Why George? Hagiographic Elements in Matute’s Primera memoria
Since its publication in 1960, Ana María Matute’s novel, Primera memoria, has earned substantial amounts of scholarship and a place in the canon as it pertains to Spanish Peninsular literature of the twentieth century. Its continued relevance has much to do with its discursive and thematic richness, fruitfully explored by readers. Primera memoria takes place on the island of Mallorca during the first months of the Spanish Civil War. Among other topics, its fourteen-year-old narrator, Matia, alludes to class tensions, youthful rivalries, feelings of estrangement, her love of fairy tales, mysterious adults, the conversos known as chuetas, expectations for girls, and unsettling violence. Studies of the text have examined it principally as a bildungsroman and a political allegory, centering on aspects such as Biblical motifs, symbols, archetypes, myths, female adolescent development and so on. One prominent element, however, has not received sustained attention—the legend of St. George, both as set forth in medieval hagiography and as manifested in folk customs. The present article seeks to pursue this line of inquiry: in view of the enigmatic character named Jorge de Son Mayor and the repeated references to San Jorge at the local church: how does parsing the saint’s tradition inflect and enrich our readings of Matute’s book? In other words, why George?
The Legenda aurea: A Reexamination of Its Paradoxical History
In the thirteenth century a young Dominican friar, Jacobus de Voragine, compiled the book that came to be known as the "Legenda aurea," a collection of medieval lore about the saints and holidays of the church. Through the centuries this noted book has had a conspicuously uneven reputation: enormous popularity in the late Middle Ages, a precipitous decline during the Renaissance, and a gradual rehabilitation in the modern era. Sherry L. Reames s study of the "Legenda aurea" offers the first comprehensive account of the book s history and of the qualities that differentiate it from earlier and less controversial works about the saints. The fresh perspective introduced by this study will provide new insights and challenge old myths for historians, literary critics, theologians, and students concerned with medieval culture and hagiography."
What is Enlightenment
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.