hugo Wolf
Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf (13 March 1860 – 22 February 1903) was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or Lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Ro ...
(18601903), and published in his 1891
Lieder
In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French sp ...
collection also called ''
Spanisches Liederbuch
''Spanisches Liederbuch'' (English: Spanish songbook) is a collection of translations of Spanish poems and folk songs into German by Emanuel Geibel (181584) and Paul Heyse
Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse (; 15 March 1830 – 2 April 1914) was a d ...
''.
Notes
References
*
Further reading
*Abellán, José Luis (1977) Madrid: Diario , 21-VII-1977.
*Brownlee, Marina Scordilis (1985) ''The Status of the Reading Subject in the Libro de buen amor''. Chapel Hill: U.N.C. Dept. of Romance Languages (Distributed by University of North Carolina Press).
*Burkard, Richard W. (1999) ''The Archpriest of Hita and the Imitators of Ovid: a Study in the Ovidian Background of the "Libro de buen amor"''. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta
*
Caba, Rubén (1976-IX) Madrid: Diario ''Informaciones'', 23-IX-1976.
*Caba, Rubén (1976) Madrid: Libertarias-Prodhufi, 1995, 3ª edición. . (1ª edición: 1976. 2ª edición: 1977). (El autor fija el itinerario serrano del Arcipreste de Hita que él mismo recorrió en la primavera de 1973).
*Dagenais, John (1994) ''The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture: Glossing the "Libro de buen amor".'' Princeton: Princeton University Press
*Deyermond, Alan (2004) ''The "Libro de Buen Amor" in England: a tribute to Gerald Gybbon-Monypenny''. Manchester: Dept of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Manchester
*Gybbon-Monypenny, G. B., ed. (1970) ''Libro de Buen Amor Studies''. London: Támesis.
*Haywood, Louise M., and Vasvàri, Louise O., eds. (2004) ''A Companion to the "Libro de buen amor"''. Woodbridge: Támesis
*Lecoy, Félix (1938) Paris: E. Droz.
*Marmo, Vittorio (1983) Naples: Liguori
*Ruiz, Juan (1992) ; edited by Alberto Blecua. Madrid: Cátedra.
* (Continually updated.)
*
*Zahareas, Anthony N. (1965) ''The Art of Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita.'' Madrid: .
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruiz, Juan
14th-century Castilian Roman Catholic priests
14th-century Spanish poets
1283 births
1350 deaths