The South Central Modern Language Association

Literary Theory and Medieval Texts: Authority and the Worldly Power of Language in "El Conde Lucanor" Author(s): James Mandrell Source: South Central Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Summer, 1991), pp. 1-18 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of The South Central Modern Language Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3189180 Accessed: 28/04/2010 08:13
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Literary Theoryand MedievalTexts: Authorityand the WorldlyPower of Lucanor Languagein El Conde

MANDRELL JAMES

Brandeis University
One of the more serious challenges to traditional methodologies employed in the study of medieval Hispanic literature has come from recent developments in literary theory, in particular, theories of textuality. This challenge consists in part of a revision of assumptions regarding the value and importance or even the meaning and nature of literature. But it also is true that recent literary theory oftentimes tends towards the restatement of notions that are by now cliches of medieval scholarship, even as it does so in a new-and distinctly uncomfortable-way. It might be said that the problem begins with the concept of the text itself. Peter Haidu remarks: the notion of the "text"turns out to be as problematicas that of its "author" Wherewe assume fixityin the textualidentityof any given medievallyricsquitenormallyarecopiedand repropoem or narrative, duced with stanzasin variousorders,and sometimeseven with stanzas omitted. . . . And when at leastrelativetextualfixityis attainedwith narrativeromance(the point is arguable),the conventionality, which makesmuch of the textinterchangeable with equivalentconventional syntagmsin othertextsof the same type,gravelyundercutsour notion of textualindividualityand identity.1 Complementing the problematic notion of the text is that of textuality, of which Eugene Vance remarks, 'Among the topics of modern critical debate most vital to medieval thought... is that of textuality, by which one may mean many different things, including the opposition between speech and writing, the social function of writing, the relationship between literacy and consciousness, and the ways in which a text reflects its participation in a larger network or order of texts."2 In fact, Vance's presentation of textuality sounds uncommonly like the phenomenon summed up by Jose Antonio Maravall, that "el libro es un transunto del universo, un microcosmos en el que se refleja en signos, descifrables por el sapiente, cuanto el mundo contiene, mundo que a su vez es como libro en el que los sabios poseen el arte de leer esos signos en que aparece escrito."3 Yet, in its more modern

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guise, the notion of textuality becomes Jacques Derrida's dictum, "I1n'y a pas de hors texte."4 There is, however, another twist to this formulation. Not only is reality reduced to textuality, language as such is cut loose from any stable notion of meaning, since language, in its relation with the external world of matter and sense, is important in and of itself. Within this scheme of things, textuality is opposed to referentiality. The only meaning of language is to be found in the relationship between one word and another, in the play of difference among signifiers. What appears at least initially to be a restatement of an obvious point turns out to have much more serious consequences. Some of these consequences are anticipated by practitioners of deconstruction or advocates of broadly poststructuralist hermeneutics. Barbara Johnson comments, "Textshave been seen as commentaries on their own production or reception through their pervasive thematizations of textuality-the myriad letters, books, tombstones, wills, inscriptions, road signs, maps, birthmarks, tracks, footprints, textiles, tapestries, veils, sheets, brown stockings, and self-abolishing laces that serve in one way or another as figures for the text to be deciphered or unraveled or embroidered upon."5 But Edward W. Said offers what could serve as a cautionary footnote to Johnson's somewhat blithe list: movementacrosslines of specializaFrombeing a bold interventionary the labyrinthof "textuality," dragging along with it the most recent apostles of European revolutionary textuality-Derrida and canonizationand domesticationthey Foucault-whose trans-Atlantic themselvesseemedsadlyenough to be encouraging.Itis not too much to say that Americanor even Europeanliterarytheory now explicitly and that its peculiarmode of acceptsthe principleof non-interference, Althusser's use matter its formula)is not to (to subject appropriating orsociallycontamanythingthatis worldly,circumstantial, appropriate is the somewhat mysticaland disinfectedsubject inated. "Textuality" matterof literarytheory.6 If contemporary literary theory has indeed begun to challenge the traditional approaches to medieval Hispanic literature studies, the response thus of the new terms rather than far has tended to manifest itself in an acceptance an interrogationof their use, origin, and function, which is not to say that there are no critics of medieval Hispanic literature working with contemporary theory.7 Still, what often results is a series of textual explications from a variety of theoretical stances, explications that are, generally speaking, illuminating in terms of literary analysis. But the process of explication rarely passes from the act of reading to a consideration of the real import or utility of these new means of reading, a point that I wish to examine here. In other words, do these new methodologies or strategies deliver as much as they promise? Do they do anything for us that the individual texts do
tion, American literary theory of the late seventies had retreated into

James Mandrell

not themselves propose to the astute reader? Finally,does the contemporarynotion of textualityreallyexpresswhat is at stakein the medievalview of the cosmos? Although these issues could be taken up in a general discussion, it is, I think, importantto considerthem in terms of a specificliterarytext. Fora numberof reasons,some of which will be exploredhere,Don JuanManuel's ElConde Lucanor has stimulatedsomeof the moretheoreticallysophisticated explicationsof medieval Spanishliteratureand is, therefore,a logical literary pretext for this consideration. Moreover,if somewhat more tangentially, Don JuanManuel'sbook of exemplacan be linked to contemporary critical concerns via one of his more ardent readers and a favorite of de la theorists,JorgeLuis Borges. In his Historiauniversal poststructuralist a includes short modernized version of Don Manuel's Juan Borges infamia, eleventh exemplum,"De'loque contescio a'vn dean de Sanctiagocon don Yllan, el grand maestro de Toledo,"along with other tales of "magic," andOneNights. Entitled"Elbrujo including selections fromthe Thousand this same is short narrative includedwith some slight changes postergado,"
in theAntologfa dela literaturafantdstica (1940) that Borges edited with Silvina story. Finally, Michel Foucault begins his Lesmots et les choses:Unearchdologie

which confirmshis fascinationwith the Ocampoand Adolfo Bioy Casares,

dessciences humaines by citing Borgesas the occasionfor the book: "Celivre a son lieu de naissancedans un textede Borges."8 Poststructuralism's ongointerest in is not likewise,Borges's ing Borges'slogical alogisms surprising; inclusion of "Elbrujo postergado"in two collectionsof fictions indicatesa text potentially-and actually-susceptible to poststructural literaryanalysis.

