1495 TO 1556: FLORES TIMES FOUR

Helen Cathleen Tarp

Abstract

This essay treats Juan de Flores's 1495 Spanish Grisel y Mirabella as it survives in the anonymous, four-language - Spanish, French, English, and Italian - 1556 Antwerp translation, Aurelio et Isabelle. A comparison of the texts reveals that what appear to have been simple or basic emendations effected by translation in reality had a profound impact upon the text with respect to its theme, narrative structure, and development of independent and morally ambiguous characters. Translation not only removed the 1495 Spanish text from its cultural context,but also eradicated many of its extremely sophisticated and subtle stylistic and narratological innovations. This essay treats the forced metamorphosis from a culturally and linguistically specific, extremely innovative meta-textual commentary upon a contemporary Castilian literary debate and its protagonists, into a universal, generic multilingual European courtly romance.