La Celestina Analysis: Plot, Structure, and Literary Context

Early Spanish Renaissance Theater

Early Spanish Theater featured two main currents:

• Religious Drama: Focused on cultivating the life of Jesus.
• Profane Theater: Included burlesque elements, themes of love, and pastoral settings.

Significant authors of this period include Lucas Fernández and Juan del Encina.

La Celestina: Editions and Authorship

The work, originally titled Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, saw several key early editions:

• 1499: First edition published in Burgos, consisting of 16 acts.
• 1500: New editions published in Toledo and Salamanca.
• 1501: This edition included a foreword where the author explains finding some papers in Salamanca that reasoned about the evils of love, prompting him to continue the work. It also included two poems:
  1. Acrostic verses composed to reveal a sentence.
  2. A correction of the text explaining that the acrostic verses reveal the author's name, Fernando de Rojas.
• 1502: Five additional acts were inserted between Acts XIV and XV, expanding the work into the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea.

In the mid-sixteenth century, the work was published in Alcalá de Henares under the title La Celestina, emphasizing the central role of the bawd.

Genre Classification: Humanist Comedy

The genre of La Celestina is complex. It is a work predominantly in dialogue and action, with characters situated in a specific space and time, approaching the theatrical form. However, its extensive argument points toward prose.

The explanation lies in the fact that La Celestina belongs to the genre known as Humanist Comedy. This type of work dealt with aspects of seduction and passion. It was a genre cultivated in Italy during the 14th and 15th centuries, and the influence of humanists like Petrarch is notable in the text.

Plot Summary of La Celestina

The plot centers on the tragic love affair between Calisto and Melibea, facilitated by the matchmaker, Celestina.

1. Calisto falls deeply in love with Melibea after a chance encounter, but she initially rejects him.
2. His servant, Sempronio, advises him to seek help from Celestina, an old bawd, to awaken Melibea's love.
3. Celestina succeeds, and Calisto, grateful, gives her a gold chain.
4. Celestina is subsequently killed by Calisto's servants (Sempronio and Pármeno) for refusing to share the reward. The servants are apprehended and executed by the authorities.
5. One day, while visiting Melibea, Calisto hears a commotion, falls down a ladder or stairs, and dies.
6. Witnessing Calisto's end, Melibea confesses her actions to her father, Pleberio, and commits suicide by throwing herself from a tower.

The work concludes with the profound lament (planctus) of Pleberio over his daughter's death.

Formal Structure (21 Acts)

The formal structure of the work consists of twenty-one acts, generally divided as follows:

• Act I: Introduction and initial statement of the action.
• Acts II–XII: Development of conflicts between the characters and the success of Celestina's machinations.
• Acts XIII–XX: Development of the passionate love affair between Calisto and Melibea.
• Act XXI: Pleberio's final lament.

Key Stylistic Features

The most striking stylistic features are:

• Richness of Language: Alternation between high and low linguistic registers.
  • Calisto and Melibea's dialogue: Cultured and courtly style.
  • Celestina, the servants, and her apprentices' dialogue: Vernacular and popular style.
• Rhetoric and Vivacity: The language is based on classical rhetoric combined with the vivacity of popular speech.
• Use of Discourse Forms:
  • Dialogues: Reveal the characters' personalities and organize the plot.
  • Monologues: Reveal the doubts and fears of the characters and showcase their inner personality.
  • Apostrophes (Asides): The author uses these as a way of indirectly addressing the reader or the public.