In terms of criticalconsiderationsof El CondeLucanor, a majorconcern involves the problemsposed by the variety of narrativelevels in the text, levels that range from the third- and first-personnarration in the two prologues to the narrative frame of the exempla.9 The specific problem raised by the narrativeframeand the structureof the exemplapertains,of course,to the relationshipbetween and amongthree sortsof figures,which can be distinguished as follows: the Don JuanManuel who is the author of the verses at the end of each exemplum,the Don Juan Manuel who appearsin and narratesthe two prologues with which El CondeLucanor begins, and the Don JuanManuelwho is the realflesh and blood authorof the text. A sophisticatedversion of the traditionalconception of the author and his relation to the text in question is found in Alan Deyermond'srecent considerationof the self-consciouselements of Don JuanManuel'sworks. Insisting on a dual contextfor this self-consciousness,Deyermondsignals, on the one hand, the importanceof real-lifeexperiencesandliterarytechniques; on the other,he refuses to opt eitherfor a positivisticapproach,for the externalhegemony of the real author,or for the reificationof the text as an inviolably univocal entity.10Thismove on Deyermond'spartmaintains

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the distinctions between the real and the ideal, the real world and its textual representation. In so doing, Deyermond opposes one of the tenets of poststructuralist critical strategies. In Jonathan Culler's words, "Todeconstruct a discourse is to show how it undermines the philosophy it asserts, or the hierarchical opposition on which it relies, by identifying in the text the rhetorical operations that produce the supposed ground of argument, the key concept or premise."'l By maintaining the distinction between the real and the ideal, Deyermond falls into the "trap"of the Western philosophical tradition of a system of binary oppositions. To be sure, we could say not only that Deyermond opposes poststructuralism but that he refuses to recognize the power of poststructuralist thought, revealing his own blindness (another key term from the poststructuralist lexicon).12 But that is precisely why these questions ought to be addressed in a literary-and not merely in an abstract or philosophical-context.13 Now, poststructuralist critical methodologies need not be explicitly endorsed for them to make their mark on an interpretation. An early approximation of a poststructuralist posture in regard to El Conde Lucanorcan be found in Peter N. Dunn's treatment of the divided Don Juan Manuel. For Dunn, Don Juan Manuel appears in the work "as a double persona," in both the prologues and the exempla themselves. Moreover, the "two masks converge in the Don Juan who wrote the verses at the end of each section. . In this sense, the viessos, because they introduce a level of generality beyond that proposed by the reporter Don Juan, lead us back to the Don Juan of the prologue, making his book with his mind, with judgment, with words (fiz este libro compuestode las rds apuestas palabrasque yo pude) and with pictures.'14 Essentially, Dunn resolves the "divided" Don Juan Manuel, the author and his textual embodiment, within the text itself, by confining himself to El CondeLucanoras it is composed of prologues and exempla. It is, of course, reasonable to assert that an author is present only as a function of a literary text, is identifiable as an author only in relation to what he has written and as this text reflects him, or, indeed, creates the impression of an authorial reflection. Yet Dunn is up to something else, though it takes a later critic to develop-and to depart from-Dunn's position. At first blush, Marta Ana Diz's view of El CondeLucanoris similar to that of Dunn. However, in a radical departure from Dunn's position, Diz asserts that the verses concluding each exemplum are not spoken by the narrative voice or by Don Juan Manuel or, indeed, by any voice at all. The verses function as an enunciation of themselves "porque, en rigor, son su propia voz, se dicen a si mismos. Se trata de una escritura peculiar, sin mas existencia en el ambito de lo realizable que la de estos amagos de discurso que no son discursos porque nadie los enuncia.'15 For Diz, the dialogue between Patronio and the Conde Lucanor closes in upon itself, in part because Patronio and the Count are merely facets of the same personality, which is to say, Patronio, the counselor, is the Conde Lucanor's wisdom.

JamesMandrell

This interiority of the narrativecorrespondsto the interior wisdom, the self-knowledgeof every individual;the narrativestructureduplicatesitself in a psychologicalsense in the dialogue. Accordingto Diz, and in a move that places her squarelyif not explicitlyin the poststructuralist camp,this sincethe book is, "almismotiempo, processformsa kind of literaryparadox, el sitio de lo diferentey de lo igual,de la distanciay de la uni6n, de lo diverso y de lo uno" (34). Not even the reader is exempt from this process of interiorizationin Diz's schema. As the five books of El Conde Lucanor draw to a close, "ellector de Patroniollega al quinto libro,donde la lecturade ese credoconstituyeuna experiencia inquietante,pues puede ir anticipandolas de memoriay tiene, por momentos, la de esa sabe oraci6n palabras que sensaci6n de que es el mismo quien de algun modo esta dictando el texto inscribe a quien la pronuncia en una historia colectiva e intima a la vez" the author,the reader,and the world all become func(176). The narrator, tions of the text,or,moreto the point, all becometextsin and of themselves. In fact,both Dunn and Diz arguefor a hierarchizedpolysemyin relationto El Conde Dunn claiming,"Whatever brilliancethey [the exempla] Lucanor, is have to their which is to representthevariety function, may contributory andopenness the to and this world to a mindwhich is capable world, of present of reflectingon it"(53),and Diz asserting,"Enlos ejemplosde Patroniohay personajesque leen bien; hay otros que leen mal;hay, sobre todo, quienes no leen, porque no perciben la realidad como texto que necesite interpretaci6n"(173). Like Derrida'saffirmationof the textuality or textualizationof the real Lucanor to an enclosed and unified textual world, the reduction of ElConde is not to entity-which say interpretivefield16-correspondsin large part to medieval notions of literatureand the world. But, as Jesse M. Gellrich observes in an extensivecomparisonof the proximityof the two theoretical stances,the one medieval,the other contemporary:
Although these possibilities maybe intriguing,they shouldbe pursued of the extent to which signs and signification only in full appreciation remainedcommittedto a largerintellectualpreoccupation with stabithe it out of the realm of and lizing sign, moving potentialarbitrariness, tracingthe utteranceback to a fixed origin, such as the primalWord
Spoken by God the Father17

que lee. . . . Pero es, sobre todo, la palabra viva, oral y compartida, que

In other words, the materialworld always refersto the realm of the ideal. It is in this perspectivemisguidedto insist on the radicalor absoluteclosure of a medieval text. Whether or not a work adheres completely to the of every text,thereis a necessary theologicalnotion of the idealreferentiality correlationbetween the real world and the ideal as it is mediated by the text. Thus, in terms of El Conde the resolution or textualizationof Lucanor, Don JuanManuel-and the reader-cannot be as total or completeas either Dunn or Diz would appear to suggest. But how are we to resolve the

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distinctionsbetween the "real" authorand his textualequivalent?between the first-and third-personnarrative voices in the text? between the various avatarsof the narrator?between the text and the material world, literature and reality? Clearly,questions as large and as vexing as these can only be answered in the most speculativefashion.Yet,by consideringthese issues in terms of one literarytext and by drawing on previous scholarshippertainingto El I hope to be able to show one way they might be addressed. Conde Lucanor, Specifically,I shall discuss first the way in which the play of paradox,of similarityand difference,at work throughoutDon JuanManuel's"librode enxienplos"is a strategicdevice that serves to exemplifythe utility of the book in particularand literature in general; second, how the different narrative registers in the text correspond to differing conceptions and presentations of authorial roles; and, finally, how the emphasis on the Lucanor is importanceof reading in currentcriticaltreatmentsof El Conde of It is in that it the medium language. my slights production, misplaced contention, broadly speaking, that Don JuanManuel uses concrete situations in the exemplanot merely as an end to resolving worldly problems, of the power of languagein the creationof narrative but as a demonstration and worldly authority. Indeed, one of the primarylessons of Don Juan Manuel'sbook is that language is only of importance-and then of crucial importance-as it works in the world. Or, as Patroniomakes abundantly clearin the fiftieth exemplum,it is necessaryto pay attention to "amaslas carreras, que son lo de Dios et del mundo,"which is to say,to pay attention to the real world in which man must act as well as the ideal realm of Christiantruth.l8 The specularplay of similarityamongthe differentlevels of the narration than in the first exemplumof Lucanor is nowhere more obvious in El Conde In this a vn rey con vn su priuado."19 the first part,"De lo que contes&io situaa about asks his the Conde Lucanor Patronio, adviser, tricky episode tion with a friendwho is a "muygrande omne." Withoutintroducingany extraneousdetails, the narratorbegins this and every one of the exempla directly,leaving aside any gesture that would serve to establisha general vna vez que el conde Lucanorestaua fablando en su scenario:"Acaes&io su consegero,et dixol:-Patronio, a'miacaesqioque con Patronio, poridat vn muy grande omne et mucho onrado, et muy poderoso, et que da a'entender que es ya quantomio amigo,que me dixo pocos diasha, en muy grant que era su voluntad de'se poridat, que por algunas cosas quel acaescieran, manera" en a'ella tornar et non tierra desta (33). Linkingthe ninguna partir of the Conde's with that of the the literal situation of exemplum causality
own life ("Acaes;iovna vez . . . . a mi acaessio . . . algunas cosas quel

"en su poridat ... en muy grant poridat"),the narrator acaessieran"; enters immediatelyinto the story and turns the narrativefunction over to Patronio,just as, in the two prologues, the narrativevoice shifts from the third- to the first-person.

James Mandrell

One salient aspect of these varying levels of the narrationis the way in which Patronio'sstory recapitulatesthe prefatoryframeas well as anticipates the dynamics of personal relationships. The situation in which the Count finds himself and aboutwhich he seeks advice fromhis counseloris paralleledby Patronio'sstory of a manwho has a similarproblemand who turnsfor counselto a wise prisonerin his household. Therecommendations of the "catiuo"are, of course, good, and Patronio'sprotagonistacts upon them, just as the Conde Lucanoracts upon the advice found in the story: "Elconde se fallo porbien aconsejadodel consejode Patronio,su consejero, et fizo lo commo el le consejara,et fallose ende bien" (37). In like fashion, Don JuanManuel, seeing how good the story and the advice it contained were, includes it in his book. There are, then, as Alberto V'arvaro quite rightly observes, three distinctmomentsthat come together into one common text of didacticintent, one moment particularto the story contained in each exemplum,anothercorrespondingto the actionbetween the Count and Patronio,and yet anotherin which the narratorhas Don JuanManuel make his appearanceas the author. As Varvarosees it, each one of these momentsmoves the didacticmaterialto a greaterlevel of generalizationas firstthe characters within Patronio'sstory,then the Count,and finally Don JuanManuel,see the practicalnature of the counselor'swisdom.20 The duplications apparent in the organization and play of narrative voices are also at work in the arrangement of the fictionalmaterial. Here, internal duplicationsof the situationsreveal the inherent similarityof all men and all humansituations,confirmingthe validity of a book of exempla in its essential utility. Moreover,there are semanticrepetitionsin this first itself and to tie this material exemplumthat tend both to unify the narration to the prologues. In additionto the recurrence of the words "acaesqer" and in the of the first two other words "poridat" opening paragraphs episode, receive special emphasis,"aconsejar" and "con(and its variants"consejo" and "manera." sejero") These repetitionsareimportantnot only for the formaldensity that they lend to the textbut also for the meaningsthat,slowly but surely,they create, meanings that have to do with action and authority. The passage-cited previously-in which the Conde Lucanor receives and tests Patronio's advicestressesthe actsof giving and actingupon counsel. No less than four times in that single sentence does the word "consejo" in its various forms the word and its variantsappearanother occur;and in the entireexemplum, six times. The cumulativeeffect of this constant referenceto counsel-to the act of giving adviceto an individualas well as to the actof takingadvice fromsomeone-is to foregroundin the play or economy of worldly authority and action the necessaryrelianceof individuals on the opinions, ideas, and experiencesof others. The situationof the CondeLucanorwith respect to Patroniois preciselythe situation of the readerwith respectto the book El CondeLucanor and, metonymically,to its author. At every level of the literary text, from fictional characterto author to reader,the ontological

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world.21

status of the individualis the same:he is in searchof some element of truth that will guide him through the complexitiesof humanrelationshipsin the

The notion of practical experienceas it is elaboratedin the use of counsel is found as well in the many references to the "manera," the means or manner in which something was or is to be done: "Etde que vieron que por otra maneranon pudieron acabarlo que querianfazer"(34);and the word is used in this way in the first episode another six times (35, 36, 39). But "manera" also means "reason," as in the following: "Etaquellos otros que buscauanmala aquelsu priuadodixieronle vna manera muy engannosa le oyo dezir,estrannogelo mucho,deziendolmuchasmaneras por que'lonon
deuia fazer . . . et asi, por esta manera,tenia que dexaua recabdo en toda

en commo podria prouar que era verdat. . . . Et que, por aquella manera, pensaua que le avriaDios merged del. . . . Quando el priuado del reyesto

su fazienda"(34-35; my emphasis). The result of the dual denotative value of "manera" is the linking of reasonwith means,of justificationwith action. The inherent ambiguityin the notion of right-action,of taking the appropriate decision,becomes tied to the processby which an individual arrives at that decision,meaningthatthe validity of an actionis determineda priori. Thus, because Don Juan Manuel realizes that "estos exienplos eran muy buenos" not fromhis own experiencebut fromthose experiencesof other fictionalpersonages,and becausehe "fizolos escribiren este libro"(37),the "maneras" of his didacticism,both the reason and the means of his social are one and the same. The overdetermination of the word message, "manera" is not, however, confined to the first exemplumalone. In the second of the two prologues, the word is used seven times;in six instances it clearlyrefersto the means or mannerin which somethingis done and in four of these cases the use is unambiguous. By contrast,in the sixth and is combinedin the same seventh cases,the normativemeaningof "manera" sentence with a more unusual use of the word. Introducing the fiction proper,Don JuanManuel says in the second prologue,"Etpues el prologo del libro, en manerade la manera es acabado,de aqui adelante comen~are un grandsennor que fablauacon vn su consegero"(29).Here,the substance of the book, "lamaneradel libro," joins with the means of telling the story, was at one and the sametime the reason for as the right-action just tangible meansof the actionitself. Tyingthe distinctlevels of the narrativetogether, the word "manera"as it appears in the second prologue and the first exemplumshows how what is on the one hand the means to an end for Patronio,or even a reason,becomes,for Don JuanManuel,on the other,the matteritself, the stuff of his book. Thus, the play of similarityand differenceas it appearsin the prologues and first exemplumadumbratesthe nature of exemplaryliterature.Apart from the many manifest differencesin human nature and worldly aspiration, it is possible to divine a consistencyandconstancythat makeof man a comprehensibleactorin the dramaof the materialworld and that, in turn,

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make El CondeLucanor applicableto all situations (27-28). This play of and difference is evident at severallevels. In terms of semantics, similarity the means of representation-the "maneras" that are at one and the same time reason and action as well as substance-exemplify the possibility of knowing thatwhich is complex,the realworld,by portrayingit in a manner that is, of necessity,simpleand straightforward, the book. In regardto the characters in the various exempla,despite the fact that they are endowed with humanattributes, which would tend to makeof themindividuals,they arenonetheless universalsas well, representativeof all men. Finally,at the level of narrativeorganization,the diegeticand situationalrepetitionstend towardsthe commonalityof everydayexistence. It is the natureof ElConde Lucanor to extend outwardsin an increasinglygeneralizedway and not to close in upon itself, either as a function of its being read or of its being the embodimentof the authorwho createdthe fictionand the role thathe plays. Not surprisingly, Don JuanManuel'smanipulationof the narrativevoice and the nature of authorial presence have much to do with medieval theories of authorship.As AlistairMinnis points out in his discussionof St Bonaventureand the natureof authorship, "Godis the sourceof allauctoritas; afterHim comes the human auctor who is responsiblefor what is actually said in a given text,and finally thereis the personwho compilesthe sayings of the human auctor."22 Accordingto St. Bonaventure,there is the scribe, who "writes the materialsof others, adding or changing nothing"; the compiler,who "writesthe materialsof others, adding, but nothing of his own";the commentator, who "writesboth the materialsof other men, and of his own, but the materialsof others are the principalmaterials,and his own annexed for the purpose of clarifyingthem";and there is the author, who "writesboth his own materialsand those of others,but his own as the principalmaterials,and the materialsof others annexedfor the purpose of confirminghis own" (Minnis 94). ForBonaventure,then, writing in and of itself does not constitute authorship. Indeed, the actual writing of a can easily work, the writing out, need not be done by the author,but rather, be delegated to a scribe. Clearly,Don JuanManuel is aware of these distinctions and of his relationship as an author to divine authority. Tobegin once again with the prologues, Don Juan Manuel opens his book by establishing an implicit between the work of the authorand of God. Thefirstprologue comparison begins in this way: "Estelibro fizo don Iohan, fijo del muy noble infante a otro" a'qualquieromne,non fallareen este librosu semejan5a que acaes&io (23). Thesecond prologueopens by acknowledging,appropriately enough, the supremeauthor,God:"En'el nonbrede Dios: amen. Entremuchascosas estrannaset marabillosasque nuestro sennor Dios fizo, touo por bien de fazervna muy marabillosa: esta es que de quantos omnes en'el mundo son, non a vno que semeje a otro en'la cara"(27). Then Don Juan Manuel introduces himself and his intent into text: "Porende, yo, don Iohan, fijo
don Manuel. . . . Et seria marauilla si de qual quier cosa que acaezca

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del infante don Manuel, adelantadomayor de'la fronteraet del regno de Mursia,fiz este libro conpuesto de'lasmas apuestaspalabrasque yo pude" (28). If,in the firstprologue,what Don JuanManueldid is paramount,and, in the second, the opening paragraphstreat that which "nuestrosennor Dios fizo," then the following paragraphs,in which the author presents what he has done, are in the manner of a translation of the material substanceof this world into the textualsubstanceof El Conde Lucanor. The prologuesmove towardsone specificthing, the linking of Don JuanManuel with God. In the prologues,then, Diosis to be identified as the authorof the world and Don JuanManuel as his terrestrialagent. Furthermore, if Don Juan Manuelhas succeededin representingthe sumtotal of humanactions,then he has, indeed, succeeded in creatinga textualrealmequivalent to the real world createdby "Dios."In so doing he has thereforeempoweredhimself of an author, with a transcendentforce, one that is, perhaps,characteristic but one, in this case, intended to allow him to shape not only the events of the fiction but of the real world, too. Just as Patronioacknowledges the wisdom of the Conde Lucanor,Don Juan Manuel acknowledges God as the makerof all, even as he does so in the text and contextof that which he himself has made.23 The hegemony of authorialremove continues into the exemplathemselves, in which the primarynarratoror story-tellerappearsto be Patronio; and it is here thatthe distinctionsthat seemso obviousbegin to breakdown. As Dunn and Diz note, Don JuanManuelis reintroducedinto the concluding paragraphsof each exemplum and what was initially to seem real becomes part of the fiction proper. The inclusion of Don JuanManuel at this point not only brings into the body of the fiction the putative author, was comit also details the authorialprocess by which El CondeLucanor the tales of of of the Manuel takes Don Juan exemplarity advantage posed. Patronioand includes them in his book, which meansthat, accordingto St. Bonaventure'sformulation,Don JuanManuel is not precisely an author, since the realpoint at which he writes or creates-as opposed to commanding somethingbe written-is when he reducesthe moralto poetic form. In the mannerof an inverse gloss, in which verse explicatesa passageof prose, shows Don JuanManuelnot as an authoror a compileror Lucanor El Conde as Ian Maceven merely a scribe,but, rather,as a kind of "commentator," delasarmas: "DonJuan Phersonrightlypoints out in the contextof the Libro dares to comparehis creativeprocesswith that of medieval commentators who producea work of synthesisfrommultiplesources."24 on the scriptures, In otherwords, the natureof the authorialintent assertedin the prologues is here qualifiedby the shape and disposition of the narrativeitself. There is obviously something peculiar taking place in this text with respectto the notionof authorship,and it has to do, I believe, with the issue of similarityand differencewith which we began, since the distinctions have begun to breakdown Lucanor maintainedat the beginning of El Conde

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in the first exemplum. With the appearance of differing avatars of the narrative and authorial functions, the narrator has begun to narrate Don Juan Manuel into being, making of the author a literary character comparable to Patronio and the Conde Lucanor. Yet there is another distinction to be made when we consider the play of third- and first-person narrations, one between the author and the authorial functions as they appear in El Conde Lucanor. If the effect of this switch in narrative voice is to cast the author as a character in his own fiction, then it seems as if the controlling narrative hand were authoring the putative author of the text. Indeed, at the conclusion of the fiftieth exemplum, it is Patronio who announces the end of the first book of El CondeLucanor: "Etpor ende, vos digo que'lo vno por esto, et lo al por el trabajo que he tomado en'las otras respuestas que vos di, que vos non quiero mas responder a otras preguntas que vos fagades, que en'este enxienplo et en otro que se sigue adelante deste vos quiero fazer fin a'este libro" (422). The distinctions so carefully delineated continue to break down and to reorganize in the subsequent four parts of the work when Don Juan Manuel appears as the first-person narrator of the second part, the "razonamiento que faze don Juan por amor de don Jaime, sennor de Xerica" (439), and then reintroduces Patronio and the Conde Lucanor and their conversations: Et la maneradel I libroes que Patroniofablacon el Conde Lucanor segund adelanteveredes. Razonamiento Patronio al conde de quefaze muybuenos exemplos. -Sennor conde Lucanor-dixo Patronio-, yo vos fablefasta mente que yo pude, et por que se que'lo agoralo mas declarada queredes,fablarvos he daqui adelanteessa mismamanera,mas por essa que en'el otrolibroante deste. Et pues el otroes acabado,este librocomienqa assi: (441-42) Note, first, the similarity between the narrative gesture with which the Count and Patronio are introduced in this book and the way the first book begins; note also the change in the order of the presentation of master and servant, which marks a subtle change in the relationship between the two individuals. Furthermore, Patronio is acutely aware of the other book in which he figures as a character and he demonstrates this familiarity by using one of the words that we discussed previously, "manera,"making it appear as if he were now the author of "este libro," especially since the second book of El CondeLucanorseems to have two beginnings ("Et la manera del libro es que Patronio fabla . . . "; "Et pues el otro es acabado, este libro comiensa assi"). The authority in the first book, Don Juan Manuel, complies with the wishes of Don Jaime; and Patronio, clearly paternal in his role as counselor, becomes explicitly so in the second book, in which he brings the text into being.

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This tendency towards presenting Patronio in the guise of the authorial function is confirmed in the third book; and it carries over into the fourth book as well as into the fifth, where El CondeLucanoris brought to a close with these words: Agora,sennor conde Lucanor,demasde'losenxienploset prouerbios que son en este libro,vos he dicho assaza'micuydarparapoder guardarel almaet avn el cuerpoet la onraet la faziendaet el estado,et, loado a'Dios,segund el mio flacoentendimiento,tengo que vos he complidoet acabadotodo lo que vos dixe. Et pues assi es, en esto fago fin a este libro. Et I acabolodon Iohanen Salmeron, lunes, XIIdias de de et et era mil CCC LXX et tres annos. (491) junio, What began as an invocation of God and then continued with the presentation of Don Juan Manuel, his purpose and intention in writing the book, finds its closure in this final third-person reference to the Count, which corresponds, in a formal sense, to the play of third- and first-person discourse in the prologues. Yet, during the course of the many pages of the text, Patronio, counselor to the Conde Lucanor-and implicitly to Don Juan Manuel and to us-has been filling the role of first-person narrator to such an extent that, by the end of the book, we must wonder who has writtenhas authored-the book that we hold. What has happened is that Don Juan Manuel has manipulated the narrative voice in such a way that he has successfully disclosed the complexities underlying the concept of authorial presence and authority. Constantly shifting and reorganizing the various matrices of authority-in terms of the dialectic of aconsejado-consejero, master-servant, as well as in terms of narrative voice and authorial function-, the author makes such sorts of distinct categories as those in Bonaventure's explanation of authorship appear the roles are vague and distorted, because, in the course of El CondeLucanor, filled at one time or another by one character or another. But again, the important point to grasp here is that, among the porous author-narratorcharacter relationships, the several differencesreveal the similarity of their aspirations: the uniform quest of man searching for the truth of this world, the ways of access into another. This is, of course, a standard medieval concern. Don Juan Manuel openly appeals to the reader to appreciate the manifest truth of his words, despite any inherent lapses that might be encountered, by invoking the deity:
Et Dios . . . quiera que'los que este libro leyeren . . . . [et] lo que y fallaren que non es tan bien dicho, non pongan la culpa a'la mi entenqion, mas pongan la a'la mengua del mio entendimiento. Et si alguna cosa fallaren bien dicha o aprouechosa, gradescan lo a'Dios, ca el es aquel por quien todos los buenos dichos et fechos se dizen et se fazen. (28)

In the final moments of the fifth book, Don Juan Manuel modestly mentions

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"la mengua del mio entendimiento," which corresponds to the way that Patronio excuses himself before his master, the Count, citing "el mio flaco entendimiento" and which serves to unify the entire text. Yet, in the last analysis, Don Juan Manuel cedes the authorship and control of his text to another who is even more powerful than he is; and in so doing he breaks down the many relationships between and among authors and narrators by inscribing himself in his work for the greater glory and good of his Master and Maker. The fact that Don Juan Manuel's attempt to honor God is carried out in linguistic form leads us back to a central concern in El CondeLucanorand in contemporary literary theory, the power of language and its relationship to truth, which is nowhere more obvious than in the most famous of Don Juan Manuel's exempla, the eleventh, "De'lo que contescio a'vn dean de Sanctiago con don Yllan, el grand maestro de Toledo." Based on a scenario of what will be designated in the twenty-sixth exemplum as a "mentira senziella" (211), this exemplum details a type of contractual obligation between the dean de Sanctiago and Don Yllan, an expert in the art of necromancy. At least initially it appears as if, in the opposition of the "dark" arts to religious orthodoxy, Don Yllan were the one most likely to make and in turn to fail to keep a promise. Yet, as the sorcerer's magic-and the narrator's artistry-proves time and again, it is the Dean who, in using speech to his own end, reneges on his obligations to "el grand maestro de Toledo." Because the Dean continually defers and then refuses outright to pass on to Don Yllan any benefit that would accrue to him in the future, the student shows himself to be a cheat. The moral of this story is not unex/ menos ayuda abrasdel pected: "Al que muchoayudareset non te lo conosqiere, desqueen grand onrasubiere"(102). The genius in this exemplum rests, first, with Don Yllan, who, by means of his necromancy contrives to demonstrate not once but at least four times the extent of the Dean's ingratitude, and, second, with the narrator, who, like the "maestro"who dupes his student, tricks the reader by means of the strict diegesis of his narrative presentation. What in the case of Don Yllan is sorcery, is, in the narrator's case, nothing less than the power of speech, its ability to create specific situations and then to undo them, as in the case of the partridges that are awaiting the spit. Using the partridges-a common symbol for deceit-as an indication of the present moment, the narrator creates a temporal parenthesis into which he inserts the proof of the Dean's potential lack of gratitude. The demonstration foregrounds Don Yllan; but it also demonstrates the very real power of language, not only at the levels of signification and of contractual obligations or in the blunt assertion of truth or even in the spinning of falsehoods, but also as the contrivance of narrative situations in which truth is first revealedand then upheld. As understood in El Conde Lucanor, language is not, therefore, absolute, either good or bad, transparent or opaque, true or false. Because these categories depend on the interest and intent of the speaker, language

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maybe any of those things. Yetlanguageis only enduringwhen it is linked to truth in the contextof individual action,which in turn has a bearingon how we understandDon JuanManuel and his book. Of the ends to which languagemightbe put, of right-action,Patroniosays in the fifth book of El Conde Lucanor that "Fazer omne buena obra es toda cosa que omne faze por Dios, mas es mesterque se fagabien, et esto es que se faga a buena entencion, non por vana gloria,nin por ypocresia,nin por otra entension, sinon sola mente por seruicio de Dios; otrosi, que lo faga por escogimiento"(480).Accordingto Patronio,intention is an integralpart of all actions and enters-or ought to enter-into considerationsof the everyday world. This formulationis quite close to Aristotle'sin the Nicomachean where he discussesvariousvirtues, their nature and form: Ethics,
ately if they themselvesare of a certainsort,but only if the agent also is in a certainstate of mind when he does them:firsthe must act with choose the act, and choose knowledge; secondly he must deliberately it for its own sake;and thirdly the act must spring from a fixed and permanentdispositionof character.. . . It is correctthereforeto say that a man becomesjust by doing just actionsand temperate by doing temperateactions;and no one can have the remotestchanceof becoming good without doing them.25
acts done in conformity with the virtues are not done justly or temper-

In terms of the exemplaand intention, it is clearthat, at least in linguistic terms,lies and falsehoodsdo not fulfillthe letterof intent necessaryof good deeds. Beyond this, it is also clear that good acts and intentions are part and parcelof the individual,the realworld, and the way that the individual conducts himself in the world. Forexample,in the fortieth exemplum,the will of the devil is joined to the supposed good works of a "senescalde It turns out that the senescalprovided for every contingency Carcaxona." in terms of his life and salvation. But, as a "mugerdemoniada"points out afterthe senescal'sdeath and supposed salvation,the deceased had actedin bad faith. His intention was not to do good, regardlessof the state of his soul; he intended that good works be performedfor the good of his soul afterhis death,meaningthat,if he should have lived, no good works would have been done. Thus, good works are intimatelylinked to the intention of the individual, such that the good deeds in and of themselves are not enough if the intention behind themwas otherwise. Although a necessary part of every action,intent, even if good, must be scrutinizedclosely,since intent is of importancein the world as a meansof gaining entranceinto the other,ideal world, and not vice versa. The power of good works, their linguistic and personalresonance,is at stake in the next exemplumas well, XLI,"De'loque contescio a'vn rey de Cordouaquel dizianAlhaquem."Hereit is the timelessnatureof good acts, theircapacityto engenderand to perpetuatethe reputationof an individual through all time: "el bien nunca muere,"because, as Patronio tells the

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Count, "por fuerqalas gentes avran de loar los vuestros buenos fechos" and not merelyinten(326). Equallyimportantis the factthat appearances, tions and deeds, can give rise to one's reputation.As the philosopherlearns in ExenploXLVI, people areall too quickto attributethe worst to any action, with which it was carriedout. This has to do yet again the intent despite with intent and outcome,the means and the end to which they areput, for, "en'labuena ventura et en'la desauenturacontesse assi: a'las vegadas es falladaet buscada,et algunasvegadas es falladaet non buscada"(381).The is the connection of action and linguistic result of the forty-sixthexemplum intent-or acting within the confines of the temporalnature of the real world-with eternal afterlife,in the realmof Dios andin the real world by means of "fama." The role that language plays in engendering and perpetuatingthe reputation of an individual is, therefore,twofold. On the one hand, there is the reputationthat will be passed fromperson to person, mouth to mouth, as in the case of the king of C6rdoba,Alhaquem.On the other,thereis the text thatis ElConde Lucanor and the ways thatthis textcanengenderand embody the renown of its author,Don JuanManuel. It is not erroneousto consider the documentboth a work of exemplary literatureand a work that exemplifies the exemplarityof its author. In this way, El Conde Lucanor is indeed a translationof the world, is a textualrendering or even a textualizationof the real world. Yetit neverthelesshas forcein the real world, the world of which it is a part.Thereis, then, an ideal aspectto the book, perhapsto the very notion of any book, since exemplaryliterature speaks to the ideal condition as a means of gaining accessto the realmof the ideal. But there is also a worldly point to the book and to literature,since the intent of El Conde Lucanor is to engenderhumanactionin the material world, is to create the possibility of right-action,positive intent, and enduringreputation,for the author as well as for the individual. In this way, the author is a dual entity, a real as well as an ideal figure. Moreover,the two aspects of the author are not, finally reducible to any neat formulationof the ideal authoras he is representedin the text, to the realauthor,or to the authorialfunction. Rather, the reputationof Don Juan Manuel as an authorindicatesthat he is all of these things. And his genius in the creation of El Conde Lucanor is the fact that he shows precisely the variety and extent of those roles even as he createsfor himselfthefictionof an ideal authority.If the progressionof the textand the roles of the fictional Count and Patronio tend towards the effacementof Don Juan Manuel's authorialpresence,they also attestto his rigorousconceptionof the power of languageand literatureas well as the orthodoxyof his authorialrelationship with respect to the supreme Author,present inside and outside all temporalwords and deeds, Dios. In this sense, Don JuanManuel evinces an understanding of the nature of literatureand the world that is at least equal to, if not greater than, that of his present-day critics. In El Conde Lucanor he has both demonstrateda knowledge of the issues addressedby

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the concept of textuality and provided an answer to those issues. The questions of textuality as raised by contemporary theoreticians of literature are neither insignificant nor specious. Indeed, the concept of textuality is germane to discussions of literary texts and of profound importance to an understanding of the role played by literature in the real world. Yet it is ultimately a misguided type of blindness, if you will, merely to apply theory to a text without considering the theory of reading proposed by the text itself. That is, medieval texts oftentimes anticipate a process of reading that would possibly reduce literature to the level of sheer textuality and they then respond to that possibility by insisting on the necessarily worldly aspects of language, intent, and, finally, meaning. Time and again the narrative style and structure of El Conde Lucanor demonstrate a profound awareness of the porousness and contingency of Don Juan Manuel's worldly authority as well as his dependence in a narrative sense on those who will represent the author's voice and cause. There is, thus, nothing aporetic in Don Juan Manuel's text, despite the specularity of the narrative. Since everything in the fourteenth-century world for which El CondeLucanorwas written refers upward in the hierarchical chain of being toward that which is ineffable and all-powerful, the book cannot exist as an enclosed, hermetic entity. Likewise, it cannot be viewed as just one more example of the textualization of the world. Without the real world, the material world of which Don Juan Manuel was a part, there would have been no need for a book of exempla. It is only when the real and the ideal are mediated by the book that worldly and ideal authority come together. That both depend on a narrative authority to effect this union becomes, of course, problematic later, as the power of language to create and to undo is made more apparent, for instance, in Diego de San Pedro's Cdrcel de Amor, in the Lazarillode Tormes,and, of course, in the texts of Cervantes. However, it must have been reassuring, even as the world of fourteenth-century Spain was beginning to change, to think in terms of the stability and fixity of meaning-worldly, literary, ideal-, in the power of language, and in the authority of (divine) authorship.

NOTES
An earlier-and much different-version of this paper was presented to the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar at Westfield College, University of London. I am grateful to Alan Deyermond both for his invitation to speak at the Seminar and for his incisive comments on my work. I should also like to thank Barry Taylor,Julian Weiss, and Barbara Kurtz for their comments and suggestions. 1 "Making it (New) in the Middle Ages-Towards a Problematics of Alterity," Diacritics 4 (1974): 3. 2 "Medievalisms and Models of Textuality,"Diacritics 15 (1985): 55. 3 Estudios de historia del pensamientoespaiol, 3rd ed. (Madrid: Cultura Hispanica, 1983) 233. 4 trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1974) Of Grammatology,

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158. 5 A World of Difference(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP, 1987) 18. 6 The World,the Text,and the Critic (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983) 3. 7 On the contrary. A number of critics work openly with literary theory, and Cesareo Bandera has intentionally broached the topic of medieval literature and modern theory as well as the lessons each might learn from the other ("De la apertura del Librode Juan Ruiz a Derrida y vicecersa," Dispositio 2 [1977]: 54-66). But there remains a certain degree of controversy over the wisdom of such methodological rapprochements. In this regard see Haidu, "Making It"; Eugene Vance, "Medievalisms,"and "The Modernity of the Middle Ages in the Future, Romanic Review 64 (1973): 140-51; and Hans Robert Jauss "The Alterity and Modernity of Medieval Literature," New LiteraryHistory 10 (1979): 181-230. All of these deal in large part, explicitly or implicitly, with Paul Zumthor's monumental Essai de po6tiquemedievale(Paris: Seuil, 1972). 8 Les mots et les choses: Une archeologie des sciences humaines, Bibliotheque des Sciences Humaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1966) 7. 9 There has been some controversy over the two prologues with which most editions of El Conde Lucanorbegin. For a conservative approach to the question, see Alberto Blecua, La transmisi6ntextual deEl Conde Lucanor (Barcelona: Universidad Aut6noma de Barcelona, 1980). For an overview of the criticism and a sensitive reading of the text, see Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux, "Don Juan Manuel y la conciencia de su propia autoria," La Cor6nica10 (1982): 186-90. 10 See Deyermond's Estudio preliminar to Ayerbe-Chaux's modernized edition of the Libro del CondeLucanor(Madrid:Alhambra, 1985), especially 24-26. 11 On Deconstruction: Theoryand Criticismafter Structuralism(Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985) 86. 12 See Paul de Man's extended meditation on misreading in contemporary criticism, where he remarks that, "Since interpretation is nothing but the possibility of error, by claiming that a certain degree of blindness is part of the specificity of all literature we also reaffirm the absolute dependence of the interpretation on the text and of the text on the interpretation" (Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoricof Contemporary Criticism [New York: Oxford UP, 1971] 141). The notions of blindness and misreading are also central to the theory of influence propounded A Theoryof Poetry (New York:Oxford by Harold Bloom, most notably in TheAnxiety of Influence: UP, 1973). 13 Derrida and de Man have both sought to exploit the inherently figurative nature of language as a means of revealing the essentially artificial boundaries between philosophical and literary discourse. See, for example, Derrida's "The Supplement of Copula: Philosophy Before Linguistics," Textual Strategies: Perspectivesin Post-StructuralistCriticism, ed. Josue V. Harari (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1979) 82-120, and "White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy," New Literary History 6 (1974): 5-74 (both of which are included in Margins of Philosophy,trans. Alan Bass [Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982] 175-205 and 207-71, respectively) and de Man's "Nietzsche's Theory of Rhetoric," Symposium28 (1974): 33-51, and 'Action and Identity in Nietzsche," YaleFrenchStudies 52 (1975): 16-30 (rpt. in Allegoriesof Reading:Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust [New Haven: Yale UP, 1979] as "Rhetoric of Tropes [Nietzsche]," 103-18, and as "Rhetoric of Persuasion [Nietzsche]," 119-31, respectively). In this regard, see as well John Searle's predictably scathing but nevertheless astute overview of deconstruction's philosophical excesses and blunders in his review of Culler's On Deconstruction, "The World Turned Upside Down," The New York Review of Books27 October 1983. One suspects that much of Searle's animus on this particular occasion can be traced back to his exchange with Derrida in the pages of Glyph,specifically Derrida's "Signature Event Context," Glyph 1 (1977): 172-97 (also rpt. in Margins of Philosophy 307-30), Searle's "Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida," Glyph2(1977): 198-208,and Derrida's "LimitedInc abc ... " Glyph 2 (1977): 162-245. See also Rodolphe Gasche's brilliant discussion of Derrida's relationship to the philosophical tradition in TheTainof theMirror:Derridaand thePhilosophy ofReflection (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986). 14 "The Structures of Didacticism: Private Myths and Public Fictions,"Juan Manuel Studies, ed. Ian MacPherson (London: Tamesis, 1977) 66. Further references will be given in the text. 1Patronio y Lucanor:La lectura inteligente "enel tiempoque es turbio,"ScriptaHumanistica 2

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(Potomac: Scripta Humanistica, 1984) 33. Further references will be given in the text. 16 Most recently Anibal A. Biglieri has considered El Conde Lucanorin the light of recent Ochoestudios sobre literary theory and recent explications in Hacia una poeticadel relatodiddctico: El Conde Lucanor, North CarolinaStudies in the RomanceLanguagesand Literatures233 (Chapel Hill: Romance Languages, U of North Carolina, 1988). He concludes that "una de las afirmaciones mas polemicas de estos ocho estudios y que, con toda seguridad, no dejara de ser como una colecci6n impugnada, es la de haberse insistido tanto en considerar El CondeLucanor de relatos mas o menos 'cerrados'" (214). Here Biglieri claims that Don Juan Manuel's exempla are open to one interpretation and not a variety of different meanings. This gives an idea of how difficult it is to use poststructuralist and deconstructive critical tools, since the consequences of one theoretical posture often entail other positions that must be either embraced as part and parcel of the model or rejected as inappropriate. Thus, Biglieri notes in his discussion of mise en abyme,"se ha de seguir en lo esencial el modelo de Lucien Dallenbach, el mas completo y sistematico hasta la fecha, ajustandolo, eso sf, a las necesidades especificas del relato de Don Juan Manuel" (162). 17TheIdeaoftheBookin theMiddleAges:Language andFiction (Ithaca: Cornell Theory,Mythology, UP, 1985) 21. 18 Don Juan Manuel, El Conde Lucanor,ed. Jose Manuel Blecua, Obras completas, 2 vols. (Madrid: Gredos, 1982-1983)2:414. All citations are from this edition and will be given by page number. 19 The structural importance of this exemplum has been duly noted and commented on by several critics, among them Harlan Sturm, "The Conde Lucanor:The First Ejemplo,"MLN 84 (1969): 286-92; Robert B. Tate, "Don Juan Manuel and His Sources: Ejemplos 48, 28, 1," Studia R. Lapesa,2 vols. (Madrid:Catedra-SeminarioMenendez Pidal and Gredos, Hispanicain Honorem al estudio de Don Juan Manuel y en particularde "El 1972) 1: 549-61; Daniel Devoto, Introducci6n Conde Lucanor." Una bibliografta (Madrid:Castalia, 1972) 357-60; and Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux, El Conde Lucanor: Materiatradicional (Madrid:Porria Turanzas, 1975)2-7. y originalidadcreadora With respect to the notion and nature of the author, indispensable studies include Ian MacPherson, "Dios y el mundo'-the Didacticism of El CondeLucanor,"Romance Philology24 (1970):26-38, and "Don Juan Manuel: The Literary Process," Studies in Philology70 (1973): 1-18; Kenneth R. Scholberg, "Modestia y orgullo: Una nota sobre Don Juan Manuel," Hispania 42 (1959): 24-31, and "JuanManuel: Personaje y autocritico," Hispania44 (1961):457-60; and Ayerbe-Chaux, "Don Juan Manuel y la conciencia de su propia autoria." On the narrative frame see James F Burke, Revista Canadiensede EstudiosHispdnicos8 (1984): "Frameand Structure in the CondeLucanor," 263-74. 20 "Lacornice de Conde Studi diletteraturaspagnola(Rome: Universita di Roma, 1964) Lucanor," 187-95. 21 In point of fact, the relationships between and among the sabiocatiuo and priuado,Patronio and the Count, Don Juan Manuel and the reader, are not strictly identical, principally because of the reversal of social distinctions obtaining between Don Juan Manuel and the readers, since the author was most likely superior in nobility to those who read his book. This difference aside, the essential nature of the relationship is indeed similar. 22 MedievalTheoryof Authorship, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1988) 95. 23 On the relationship between the Count and Patronio see Sturm, "The CondeLucanor" and "Authorand Authority in El CondeLucanor," Hispan6fila18 (1974-1975): 1-9. 24 "Don Juan Manuel: The Literary Process" 5. 25Nicomachean Ethics,trans. H. Rackham (London and New York:William Heineman and G. P Putnam, 1926) 24.3-5.